Trying to get an update for your...

[knight_fan]

No I thought your LBs last year were good and that this year is gonna be a solid crew.  

You really disliked Javon Camon that much?  

I guess Johnnie Jones at safety will change that a lot.

So this year you expect to have Tim Jones back, and he's one of your better players at the DT spot right?  Better than whomever you had manning the spot last year?

[sdgukhsdgl]

yes, yes and yes

[Guest S.  Bien]

No I thought your LBs last year were good and that this year is gonna be a solid crew.  

You really disliked Javon Camon that much?  

I guess Johnnie Jones at safety will change that a lot.

So this year you expect to have Tim Jones back, and he's one of your better players at the DT spot right?  Better than whomever you had manning the spot last year?

Fan,

The LB'ers were good, just young.  One problem we had last year at LB is no one asserted themself at MLB.  They initially tried Devon Davis but that didn't work, ditto for St. Louis and Ronnie McCollough.  Having a key MLB that's a field general is imperative.  Last year, Ben Moffett was forced to play the edge because the staff didn't think he was ready for MLB.  Move forward, and apparently from the mouth of Burnham is Ben Moffett has absolutely flourished this off-season at MLB.  Oddly last year we couldn't find one, and this year we've got a log jam with Moffett, then probably Geno Coleman and Mompremier.  You'll see better play out of the LB'ers this year because of it.

I don't dislike Javon Camon, it's just a fact that he was a distraction to the defense.  Despite his athleticism and speed there was an obvious reason he never came close to beating out Reed.  He provided no real leadership on or off the field, and often during games he took poor angles, used awful technique to tackle many times trying to use his tiny body to knock a guy down versus wrapping up.

One thing about Tim Jones is he's a tremendous athlete, and he's flourished at every position he's played for USF.  He started at TE, but our rare use of the TE didn't use his superior athleticism enough so the staff moved him to defense.  They contemplated MLB, but he grew to 255lbs and moved him to DE where he was 2nd on the team in sacks in 2002 with 6.5, and 10 TFL's, behind Shurron Pierson, and in 2003 he was second again with 3.5 sacks, and 13 TFL behind Kobel.  After the 2003 season Jones had grown to 6-3 270lbs, and realized his best shot for NFL stardom was DT.  He decided to get much bigger and stronger, and work on his explosiveness in the down position.  He redshirted last year to do that, and the staff allowed it eventhough it would have been beneficial to have him.

The benefit is we'll now have a down lineman about 6-3 290lbs or so with the explosiveness of a DE.