DT. At 285 still in HS he will easily tip 300lbs and that is exactly what we need in the middle. before the end of his.

With the added benefit of having developed some disruptive skills by way of playing the 3 technique for us the last two years.

Look at UNC for a good example of D-Line recruiting done right:

SDE: EJ Wilson: 6’2 280 (shorter for the leverage needed for cloggers/holders, 280 for the girth needed to play 2 gaps)

DT: Marvin Austin: 6’2 300 (we really wanted him for this very reason, the dude can disrupt at 300 lbs. McDaniel is 280 now and could get there and retain his ability, McDaniel could by his 2nd year in the program, maybe. If not, he’d get to 290 and still retain his explosiveness. He’s a wrestler, so his weight isn’t a completely accurate representation of what his frame can handle)

NT: Cam Thomas 6’3 300 (backed up by 2 other 300lbers)

WDE: Robert Quinn 6’5 260 (backed up by a 6’7 and 6’6 dude, with 2 more 6’7 guys committed for 09. I LOVE tall tall WDEs. If it’s all about creating space to amplify your disruptiveness, then added wingspan and body length inherently creates more space for you. This is why Mario Williams is so successful, besides the fact that the dude runs a 4.5 at 280 lbs)

Without it, and instead with basically 2 WDEs (as some were proposing with Brown/White when it seemed Brown was coming back) we’re running a 3-5-4. No one has ever run this configuration for a reason (there aren’t enough run stoppers being the easiest to see)

But USC’s front according to rivals:

SDE: Kyle Moore 6’6 270
NT: Averall Spicer 6’2 295
DT: (space player) Fili Moala 6’5 295
WDE: Everson Griffon 6’3 265

Now, they are significantly bigger than us at LB. Pete Carroll acknowledges that the field is only 53 yards in width and understands that using a spatial 43 makes instincts, size, and burst more important for the LBs than speed…something we don’t understand. (And Carroll’s 43 is still a flow so that argument is debunked)

We could very easily get bigger on the LB the next year or two if:

Will: CJ Mizell 6’2 230
Mike: Vince WIlliams 6’0 240
Sam: Nigel Bradham 6’2 250

Don’t think Vince can support more than 240 on his 6’0 frame (he’s already pretty jacked and full) so we’d be 25 lbs smaller than USC was this year (Malauaga was 260 and Cushing 255)

But, we could potentially make up that loss on the DLine, assuming we find a SDE

WDE: Markus White 6’4 255
NT: Moses McCray 6’2 305
DT: Jaccobi McDaniel 6’1 290 or Demonte McAllister the next year 6’4 285

SDE…..Even though you’re right in saying Mincey is more of a disrupter/space player than he would be a holder/clogger, which you need to be if you’re gonna play the SDE right…he’s our only player that has the necessary mass. Dawkins, maybe, I dunno how heavy he got this year (his rivals says 242 but that’s definietly selling him short) If he were to get to 280, he’d be a better choice than Mincey because he has played SDE/NT and knows the run-stopping Technique.

The argument for Demonte McAllister at end is one that wants not to sacrifice and waste his disruptive/in space abilities. My counter is that those skills would be better displayed at 3-technique DT than SDE, as Pete Carroll has agreed. Here, he is shielded from double teams and has the interior space to beat his one man. At SDE, he would be routinely double teamed by a Tackle and TE, or Tackle and FB or HB or any combination thereof. His main responsibility would be strongside contain and place-holding, thus wasting his longer frame and explosiveness.