ASU is already behind in the recruiting game for offensive linemen for the class of 2010. Still a little two months of recruiting left until signing day and the Sun Devils have already missed out on their top tier prospects and having to move on to plan B.
Plan B being the players you hope develop into Pac-10 level offensive tackles. Specifically the Sun Devils are getting consideration from 6-foot-5 260-pound TE/DE prospect Jamil Douglas. Douglas has been committed to the Utah Utes since early in the summer, is listed on the maxpreps.com website as as TE and DE.
This however doesn’t seem to faze the ASU coaches who are full on recruiting him as an offensive tackle. Again we are forced to recruit a prospect that we HOPE will develop into a starter or solid contributor.
The excuses I’m sure are already beginning to roll in; excuses such as “he’s a great blocker for a TE” “He has a great frame with plenty of room to add “good weight” and still maintain his athleticism and footwork etc.” “He’s a TE so if he’s athletic enough to be a TE then you know he’ll have enough athleticism to be an OT”. “Robert Gallery was a TE who grew into an All-American LT at Iowa, so this guy can be that too.”
Anyway you get the general vibe and the excuses that will follow.
But don’t miss the main point here, like his predecessor before him former ASU Dirk Koetter who couldn’t recruit defensive tackles, current ASU coach Dennis Erickson has the opposite problem, he can’t recruit OTs.
Koetter was always forced to develop prospects or create DTs out of thin air. Examples would be moving the 250-pound Matt Mason to DT, moving LB Jordan Hill to DT, recruiting 260-pound Quency Darly a JC DT who we hoped would add enough weight to be a solid DT for u
The disastrous list for Dirk Koetter and his “project” DTs goes on and on and it eventually led to Koetter’s replacement.
Now we come to Dennis Erickson and his offensive line problems and his three years of project O-Linemen.
Year one Matt Hustad 6-foot-6 246-pounds coming out of high school to sign with ASU, last year it was 6-foot-2 inch 300-pound Adam Tello who manned the RT spot. Tello suddenly grew three inches on the roster once the announcement was made he was going to be the RT. Tello ironically is now back down to 6-foot-3, after being listed at 6-5 last year.
Jon Hargis a player who never played much offensive line in high school developed into the starting left tackle in 2008 and now the disastrous starting left guard of 2009. Shawn Lauvao another 6-foot-3 guard who was moved out to LT this year with awful results.
Then during the 2009 recruiting class cycle ASU goes after the 6-foot-2 Fred Thornton as an offensive tackle prospect. Thornton unfortunately never qualified for initial enrollment so it’s doubtful he’ll ever don the maroon and gold.
Followed by the recruitment of Evan Finkenberg another TE prospect at 6-foot-6 250-pounds we hope will develop in the future All-Pac-10 offensive tackle we haven’t had since Levi Jones during the 2001 season. For nearly a decade ASU has gone without an offensive tackle that could man the left side and stay there. The closest thing to that was Andrew Carnahan who performed admirably as LT but always seemed to struggle upon his switch to RT.
The eerie correlation between Dennis Erickson’s current failures, and Dirk Koetter’s past failures is almost too much to stomach.
While Erickson has been able to build a seemingly strong defense with top notch prospects like Lawrence Guy, Corey Adams, Will Sutton and Vontaze Burfict on defense, his predecessor seemed to be making an impact on offense with his ability to recruit.
Koetter seemed to rebuild the offense around the likes of four-star prospects, Terry Richardson, Sam Keller, Randy Hill, and Elite 11 QB prospect Mike Affleck. Junior college transfers Aaron Austin and Andy Goodenough both rated the number one overall Juco prospects at their respective positions. All came in with all the hype and hope of turning the ASU offense around, but instead turned into complete busts during the Koetter era.
The question now becomes with all the hype surrounding the recent defensive recruiting success Erickson seemingly has had, will a decent defense be able to make up for the lack of offensive fire power the Sun Devils have lacked two complete seasons under coach Erickson?
That question if not already partially answered in 2009, will surely be answered during the 2010 season.
Tags: 2010 ASU football prospects, 2010 ASU football recruiting class, Arizona State Football, Arizona State Sun Devil football team, Arizona State Sun Devils, ASU Football, ASU football blog, ASU Sun Devils, ASUDevils.com, AZCentral, Dennis Erickson, Dirk Koetter, Evan Finkenberg, Jamil Douglas, John Hargis
