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FREE: GBK 2017 Spring Preview - Offense Line


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With a little less than a month to go before the start of spring practice,GoBlackKnights.com will bring you inside the huddle as highlight the key topics and players to keep an eye on this spring.

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'FREE' GBK Spring Preview - Army Black Knights Defense

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Bryce Holland and Josh Boylan will be counted on up front this season
Bryce Holland and Josh Boylan will be counted on up front this season


With a little less than a month to go before the start of spring practice, GoBlackKnights.com continues its series on players to keep an eye on this spring. In our initial article we covered the entire defense, and in our second article in the series we took a look at wide receivers and tight ends. In this article we take a brief look at the all-important offensive line.

The Unsung Heroes

Unless something unusual occurs, offensive linemen show up in only one place in the Box Score…‘Participation’. While the line coaches grade the performance of linemen on each play, there are no statistics available to the average fan that can be used to describe the performances of individual lineman in a game. Linemen don’t like to hear their names called out by announcers, because it usually means that they’ve incurred a penalty for a false start, holding, or an illegal block of some sort. They are the anonymous contributors to the success of every good offense.

The average fan pays seldom notices what the linemen are doing on each play and most have little appreciation of the skills required to play the position. Linemen have to be developed over time and very few true freshman are good enough to break into the starting lineup. Offensive lines are normally evaluated as a unit. Just read a few linemen bios and compare them with each other. Unless a lineman is selected for All Conference or similar award, the bios of all the linemen read pretty much the same. Any statistics cited for them is for the offense as a whole.

A Four Year Building Process

When head coach Jeff Monken arrived 4 years ago, he brought with him a different perspective on what constituted the ideal lineman in a triple option offense, and he had to go about recruiting and developing linemen that fit better his scheme. He lost several linemen in the process, and the ranks have been pretty thin. As we noted above, linemen generally improve with age, and 2017 will be the first season in which there will be seniors recruited by Monken on the offensive line, along with a few holdovers from the Ellerson era who were developed to fit the Monken mold.

A Veteran Line

We interviewed Black Knights’ offensive coordinator Brent Davis and here’s what he had to say about this year:

“I feel good about the guys coming back on the offensive line. We have good experience, but we have to develop more depth and continue to get better.”

Unless someone is keeping track of who is in on each snap, the only statistics we at GBK have available on linemen are the number of games they’ve appeared in and the number of starts they’ve made, and that’s the metric we’ll use to portray the quality of this year’s offensive line.

Compared to previous years, the 2017 line will bring a wealth of experience, particularly among the starters. There are 7 returning offensive linemen with 2 or more career starts and the top 5 have combined for 60 career starts. That’s an average of one full year for each of the starting five. The top 8 linemen have accumulated experience in 116 games.

So, Who Will Start?

We asked Brent Davis to identify who he thought would be the starters and if any of the linemen had a lock on their position, and received this response:

“I don’t know if we have any locks, but we feel really good about Bryce [Holland]. He really improved as the year went on and really played well down the stretch of the season.”

Senior Bryce Holland (6-2, 285 pounds) started all 13 games at Center in 2016 and has appeared in 19 games with 15 starts despite sitting out his entire sophomore year with an injury. Two of his starts were at guard as a plebe.

At Guards: “We got Josh Boylan, who will probably go into the spring as the starter at one guard, where he started the last two games (Navy & North Texas) there,” stated Davis. The 6-2, 280 pound senior, Boylan was listed as the backup at center to Holland last year and of the probable starters, he brings the least game experience with 5 career games and 2 career starts.

Offensive guard Mike Houghton
Offensive guard Mike Houghton (GoBlackKnights.com)


“Then Mike Houghton, who will probably go into the spring as the starter at the other guard spot,” added Davis. The 6-4, 288 pound senior, Houghton is the most experienced of the returning linemen with appearances in 28 career games including 18 career starts. He has missed some games each season, but he started 9 of the 13 games in 2016.

The Tackles:Brett Toth at one tackle and Rick Kurz at the other tackle.” said Davis.

At 6-6, the Senior Toth is the tallest of the linemen, but a little more lean and mean at 276 pounds. Like Houghton and Holland, Toth got out to an early start with an appearance in the Buffalo game as a plebe, and 2 starts as a yearling, but he is one of those who was sidelined with some early injuries and he enters 2017 with 18 career appearances including 11 starts.

Junior Rick Kurz (6-2, 271 pounds) is the only non-senior in the projected starting lineup but he’s the second most experienced lineman in the group with 23 career games and 15 starts. Kurz got an early jump on his career when he appeared in all 12 games with 6 starts as a plebe. He added 11 games and 9 starts in 2016.

The Ready Reserves

Up and coming OG, Jaxson Deaton
Up and coming OG, Jaxson Deaton (Danny Wild)


As we’ve seen in past years, we can’t count on the starters being available the entire season; so we’re happy to note that Davis has some experience in reserve as well this year. Perhaps not as much as he’d like to have in the best of all worlds, but in our opinion, significantly better than in recent years. Who did Davis identify as his early choices for backup roles?

At Left Guard, Davis named “Jaxson Deaton, who has played significant snaps in games, and we project him to be at left guard rounding out the two deep there.” As a plebe out of USMAPS, the 6-4, 300 pound Deaton saw more playing time than we would normally expect from a freshman, with 9 game appearances and 2 starts. Deaton is clearly a big part of the future offense, and we’d expect to see him appear regularly in reserve in 2017.

At Right Guard Davis stated “we look to Mike Johnson to be back-up entering into spring practice. However, Johnson may miss the spring session due to injury which will open up the door for others. During the 2016 season, Johnson saw reps at both guard and tackle.” The 6-3, 263 pound sophomore was another lineman who saw more than normal playing time as a plebe with 7 appearances and 2 starts.

“Then Jack Sides (sophomore) is another guard who was up on the varsity, traveled last year and saw some action and will definitely be in the mix,” added Davis.

Tackles: The reserve situation at the two tackle spots is a little less certain according to Davis.

“At tackle, we have to develop more talent there. Jeff Panara played there and he’s gotten a bunch of reps, but not in games. Alex Herndon is a young guy and was on the travel squad last year, that we feel good about. He just hasn’t played much in games, but he be there backing up at tackle [left]. Austin Schuffert is another guy who can flop both sides.”

Center: “We have to find a back-up center for sure. Right now, it’s about three different people who play other positions and that’s not ideal.”

One player that Davis did not mention is Trey Ratliff, who recently appeared on the roster again after missing the 2015 and 2016 seasons. Ratliff was one of Monken’s first OL recruits and he appeared in 8 games as a direct admit plebe in 2014. Ratliff is listed as a Long Snapper, but at 6-5 and 262 pounds he could fill in as a backup at tackle or perhaps be another candidate for TE.

NEXT UP ON GBK SPRING PREVIEW ... The Running Backs

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