Adams and other notes

Written by Duane Long | 28 August 2009

It is starting to leak out so I might as well tell what I know. There is good news and there is bad news with Mike Adams. The bad news first. He will be suspended for the first two games of the year. I will not comment on why. There is much speculation. I cannot confirm it so I will not go into it. The good news is this shows he was not pushed down the depth chart because of performance. I heard about Andy Miller all summer. I was not very impressed with how he looked in the spring game. I like the move of Shugarts over to LT. He was only going to be an RT here because of Adams, who moves a little better. Shugarts is a big time talent and has a level of nasty I only hope that Adams ever reaches. He will put pressure on Adams to get himself focused and to grow up a bit.

It has happened. Jordan Hall is playing RB. I cannot stress the importance of this enough. Jim Tressel has not recruited small backs. Mo Wells was not his offer. Conley made that offer. Look at how we played Wells. We had Mo running the same plays as Chris. That is because that is our offense. That we went out and recruited the same kind of back gives me reason to believe that we will see more plays in the offense that use a scat back.

Another thing that gives us a tell that we will see something different is Jake Stoneburner at H-back. Last year we saw Pryor dump to the backs and to the tight end. I don't know if it was his decision or it was encouraged. Now we are adding players to those check down positions that can really make something happen when they get the ball in their hands.

I doubt we see any of this in the Navy game. JT is renowned for not showing his hand. Last year Rey Maualuga said after the USC game that we did not do anything different than what they saw on tape. This is a new USC defense. I hope they come in looking for the same old thing. I have a gut feeling they are not going to see it.