Other than Austin Allen

[MTBrookHog]

I probably should wait till Fall to ask this question but here goes. Other than Austin, who else can we not afford to lose to injury next year?

[Dr. Starcs]

Dan Enos

[ricepig]

Ragnow

[Hawgar The Horrible]

Sprinkle

[longpig]

Brooks Ellis and Deatrich Wise.

[Bacon_Bitz]

McFadden

[Pulled(PP)pork]

Jeff Long



PP

[threeNout]

I think Skipper, Ragnow, Morgan, Sprinkle, Kody and RWIII are all pretty important.

[East TN HAWG]

Leadbetter, Wise, Ragnow, Skipper, Rawleigh, Greenlaw, Ellis, Sprinkle,

[ChitownHawg]

Dan Enos

    +1

[Pig In The City]

Morgan

[hawginbigd1]

Wise, skipper, sprinkle, Ragnow. Everyone else I believe has backups that we wouldn't see much drop off. Sosa may make Wise not that critical, but I think they could be special on either side of the line in obvious passing situations.

[thebignasty]

Ragnow

I agree with this.

[31to6]

I probably should wait till Fall to ask this question but here goes. Other than Austin, who else can we not afford to lose to injury next year?

We have less depth of talent than the teams that are between us and Atlanta.

We can't "afford" to lose anyone on the 2-deep.

That being said, the biggest question marks on the team are the OL and RB corp (esp RBs who can carry the load in the 2nd half) so if I had to name names it would be Ragnow, Skipper and RWIII/KW/DW.

[lumphog]

Dammit......you hexed us 

[SooiecidetillNuttgone]

Easy.

Ragnow or Skipper.

[RzRbAcK18]

Ray Finkle

[Pudgepork]

Jen Beliema.

[pigture perfect]

Rawleigh Williams or Devwah Whaley.

[KlubhouseKonnected]

Jen's personal trainer.

[Pig in the Pokey]

I probably should wait till Fall to ask this question but here goes. Other than Austin, who else can we not afford to lose to injury next year?

lol, we could afford to lose Austin Allen. Even if he turns out as good as BA, we are looking at a long struggle to get there, just like BA.

[RME]

lol, we could afford to lose Austin Allen. Even if he turns out as good as BA, we are looking at a long struggle to get there, just like BA.

Based on what? The spring game? The overwhelming amount of passes he's thrown in actual games?

[hawg IQ]

I probably should wait till Fall to ask this question but here goes. Other than Austin, who else can we not afford to lose to injury next year?

J Williams and A Collins not playing their senior seasons

[atekido]

at the point in time keeping coaches is more important than players.  look at the best teams and the one thing you normally see is a stability in coaching across most areas.

[PorkSoda]

Based on what? The spring game? The overwhelming amount of passes he's thrown in actual games?

its not outlandish to guess that the lack of actual passes thrown in actual games is why some think that he will experience a learning curve.

[Ramboar]

Rawleigh Williams or Devwah Whaley.

This x1,000

[bennyl08]

Who do I think we can't lose, other than Austin?

On the OL: Ragnow is the obvious candidate. Now, in terms of physical play, I think we could replace him no problem. However, his experience is a big asset and especially for the guy currently slated to start at center which is supposed to call the blocks. However, this OL I think will show shades of 2013. Experienced and talented center and RT, new guys everywhere else. Even with Swanson starting at center, missed assignments were the biggest issue for our OL. They didn't often get beat straight up, but when they did get beat, is was a swift and immediate defeat from not knowing who to block. This year, we don't look to be starting true freshmen which makes a big difference and I think this OL is shaping up to be more athletic if a bit smaller.

WR: Don't want to lose anybody, but we have a lot of depth here.

TE: Losing Sprinkle would definitely hurt. However, I don't think Gragg, O'Grady, Cantrell, or Bell are any worse of blockers than Henry, Derby, Chris Gragg, or DJ Williams were when they were here (Henry referring to his first two years, not the third). We were still able to have too running games with those TE's. I believe that we can still have success with the 4 mentioned as the primary TE's as well.

RB: Losing RW3 I think will hurt more than any other player on offense other than Allen. He and Whaley are the only two backs who will be on our roster that have physical tools to be feature backs. Walker can undoubtably (if he stays healthy) be a thousand yard rusher for us, but isn't equally a threat to break a 60 yard run or push the pile 5 yards on 3rd and 1 like RW3 is. Whaley has that potential but losing Williams III puts us relying on more specialty backs than feature backs or relying on a true freshmen.

DEFENSE

DL: My gut says losing Wise will hurt the most. However, he's managed to give coaches reasons to not start him before such as last season when he started a goose egg even though he had 4x more sacks than the next best pass rusher. So, I then lean towards Ledbetter as our explosive tackle. However, even then, TJ Smith or Wise could move inside and be very explosive DT's as well. Thus, I don't think there is any single player that would devastate us if we lost them.

