One thing Grassmann didn’t get a chance to show at Placer is his receiving skills. I don’t think they ever threw to him, literally. So it will be interesting how good his hands prove to be.

The offense in Randy’s last year under Gould/Daft was pretty good too, better than later Gould years. My point is that Randy played in two different yet effective offenses.

Randy Wright has a great background for a young assistant, he started four years, working under offensive coordinators Plough, and Daft, two different systems and had success in both. Had to learn both quickly too.

Hans Grassmann is an intriguing addition, listed as an athlete which means they don’t know what to do with him, since he was primarily a fullback. I don’t know if we’ll make much use of a fullback but he seems like a good one. Likes to block and rushed for almost 3500 yards.

I think it’s unlikely that Toki is going to be an offensive lineman. There seems to be an premium on height for offensive linemen. It’s surprising that they’ve listed him as an offensive lineman for two months without correction though.

in the Southern Utah game Niko had 6 carries and then got hurt. Hirota also had six carries. Gilliam had 28. We were looking great on the ground in the first half, but after losing Niko and Gilliam sitting for a while we didn’t have much success, not surprising.

I don’t question the coaches allocation of playing time. Gilliam is great. But remember the game where they just had him,
Niko Harris, and Hirota ? Gilliam had to come back in pretty clearly hurting and finish that game which almost got away. We need running backs aside from Gilliam and Thomas that the coaches have confidence in. I’m sure we have some on the roster now but they have to earn it.

Regarding running back depth, last year we started with our third running back being a smallish converted wide receiver who got injured and had to go to another wide receiver who had just converted from quarterback and that guy got hurt too. We were relying on Gilliam almost exclusively whether he was banged up or not. I’m sure it affected play-calling and negatively affected our offense. So it would be nice to see a few guys step forward.

I’d like to see Tehran go back to his freshman playing weight whatever that was (230lb ?) and be more of a power runner.

We really missed having another running back last year. Hopefully Dixon is recovered from his injury.

Coombs can’t claim much involvement with Oregon’s recruiting history as he’s just been there one year, I do hope he and the new D line coach can connect with some prospects. If we had the same success recruiting D linemen as we have had with tight ends we’ll be a lot better on D.

Bellevue is apparently a big time high school program, at least by Washington standards. Resume is kind of blank on what he did for 4 years between graduation and working with Bellevue.
Looks like he was to be Eastern Oregon’s DC last year but that didn’t happen.

The excuse of losing a wide receiver while having a returning starter at every other offensive position is lame. Coaches had two full years knowing Doss was graduating, so plenty of time to compensate. We have some great athletes as receivers. Maybe we need to look to change the receiver coach.

Not to knock our underclassmen DL but we haven’t signed many. Last year zero.

Recruiting defensive linemen the last few years he not been an area of notable success.

Even though Idaho is a small state, Larison made an impression there.

Within this article on Idaho players signing yesterday https://magicvalley.com/sports/college/bsu/the-best-player-in-the-state-decides-to-stay-home/article_260788d8-045d-519b-8f6a-7e22065370b8.html there is the quote:

“He plays with a reckless abandon that is rare in football now,” Cody Hawkins, UC Davis’ wide receivers coach, told IdahoSports.com . “I told him, ‘You could run the ball and win us a national championship tomorrow.’ ”

I bet they do, there’s gold to be found. I think some players are hoping for an offer from their favorite school, which might not pan out.

I’ll be surprised if any of the TEs become offensive linemen. Something in the water at Davis seems to prevent offensive linemen from adding weight. Colton Lamson was the one exception to this observation.

Makes sense

There are good athletes but a third of them are tight ends or QBs; positions where we have some underclass depth already.
There seems to be a pattern of adding only one or two defensive linemen a year, that’s not something you can get away with for long. It appears only one DL this year, Toki is recruited as an OL.