I’m no Indy and won’t pretend to be, but I would like to foster some good Osu football discussion. I’ll attempt to do some breakdowns of each position group heading into the spring.
In todays day and age of college football I realize the roster can change fluently, but perhaps this will help give us an idea of what we have at each position.
With the coaching turnover at every position we will take a short look at that also.
Position Breakdown - TE
Coach outgoing - Jason McEndoo
Coach incoming - DJ Tialavea
DJ Tialavea has grad assistant experience at Oregon State and Utah State. He has TE coaching experience at Utah State.
Look, I’m just gonna say that our TE play has been bad for a long time. Is it because we asked a guy who had coached the oline at a lower level to coach it? Is it because we tried to get cute with the position and call it “Cowboy Back” for many years? Was it our offense? Maybe a combo of all of that but the bottom line is things at this position have been bad.
Oklahoma state has needed something different at this position for far too long. How many years have we envyed TE play from other schools? Every time a TE scored on us I can almost see the posts on the corral -“must be nice to utilize the TE”
Enter DJ Tialavea. Here is why I like this hire from the jump - his experience at the position. It’s all he knows. He played the position (I guess one could say he played some oline & dline also), he played the position at the NFL level, and all he has coached up to this point is the TE position. The guy knows a lot about this position. He may not have as much coaching experience as the rest of the new hires but he at least has plenty of experience with the position itself. He is a up and coming coach and I think we struck gold with him before he really got big.
I think we are going to see the TE position take on a very active role in the OC DM offense and DJ already had a player he has worked with at Utah State transfer to OSU. I also think that he is going to be a major recruiter for us and really help Benji Tonga expand our reach in the Polynesian population as well as recruit the state of Utah more. Check out these quotes about his energy to recruit:
BYU recruiting Analyst when he wasn’t hired yet- “If DJ Tialavea really is a free agent right now, I hope BYU makes a run and finds a way to bring him into the program somewhere. Haven’t seen the kind of enthusiasm he brings for recruiting inside the state of Utah in a LONG time.”
All Poly Sports account - “Coach DJ Tialavea is one of the best TE coaches in the country. He is an amazing coach and a great recruiter! He represents the Poly community at the highest level and All Poly Sports would like to thank him for all he has done during his tenure at USU.”
Local Utah high school coach - “Count me in as a local coach who is shocked DJ Tialavea isn’t being retained. He’s easily the best recruiter in Utah”
Our very own Cooper Bassett coached together at Utah State - “Don’t know how we stole the Governor of Utah away from there….but the energy, passion, focus just got cranked to 11 on our sidelines with @DjTialavea_86 leading the TEs!!!!”
Players outgoing:
Graduates - Tyler Foster
Transferred out - Tabry Shettron
Players Incoming:
Recruiting Class - Jordan Vyborny
Transferred In - Oscar Hammond Sr.(North Texas), Will Monney Jr. (Utah State), Jordan Owens Sr.(Central Arkansas)
Players Returning:
Sophomore - Josh Ford
Senior - Quinton Stewart
Are we all ready to see the TE position be put to use? I’d say we are. After 10+ years of missing this position perhaps we are about to see it used more than we even realize. There is a lot of talk that we may even use some of the TE’s in a role of like a 4th bigger bodied WR.
With the TE position you are asking guys to be skilled at two very important things. Blocking and receiving. The fact is if you can find a guy that can do both of those things very well you have a big time talent on your hands. Sometimes you get a guy that is really good at one and not as good at the other. And vice versa. I’m going to somewhat categorize these guys based on film and play that I have seen:
Oscar Hammond and Will Monney are both around 6’4 230. Both play somewhat a similar style. Both of these guys are going to be a threat receiving. They can block and will be asked to block but they may not posses the same strength at blocking as say Quinton Stewart and their roles may show that. You may see these two playing that 4th WR/TE role some - especially in the red zone to get some mismatches on smaller DB’s.
Jordan Owens - is a very big target at 6’6 255. He is a guy that you probably lean on more in blocking but don’t underestimate his ability to be a target.
Quinton Stewart is back for another year. He seems to take on the blocking role at TE very well and I believe even has helped out at the FB position at times. He won’t be a starter in my two deep below but he is a valuable asset to the offense and will have a role in the offense.