LB: Losing Ellis would probably wreck our defense unless our true freshmen are in fact able to step up or if we see something from our veterans that hasn't existed before. Greenlaw is another player I don't want to lose, but he doesn't bring 3 years as a starter with him. Only about a half a year. Between Harris and AJB, I think we could insert another guy athletically able to replace Greenlaw, but we lose that half a year of experience.

DB: I've said this before and it is the same on the DL. There is a reason we have no CB's or safeties on our roster (or DE's or DT's or NT's etc...). A lot of our guys can equally play any of those positions. Sykes was recruited as a safety and is now playing corner. Dalton was recruited as a corner and is now playing safety. Richardson has been mentioned as being capable of starting all 4 spots. Like DL, we have depth and some experience here, so while an injury may lead to some reshuffling, I think we can weather an injury here.

[bennyl08]

In short (and in order of least able to lose IMO)

RW3
Ellis
Ragnow

[SultanofSwine]

The punter.

[kp72204]

Dan Enos

Two points for this. Can't stop laughing

[afhogfan1980]

Willy sikes played well could use another good db

[Pigsknuckles]

When a coach has to sit a guy (Wise) in practice because he is too disruptive to the offense, it makes my MVP choice easy.

[Youngsta71701]

lol, we could afford to lose Austin Allen. Even if he turns out as good as BA, we are looking at a long struggle to get there, just like BA.

I disagree. I think Austin's going to be better right off the bat than people think. He might not end up being as good as BA in the end but he'll be pretty good. Then again he could end up being better. Time will tell. :razorback:

[Pig in the Pokey]

its not outlandish to guess that the lack of actual passes thrown in actual games is why some think that he will experience a learning curve.

ding ding ding. the funny part is these are the same guys saying that BA was ass and would never be a "SEC QB". Now they have seen BA have 3/4 of a good season (a great one, truthfully) and NOW they think AA will just show up and be BA or better. NOT GONNA HAPPEN. He will have to develop. And this is coming from someone (me) who said BA would get drafted last spring and got mocked relentlessly on here for it.

[Pig in the Pokey]

I disagree. I think Austin's going to be better right off the bat than people think. He might not end up being as good as BA in the end but he'll be pretty good. Then again he could end up being better. Time will tell. :razorback:

I think he will, too, if he gets the time to develop. That isn't guaranteed, though. Look how often BA was hurt his first 2-3 years. We have 2 capable backups now, something we didn't have when we had a TE at QB.

[Biggus Piggus]

I'm pretty sure Arkansas is going to have a great season, because the backup QBs are so darned good this year. They're so much better than the starter. Or so I've read. We don't have to worry about injuries at all. In fact, we should hope for them! As each QB goes down, the position will get better and better.

[Pulled(PP)pork]

I'm pretty sure Arkansas is going to have a great season, because the backup QBs are so darned good this year. They're so much better than the starter. Or so I've read. We don't have to worry about injuries at all. In fact, we should hope for them! As each QB goes down, the position will get better and better.

isn't it how it always works......at TOSU?


PP

[code red]

Peavey looked good with the 1s.

[31to6]

Peavey looked good with the 1s.

He looked better than I expected given what we had been hearing "Allen #1 and it is not even close".

However we saw a very limited, scripted set of plays. And even in that script, Austin managed the pocket better than Rafe.

Rafe *does* seem to be getting better pocket awareness, but it is not where it needs to be.

I actually think the green jersey helps Rafe. We don't want a QB who is looking to run. We want one who knows *when* it is time to run. Big difference.

You can see his body language when he gets called down by the refs. Last year his whole body deflated and you could tell he was frustrated that he wasn't being allowed to take off and show his running. This year the body language seemed to me to be much more accepting "yup, you got me". I do think that 1 of his sacks would have been a big play instead. But even then he would have eaten 3-4 sacks, which is too many. He has to find his receivers faster.

[Overtheroadtruckdriver]

Peter Pan or smuckers.

[Pig in the Pokey]

I'm pretty sure Arkansas is going to have a great season, because the backup QBs are so darned good this year. They're so much better than the starter. Or so I've read. We don't have to worry about injuries at all. In fact, we should hope for them! As each QB goes down, the position will get better and better.

c'mon, man. why does everything have to be coke or pepsi, ford or chevy, repub or dem , yadadaadada. I like BOTH colas, care not one little bit more for one over the other of those car companies, and am an Independent. In MY case, i like all 4 of our QBs and think 3 of them will be damn good players for us. (and the other could end up great, too, but probably won't get a chance to prove it).

To pretend like ANY of them are proven commodities is  disingenuous as hell. Nobody knows. To think they won't get hurt, any of them, well... c'mon, maaaane! When have we EVER had a QB go all year without getting hurt and/or benched? I can remember Stoerner one year and BA last year. EVERY other season off the top of my head I remember a game or two at least with a back-up playing. Maybe Matt Jones' senior year.