The Florida offensive linemen trust each other.
They like playing alongside one another, and they are close friends who like hanging out together.
But that doesn’t mean they will play well together.
Prior to last season, the offensive line spoke glowingly of the unity and cohesiveness that had developed throughout fall practice.
“We’re with each other 24/7, talking to each other 24/7,” junior Kyle Koehne said last fall of himself and roommates and fellow interior linemen Jonotthan Harrison and Jon Halapio. “We’ve got some good chemistry between the three of us.”
“The chemistry is a lot better,” Halapio added at the time. “We communicate a lot better on the field, so it’s good that we’re good friends off the field.”
But the chemistry did not translate to the field as the line finished in the bottom half of the Southeastern Conference in sacks allowed in conference play. The group also struggled to both run and pass block throughout the season, and the team was ranked eighth in both rushing and passing offense in SEC games.
In the absence of departed running backs Jeff Demps and Chris Rainey, both of whom could use their speed to get to the edge, the Gators will need an improved offensive front that can create holes for current starting running back Mike Gillislee, who is more of a north-south runner.
Regardless of whether the line can actually accomplish that, the linemen and coaches are saying all the right things again.
“We have a lot of, I guess, a lot of games where we actually have to work with each other, and we are tightly bonded,” Harrison said. “We were working on our O-line unity throughout the whole summer.”
“I think just having a year under our belt, especially playing together, going through the struggles last year, just pulling in together and just being closer with these guys, and definitely just playing with each other for a year, you just build that trust factor,” Halapio said.
We have no reason to believe them.
Fans and media will have seen the unit, which is full of once highly touted recruits who underperformed last season, take the field only once before the season opener: in Saturday’s open practice that included few contact drills.
First-year offensive coordinator Brent Pease installed a new offense in the offseason that required the line to learn fresh blocking schemes.
And while it might be hard to quantify the effect an offensive line coach has on his unit, the fact that they have had to make the transition from Frank Verducci to Tim Davis is yet another adjustment the lineman have had to work through.
Taking into account the offensive line’s 2011 campaign, which is probably the best way to evaluate it given the lack of live action open to the media, expecting significant improvement from the unit as a whole is impossible.
A reason for optimism would be that the line consists of almost the same group of players from last year, minus Dan Wenger and David Young, but continuity does not necessarily lead to productivity.
“They’re with each other so much in individual period through practice.” Pease said. “I mean they have 35-40 minutes where they’re all together.”
The rest of the offense just needs to hope that their time spent together produces more than good memories.
Contact Josh Jurnovoy at jjurnovoy@alligator.org.