And then there is Josh Ford. He just kind of reminds me of one of those rare talents that might excel at both blocking and receiving. He reminds me of what those Norte Dame TE’s have looked like the past few years. Don’t get me wrong he is very raw at both skills but he has potential you can see it. He also has the frame and build along with some intangibles that not every player has at this position. I believe he could be an NFL tight end one day and may have the most long term potential. Having said that this room just got a lot more crowded regarding playing time and nothing will be handed to him.
My predicted depth chart (2 deep):
TE - Josh Ford (Jordan Owens) or (Quinton Stewart)
TE/WR - Oscar Hammond (Will Monney)
As stated above, I think we will ask some different things of different tight ends and it will lead to different packages and different amounts of playing time. Hammond and Monney will play more WR type roles, Owens can do some of both, Stewart is going to be more package blocking. Ford has high potential for both and more of your every down guy.
A few categories to put some guys in:
(The time is now) - with this group I’m going to say the time is now for Oscar Hammond. I think he has some good ability and has shown that but his numbers at North Texas weren’t jump off the page. I do believe he has some hype to him and if he wants to play at the next level he is going to need to show something’s at his new college level making the jump from North Texas to OSU.
(Question marks) - Jordan Owens is the TE that I have the most question marks with. He has a huge frame but of the guys coming in he is the one I feel I know least about. His numbers weren’t fantastic but maybe that is because he is more of a blocking TE at central Arkansas?
(Young guys with Big Upside)- Josh Ford & Will Monney
This freshman class:
Jordan Vyborny - Many of the things I said about Josh Ford I feel potentially good at saying about this kid. If you ever want to feel good about a tight end just look at their offer list and if you see schools like Wisconsin and BYU you are getting a nice tight end prospect. The unfortunate thing for this kid is he suffered a serious injury this last year in high school. Will he fully recover from it? If he can we got our selfs a gem of a prospect.
Sunmary:
An emphasis was made to bring in some Tight Ends clearly through the portal. That’s because this position will be utilized again at osu under DM. We also happened to get what I believe to be one of the best up and coming TE coaches in college football. He lives and breathes the position and will do wonders working with our guys at this position. We also have what I believe to be a major talent in Josh Ford coming up. He has a ways to go still but I love giving him a coach who made it to the highest level of football and knows what it takes.
How do you feel about the potential at the rediscovered TE position heading into next season?
In todays day and age of college football I realize the roster can change fluently, but perhaps this will help give us an idea of what we have at each position.
With the coaching turnover at every position we will take a short look at that also.
Position Breakdown - TE
Coach outgoing - Jason McEndoo
Coach incoming - DJ Tialavea
DJ Tialavea has grad assistant experience at Oregon State and Utah State. He has TE coaching experience at Utah State.
Look, I’m just gonna say that our TE play has been bad for a long time. Is it because we asked a guy who had coached the oline at a lower level to coach it? Is it because we tried to get cute with the position and call it “Cowboy Back” for many years? Was it our offense? Maybe a combo of all of that but the bottom line is things at this position have been bad.
Oklahoma state has needed something different at this position for far too long. How many years have we envyed TE play from other schools? Every time a TE scored on us I can almost see the posts on the corral -“must be nice to utilize the TE”
Enter DJ Tialavea. Here is why I like this hire from the jump - his experience at the position. It’s all he knows. He played the position (I guess one could say he played some oline & dline also), he played the position at the NFL level, and all he has coached up to this point is the TE position. The guy knows a lot about this position. He may not have as much coaching experience as the rest of the new hires but he at least has plenty of experience with the position itself. He is a up and coming coach and I think we struck gold with him before he really got big.
I think we are going to see the TE position take on a very active role in the OC DM offense and DJ already had a player he has worked with at Utah State transfer to OSU. I also think that he is going to be a major recruiter for us and really help Benji Tonga expand our reach in the Polynesian population as well as recruit the state of Utah more. Check out these quotes about his energy to recruit:
BYU recruiting Analyst when he wasn’t hired yet- “If DJ Tialavea really is a free agent right now, I hope BYU makes a run and finds a way to bring him into the program somewhere. Haven’t seen the kind of enthusiasm he brings for recruiting inside the state of Utah in a LONG time.”
All Poly Sports account - “Coach DJ Tialavea is one of the best TE coaches in the country. He is an amazing coach and a great recruiter! He represents the Poly community at the highest level and All Poly Sports would like to thank him for all he has done during his tenure at USU.”
