re: Charles Turner Accepts Senior Bowl Invite

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If he came back that would be what, 3 straight years of the same O-line? that's a lot of chemistry built up

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Even without Charles, the other 4 guys have built up a lot of chemistry and that could literally be the biggest strength of next year's team. Is Chester ready to just slide in there at Center and keep it moving? The vets surrounding him could help. But then what about Heard? He was pretty open about wanting to come in and play right away. Would he sit for a 2nd year and not get pissed off and leave? Not that you can make decisions that might make your current team slightly worse to placate to an individual player, but there's such a balancing act these coaches are having to do with highly rated guys. Not just for Heard for example, but the next Heard is watching too.

I do think it's clear that even though Kelly played Will and Emory at the tackle spots as true freshman, that is not what he wants to do at all. Will was just a freak and ready, Emory wasn't too far behind, but it was more out of necessity that they both played. Just looking at the OL that Kelly recruited at ND and has continued to recruit here, it looks like his prototype is tall, athletic guys that he can add weight to and play them in multiple positions.

But that's a process, and I think ideally, he wants and OLD OL. He'll play guys he can't keep off the field, but in a perfect world his OL would be made up of 21-22-year-old JRs and SRs. Because they're more "men." and I think that gives you a bigger advantage there than any other position on the field save for maybe QB. But will that model work with the portal and NIL? Can he sell a Lance Heard on waiting until his 3rd year to start?


Just throwing this out as a possibility because people have seemed to assume they were eventually gonna move Jones to RG and slide Heard in at RT not just to get them both on the field, but because maybe Jones projects more as an IOL at the NFL level, but is there any chance Jones moves to Center next year? I'm not sure he'd do it or if it's even ideal, but there are a couple of potential pros to it.