Quick Football Updates: 9/6/09

Mark Kieffer — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 06:13:25 -0000

Hey all,

There are a few key notes that I intended to make after the NDSU game, but didn't get around to mentioning:

Kelechi Osemele left the NDSU game early due to injury as well. Apparently it wasn't serious and he should play against Iowa.
Sedrick Johnson had to leave the NDSU game early due to a sprained ankle. It's uncertain whether he will play next week against Iowa at this point.
Houston Jones hurt his ankle this past week. If you were at the game, you could see him in street clothes with something on his ankle.
Darius Darks did play against NDSU, as I saw him out there on quite a few plays. He didn't have any receptions so he didn't show up in the boxscore. Remember, he switched to #6 this season.
Jason Carlson and Hayworth Hicks are out for the season as they are academically ineligible

Since this news is a couple of days old, you may have already heard all of this, but I wanted to chime in with my thoughts:

First, offensive line is an area that we cannot afford to lose people; we are so thin at that position. It's great that Osemele is OK and it stinks that Hicks is out. I just hope that our starters on the line can stay healthy all year. It's already a below-average unit, and more blows would just lead to a long season offensively.

Secondly, WR is an area where you obviously don't want to have guys injured but can handle it if some guys are out. We have enough depth to handle some guys missing some time here and there. Obviously with Sedrick you want to have him out there as he has the potential to be that guy who can stretch the field. I wasn't under the impression that Jones and Carlson would play much his year as they are down there on the depth chart; I just am not sure if anything would be different if both guys were healthy.

What do you make of the news?

New Depth Chart Released

Mark Kieffer — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 03:12:18 -0000

Per Cyclones.com

The Cyclones Football team released the latest depth chart tonight. I would assume that barring injury these will be how it plays out for the NDSU game, but these types of things are always subject to change.

Here's a quick look (in order from starter to 3rd string):

Offense:

QB: Austen Arnaud, Jerome Tiller

RB: Alexander Robinson, Jeremiah Schwartz, Bo Williams

WR1: Marquis Hamilton, Jake Williams, Houston Jones

WR2: Sedrick Johnson, Joel Zitek

WR3: Darius Reynolds, Josh Lenz, Darius Darks, Jason Carlson

TE: Collin Franklin, Derrick Catlett

LT: Kelechi Osemele, Brayden Burris

LG: Alex Alvarez, Hayworth Hicks

C: Reggie Stephens, Sean Smith

RG: Ben Lamaak, Trey Baysinger

RT: Scott Haughton, Zack Spears

Not too many surprises with the offense. The Offensive Line was pretty much set and Osemele was the leading name for that LT spot for a while. Don't freak out by seeing Darks down so low on the Depth Chart. He's trying to overcome a hamstring injury and was forced to miss a lot of time during fall camp. Bo Williams drops to 3rd, but I don't think it's anything against him, as he's a more of a traditional type of a back, as opposed to a receiver in the backfield. Overall there wasn't as many position battles for the Offense as there was for the Defense.

Defense:

LE: Rashawn Parker, Cleyon Laing, Patrick Neal

DT: Austin Alburtis, Bailey Johnson, Taylor Mansfield

NG: Nate Frere, Stephen Ruempolhamer, Jerrod Black

RE: Christopher Lyle, Roosevelt Maggitt

Sam: Josh Raven, Jacob Lattimer

Mike: Jesse Smith, Matt Taufoou, A.J. Klein

Will: Fred Garrin, Derec Schmidgall, Jake Knott

RCB: Leonard Johnson, Devin McDowell

LCB: Kennard Banks, Ter'ran Benton, Jeremy Reeves

SS: David Sims, Michael O'Connell, Zac Sandvig

FS: James Smith, Alan Bell

On Defense, not too many suprises. I suppose the notable one for me is that I was under the impression that Taufoou was going to play that Sam spot, but I guess not. No suprises in the Secondary at all.

On the Defensive Line, I knew the DT and RE spot would be wide open, and we will learn more about Lyle and Alburtis as the season goes on. This unit is going to have the most questions in my mind because there are two new starters, and also because the unit was not very good last year.

I'm not going to create a separate section for this, but it appears that LJ is going to return Kicks and Punts, but there are a lot of guys listed there. There was some discussion about having LJ just focus on defense and having someone else do it, and I also thought that Darius Reynolds may do some returns. I guess with Darius, however, I'd rather be a starting WR than just a return guy.

I know this news has me fired up for the football season! It's nice to get an idea of where people are going to be playing and what we might expect for next year.

What are your thoughts on the Depth Chart? Any surprises?

SB Nation - Kelechi Osemele

Quick Football Updates: 9/6/09

New Depth Chart Released