Well, I guess we can stop blaming Ricker for OL in 2015

Posted on: August 26, 2016 at 10:51:59 CT

These are from Matter's chat yesterday for all that have not already read it. The link for the entire chat is on bottom.

"Ricker wanted to trade out the veterans who weren't performing and play the younger dudes, Pendleton and Adams. He was overruled. He's an easy scapegoat among fans, but the linemen loved playing for him. And he was not committed to playing seniors who weren't performing. (I'm not talking about Boehm and McGovern, but the others.) I like the upside of the new starters. Adams and Howell at tackle, especially. I just haven't seen enough live action to really have an informed opinion. Howard gets to watch the parts of practice that regular media folk don't get to see".

AND

"There's no guarantee that the young players would have done a better job, but it would have set things up better for this year if those young O-linemen had more experience. That was Pinkel's MO. He trusted his upperclassmen and was conservative when it came to shaking up the depth chart, maybe to a fault some years. There are other cases where guys developed slowly and became quality starters as seniors. But, yeah, once the season went south last year, those younger O-linemen should have been playing. To his credit, Pinkel admitted that going into the Arkansas game".

http://sports.live.stltoday.com/Event/Mizzou_chat_with_Dave_Matter_5df097eb38cf?Page=0

Edited by HDTiger at 10:52:12 on 08/26/16