Rebuilding The Ticat O-Line- More Questions Than Answers

Hamilton Tiger-Cats
1

It will be interesting to see who will play what position in the rebuilt Ticat offensive line. At this early stage of the season, there are mostly questions and very few answers.

Centre and Guard

Will George Hudson, who has played centre for most of his CFL career but played left guard for the Ticats last year, return to his more familiar centre position?

Will Marwan Hage, who was an All Big 12 at guard in the last two years of his college career at Colorado but played centre for the Ticats last year, move to one of the guard positions?

Will 2006 CFL Canadian draft choice Cedric Gagne-Marcoux, a four year centre at University of Central Florida, come to Ticat camp this year and play well enough to start so that Hudson and Hage can start at guard?

If Gagne-Marcoux is not ready to start at centre, will import guard Damion Cook get the nod again at starting right guard?

Offensive Tackle

Will Jonta Woodard be the starting left offensive tackle again this year?

Will 2006 CFL Canadian draft choice Peter Dyakowski, who started at offensive tackle with LSU last year, come to camp and win a starting offensive tackle position?

If Dyakowski is not ready to start, will Pascal Cheron be the starting right offensive tackle?

Will Coach Taaffe bring in one or two additional imports to challenge for starting positions at offensive tackle?

Backup Offensive Linemen

Who will be the backup offensive linemen from among Ryan Donnelly, Fabio Filice, Carl Gourgues, Kyler Jukes, Chris Sutherland, and Peter Hogarth?

Offensive Line Coach

One question that should be answered within the next two weeks is who will be selected to coach the Ticat offensive line this year. Once that happens, the process of fitting the pieces of the Ticats’ offensive line puzzle together will begin in earnest.

2

Cheron is not a tackle, he's a guard (and maybe iffy there) but i guess he could be tried at OT?; very doubtful that one of the young Canadian guys like Dyakowski or Gagne-Marcoux (will they even show up?) or Sutherland will "earn" a starting job in TC - the typical CFL thinking is that first year Canadians aren't "ready" to start and that they need time to "develop", and O-line in the pros takes some learning time maybe anyways.
IMO - there's a good chance that with smart coaching there could be a very good O-line there with some mostly young guys who have built up some CFL experience: Hudson at C, Filice (under-rated IMO) and Hage at guards might be a strong interior; Woodard at one OT and then whoever wins good competition at the other tackle spot which might be the biggest question mark; and some experience in the group for back-up spots - Cheron, Gourges and Donnelly (who i thought did OK at tackle when he started late in the year). Anyways, lots of competition at TC is a good thing.

3

Will Filice, who played extremely well last year in a backup/injury replacement roll last season be able to outright win a starting roll in training camp this year?

4

I always thought Taaffe was going to be the OC this year.

5

Taaffe did indeed say that he will be the OC this year. That being said, he DOES need assistant coaches for recievers, running backs, QB's, o-line, etc...

6

the O line is a mess.We need a coach to get everyone in the right place so they can function as a unit.You need to evaluate the O line on film you can do it from the stands.Lets hope the coaching staff know what there doing and straight out the mess.

7

get some imports on the o-line and stop wasting money on canadian players.

8

i thought MikeWorking was the OC?
but maybe im wrong...

9

Taaffe stated he would be heavily involved in the offence, but Mike Working is the OC

see the football ops staff here:

[url=http://www.ticats.ca/index.php?module=staff&func=view1&staffnum=1]http://www.ticats.ca/index.php?module=s ... staffnum=1[/url]
10

Just wanted to clarify a couple of points raised in some of the previous posts.

Pascal Cheron is listed as a tackle on the ticats.ca website. While TCanuck is correct that Cheron has primarily played guard during his career, he also played some offensive tackle, particularly when he was with the Ottawa Renegades in 2005.

Vuarra, kool-kat and Karen are correct that Mike Working is the offensive coordinator. Sigpig and Karen are correct that head coach Charlie Taaffe will be heavily involved in designing the offence. Coach Working has stated that his primary role will be to implement Taaffe's offensive system. An offensive line coach (i.e. to set up the offensive line and teach blocking schemes, etc.) will be hired within the next two weeks or so.

11

Here are a few import offensive tackles with some previous NFL experience who do not seem to be on an NFL or AFL team at this time and could be worth a look by the Ticats:

Mike Pearson (Aug 22/80, 6-7, 302 lbs, ), University of Florida

http://www.nfl.com/players/playerpage/302213

Joaquin Gonzalez (Sep 7/79, 6-5, 300 lbs), University of Miami

http://www.nfl.com/players/playerpage/302031

Chad Beasley (Nov 13/78, 6-5, 302 lbs), Virginia Tech

http://www.nfl.com/players/playerpage/301980
12

I may have missed this.
When was it announced that Coach Sal will not be back this year as O-line coach?

13

What was announced was that no coaches would be returning.

14

This year to Open Camp..
This should be the starting OL

Put George Hudson back at Center
Move Marwan Hage to Right Guard
Play guard Damion Cook Left Guard.
Play Pascal Cheron at Left Tackle
Play Jonta Woodard at Right tackle

The gives us Two Americans and 3 Canadians on the Line..

15

I sit corrected.