Boston College at Central Florida: 5 big questions

1.) Where is our old offensive line and when is it coming back?

I hate to be a downer, but a) part of it graduated and b) I’m not entirely sure when. The good news is that Mark Spinney is going back to center and Nate Richman is returning to the guard position. This should be an improvement over last week, but as for how much of one, that can only be answered on Saturday. Hopefully, it can stabilize the offensive line, because simply put, their play against Northwestern wasn’t acceptable. Guys were getting run over and outside of one big run to the left sideline, the run game was able to accomplish absolutely nothing.

This unit will be one of the Eagles’ greatest concerns this weekend. Coming from “O-Line U,” you wouldn’t think I’d ever have to save that, but here we are. Then again, over the last few seasons, the offensive line has had some good individual performances, but a number of times where it has failed in certain areas (this is also directed at the offensive line coach). Run blocking wasn’t necessarily one of them, though having Montel Harris do a lot of the work for you makes things look better than they are. As a side note, I don’t hold them completely responsible, for example, for guys like Dave Shinskie getting sacked while holding the ball, completely oblivious to the coming rush. They do have to hold up a lot better, however, especially against bigger and more powerful defensive fronts as the season goes along. If they fall flat again this weekend, then the Eagles will be at grave risk of going 0-2.