I am cautiously optimistic about O Line this year. Main reason is that we had a great recruiting haul, best in the nation for OL, and also that we can hardly do worse.
As a reminder, WVU was not known for their D last year, and 2 of our first 3 plays were negative yardage in the season opener (though in fairness they had improved greatly on D last year and finished in the middle of the pack nationally). But worse, against both Florida and bammer, our two biggest rivals, we let the DL get to Gurantano almost unimpeded on OUR FIRST OFFENSIVE SERIES FOR A SACK AND A FUMBLE.
I don't see how this year's line can possibly be worse. (Cue comments that it could,because we are snake bit, Tennessee football is going to keep getting worse, etc.), but I am going to stick by that.
Also it's very encouraging that Pruitt has hired (and paid to keep) a reputable strength coach and that reports state we now have 8 OL over 300 lbs. I think we had one or two last year, and one or both were injured most of the season. This could be a (bad pun intended) BIG improvement.
So what does "cautiously optimistic" mean in this case? Just that we not completely suck and be the worst OL in the SEC like last year (well, maybe Arkansas was worse, but that's it). Even with orange colored glasses I don't see us moving into the top half the SEC yet, but maybe we can be close to breaking into the top half by season's end. Would likely set the stage for a good 2020 with all the talented freshman OL coming in.
