So one of the big concerns this year is the lack of depth at defensive end. I noticed something when looking at past recruits, and I'm glad it would brought up again today (http://www.thekeyplay.com/comment/260475#comment-260475). This post is largely directed at French, since he has the most VT Xs and Os knowledge.
Recruiting defensive ends is broken down into strongside and weakside. To generalize, strongside are the bigger slower guys, and weakside are the quicker smaller guys.
Since 2008, SDE recruits Antoine Hopkins, Isaiah Hamlette, Joe Jones, Derick Hopkins, Corey Marshall (4*), Woody Baron, Teller (4*), Mihota (4*) were all moved inside, with Teller being moved to offense. JR Collins and James Gayle are the only ones in that timeframe to stick at defensive end. That's 20%. The jury is still out on Nijman and Gaines.
I guess the point of this is, aren't we self inflicting our own DE depth problems? We move every SDE recruit to tackle so we are effectively cutting the talent pool in half. Moving upper end SDE recruits like Marshall and Teller (although sorely needed for offense) kind of defeats the "if we had better recruits theory".
So is it possible that playing larger ends, while sacrificing speed, would open things up for the LBs who have to do more in run support because of our undersized ends? Or occupy more blockers in pass protect so that a LB could blitz unchecked? Or some way to get Marshall and Mihota on the ends? How much of that is realistic keeping Buds defensive ideals
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