MU’s Pinkel Knows His Makeshift O-Line Is In Trouble Vs Bama

October 9th, 2012 09:24 AM║ Posted By: John Pennington ║ Permalink ║ Schools: Alabama, Missouri
Tags: Alabama, Quarterback James Franklin

Gary Pinkel and Missouri appear to be in line for a bad, bad day on Saturday as the Tigers host #1 Alabama in Columbia. Injuries along the Mizzou offensive line began in preseason practice and have snowballed since. Quarterback James Franklin — the key to the Tigers’ offense — has been in and out of the lineup first with post-surgery shoulder pain and now with a sprained MCL. Franklin is definitely out for this weekend’s visit from the Crimson Tide.

But it’s the O-line that Pinkel was asked about at his weekly press conference yesterday. Putting a makeshift unit up against Nick Saban’s defensive line… will he lose sleep this week?

“I never sleep well during a season. Ever. I don’t care who we’re playing. We’re just playing a great football team. We’ll try to help them out scheme-wise as much as we can. You can’t avoid it. The line of scrimmage and how you play on both side of the football is hugely important. We’ve jut got to shuffle players in there that are young and inexperienced. We’ll work hard and compete…

You saw two drives the entire year against those guys. I’d better look at those again and again and again. (Ole Miss) got a couple drives going and they executed and got some plays.”

Missouri’s offensive line on Saturday is expected to feature:

LT Elvis Fisher — a 6th-year senior

LG Evan Boehm — the first true freshman O-lineman to ever start for Pinkel at Mizzou

C Brad McNutty — made his first start ever last month

RG Max Copeland — a former walk-on who was awarded a scholarship and has made five starts this season

RT Justin Britt — a regular who’s started 19 straight games

In other words, there are veterans on the outside, but youngsters and inexperienced guys up the gut. The Tiger line averages 302 pounds per man. By contrast, Ole Miss’ line against Bama weighed an average of 308 per man and they were a tad more experienced.

Of course, Ole Miss didn’t have to face the Crimson Tide defense with a backup quarterback, either.

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3 comments

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MoKelly1

It has been really disappointing this year. Mizzou is unable to score when it really matters. We are looking at being shutout as a real possibility on Saturday. Its possibility we will go 0-fer Conference play. Right now, who in the Conference do we really expect to beat (Kentucky is the last realistic hope since the game is at home). But Florida, Tenn. and A&M on the road??? A 500 season right now looks like a pipe dream.

milehigh

In other news...sky still blue, grass green, water wet. What a dismal year for my Tigers...I'm hopeful that we're having freshman hiccups (tail end of Pinkel getting his DUI, Berk with the hit and run via scooter of all things, TONS of injuries, DGB and the rastafarians tokin in the parking lot, did I mention TONNNS of injuries?) and getting all of em out of the way for a while. No excuses however, a deeper team could fare better vs. these dilemmas. Just hopeful that we can limp out of the season at .500 and begin working on getting more depth for our lines.

BonzaiB

This is going to be ugly. Even if Mizzou puts up points on the occaissional great play, Bama is just going to griind them down. Mizzou needed to stay healthy through about 8 games this year to have a winning season. Not sure they are going to make it.

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