Alex the Mack

George

Aloysius said:
George, you a big fan of Tyson Alualu? nfldraftscout's got him projected to be a 6th/7th round pick next year, but I think he'll go much higher than that. 3-4 teams are going to be all over a guy who's already has success playing in the scheme.

Alualu's the rock of our defense here at Cal. Our D-coordinator switched to a 3-4 last year and Tyson did not miss a beat playing SDE. He also has the strength to play as a 4-3 DT in the pros. We're counting on him and the rest of our defense to hold USC under 14 this season. I think he'll go in the 4th?

Riffer X

George brings up a good point about Mack being a wrestling champion and I don't think any of us brought that up. I like to see that cuz it generally correlates to good leverage in football. Pretty sure he only lost like one match in HS if I remember what I read about him. It also means he's far from a pretty boy, and yes, linemen can be pretty boys.

DeadWombat

@george said:
Alualu's the rock of our defense here at Cal. Our D-coordinator switched to a 3-4 last year and Tyson did not miss a beat playing SDE. He also has the strength to play as a 4-3 DT in the pros. We're counting on him and the rest of our defense to hold USC under 14 this season. I think he'll go in the 4th?

Heh, thanks for being able to provide some great insight on Mack and such. Hell, this board needs more of your type.

George

@deadwombat said:
Heh, thanks for being able to provide some great insight on Mack and such. Hell, this board needs more of your type.

Of course.

And how could I forget...Steve Marshall! Duh (smacks head). We hired him from the Browns. Does Marshall prefer the more experienced lineman or the more talented one? Anything else Cal fans should know about him? Despite losing Mack, we have above average talent at O-line this season. The play of the hogs will decide how high we climb this season.

Riffer X

@george said:
Of course.
And how could I forget...Steve Marshall! Duh (smacks head). We hired him from the Browns. Does Marshall prefer the more experienced lineman or the more talented one? Anything else Cal fans should know about him? Despite losing Mack, we have above average talent at O-line this season. The play of the hogs will decide how high we climb this season.

I think Marshall prefers the more mature lineman and a little more finesse than power. He obviously didn't have trouble going with Joe Thomas as a rookie at LT but made it known more than once when asked that his best lineman was Ryan Tucker, who ironically graded out less than Kevin Shaffer who was just released. I have a feeling Marshall may have graded the young guys a little tougher and looked out for the seasoned guys a little more.

If I had to make a judgment I'd say he went with experience and finesse more than power and youth. Of course, our oline had Fraley at center and Eric Steinbach at LG, who are both considered more finesse tacticians than road graders. Hard to say really, Alo would probably know better.