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Western Illinois Offensive Line Progressing Through Spring

| By: WIU ATHLETIC COMMUNICATIONS

Leathernecks look to build depth and versatility through fundamentals

MACOMB – With one week of spring camp over, the Western Illinois football team continues to build toward its season opener on August 31 at Northern Illinois
All phases of the team are going through the paces as coaches and players get to know each other better. One such unit is the Leatherneck offensive line.
The group is led by first-year offensive line coach, Brad Wilson, who likes what he has seen from his group so far.

"The guys have come out with good intent in practice, understanding and learning how we approach things from a practice perspective, coming out and competing every day and trying to get better every single day," Wilson said. "You want to teach the fundamentals, you want to teach the game, how we see it, how we communicate it, how we do it but also there is an X and O piece to this. It's the fundamentals of how and why and why we do certain things a certain way, getting everybody working together is important but it is a lot of feeling out and trying to learn our offense, learn what works against our defense and get everyone on the same page."

With 14 practices and the spring game available to get players on the field, Wilson is quickly working to get everyone on the O-line on the same page, not just from a schematic standpoint, but from a movement, fundamental, and communication standpoint.

"You have to have five guys who are playing together from a communication standpoint, from a footwork standpoint, it all starts with technique in football, so technique and fundamentals is where it's going to start particularly at the line of scrimmage," the coach said. "And getting used to what we're doing schematically, communicating the calls, getting that terminology down and speaking our language, but the guys have done a nice job from that perspective."

For Wilson, that means going day-to-day, focusing on the small victories and little goals before getting ahead to big-picture thinking.

"I'm not even focused on the 19th yet for the spring game, it's how can we get better in the 3:15 meeting, then going out tomorrow for practice and getting prepared and the guys understand what's going on and how to get better every day," he said. "I joke with the guys, 'how do you eat an elephant? One bite at time.' We're not focused on the end result but the right now, how can we improve right now. "

For Wilson, that means finding a solid starting group and building depth. With only so many bodies in camp right now, the unit is plugging away, not focusing so much on who will be on the field in Week 1, but on who can put themselves in a position to be ready to go in the season opener.

"It'd be great to go through a year with five, but that's not the reality of college football," Wilson said. "Developing depth is huge, it's not depth at this point, it's competition. I told the guys, I've got to find the best five to get out on the field, then we have to develop six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11, and 12 and get them to where they're moving in the right direction and competing with the other guys, not just being complacent and content with their position.

"We went through the first three practices, then we got some reinforcements back who were sick, coming off surgery, so we have guys back in terms of being able to practice, which always help competition, we have to see where we're at at the end of camp to see where we need to go to address some things."

Developing as many players as possible is a big goal for the spring, but also versatility. With five spots on the offensive line, finding players who can understand and play multiple spots is key, especially for an offense that looks to be on the attack at all times.

"We've had a guy who has been at left tackle, center and right tackle all within these first four practices, guys bumping in to guard, bumping out to tackle, you have to have that position versatility because if you find your best five, great, but where you plug in number six, that may jumble some things," Wilson said. "Getting guys to be comfortable in the offense, but the position holistically on the offensive line, not just as a left guard or whatever."

To get linemen ready to do that, Wilson knows he must develop the unit mentally, but also physically. Letting his guys work on the physical is no problem for the coach though, as he wants his guys ready to do some hitting this spring.

"At the line of scrimmage, you have your helmet days, which is football, but it's not football," he said. "Once you put on the shoulder pads, it's full-tilt boogie, we're rolling and from a physical standpoint, it has to be there. We have to understand how to practice with a sense of urgency, not a sense of panic, so for that physical piece to be there, so does the sense of urgency. Once shoulder pads go on, we treat it as full go from our perspective."
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