Local Utah high school coach - “Count me in as a local coach who is shocked DJ Tialavea isn’t being retained. He’s easily the best recruiter in Utah”
Our very own Cooper Bassett coached together at Utah State - “Don’t know how we stole the Governor of Utah away from there….but the energy, passion, focus just got cranked to 11 on our sidelines with @DjTialavea_86 leading the TEs!!!!”
Players outgoing:
Graduates - Tyler Foster
Transferred out - Tabry Shettron
Players Incoming:
Recruiting Class - Jordan Vyborny
Transferred In - Oscar Hammond Sr.(North Texas), Will Monney Jr. (Utah State), Jordan Owens Sr.(Central Arkansas)
Players Returning:
Sophomore - Josh Ford
Senior - Quinton Stewart
Are we all ready to see the TE position be put to use? I’d say we are. After 10+ years of missing this position perhaps we are about to see it used more than we even realize. There is a lot of talk that we may even use some of the TE’s in a role of like a 4th bigger bodied WR.
With the TE position you are asking guys to be skilled at two very important things. Blocking and receiving. The fact is if you can find a guy that can do both of those things very well you have a big time talent on your hands. Sometimes you get a guy that is really good at one and not as good at the other. And vice versa. I’m going to somewhat categorize these guys based on film and play that I have seen:
Oscar Hammond and Will Monney are both around 6’4 230. Both play somewhat a similar style. Both of these guys are going to be a threat receiving. They can block and will be asked to block but they may not posses the same strength at blocking as say Quinton Stewart and their roles may show that. You may see these two playing that 4th WR/TE role some - especially in the red zone to get some mismatches on smaller DB’s.
Jordan Owens - is a very big target at 6’6 255. He is a guy that you probably lean on more in blocking but don’t underestimate his ability to be a target.
Quinton Stewart is back for another year. He seems to take on the blocking role at TE very well and I believe even has helped out at the FB position at times. He won’t be a starter in my two deep below but he is a valuable asset to the offense and will have a role in the offense.
And then there is Josh Ford. He just kind of reminds me of one of those rare talents that might excel at both blocking and receiving. He reminds me of what those Norte Dame TE’s have looked like the past few years. Don’t get me wrong he is very raw at both skills but he has potential you can see it. He also has the frame and build along with some intangibles that not every player has at this position. I believe he could be an NFL tight end one day and may have the most long term potential. Having said that this room just got a lot more crowded regarding playing time and nothing will be handed to him.
My predicted depth chart (2 deep):
TE - Josh Ford (Jordan Owens) or (Quinton Stewart)
TE/WR - Oscar Hammond (Will Monney)
As stated above, I think we will ask some different things of different tight ends and it will lead to different packages and different amounts of playing time. Hammond and Monney will play more WR type roles, Owens can do some of both, Stewart is going to be more package blocking. Ford has high potential for both and more of your every down guy.
A few categories to put some guys in:
(The time is now) - with this group I’m going to say the time is now for Oscar Hammond. I think he has some good ability and has shown that but his numbers at North Texas weren’t jump off the page. I do believe he has some hype to him and if he wants to play at the next level he is going to need to show something’s at his new college level making the jump from North Texas to OSU.
(Question marks) - Jordan Owens is the TE that I have the most question marks with. He has a huge frame but of the guys coming in he is the one I feel I know least about. His numbers weren’t fantastic but maybe that is because he is more of a blocking TE at central Arkansas?
(Young guys with Big Upside)- Josh Ford & Will Monney
This freshman class:
Jordan Vyborny - Many of the things I said about Josh Ford I feel potentially good at saying about this kid. If you ever want to feel good about a tight end just look at their offer list and if you see schools like Wisconsin and BYU you are getting a nice tight end prospect. The unfortunate thing for this kid is he suffered a serious injury this last year in high school. Will he fully recover from it? If he can we got our selfs a gem of a prospect.
Sunmary:
An emphasis was made to bring in some Tight Ends clearly through the portal. That’s because this position will be utilized again at osu under DM. We also happened to get what I believe to be one of the best up and coming TE coaches in college football. He lives and breathes the position and will do wonders working with our guys at this position. We also have what I believe to be a major talent in Josh Ford coming up. He has a ways to go still but I love giving him a coach who made it to the highest level of football and knows what it takes.
How do you feel about the potential at the rediscovered TE position heading into next season?
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