The Rejuvenation Begins: Syracuse Preseason Camp - August 14th

Before we do anything, you simply must go look at that photo of Doug Marrone in all his thigh-pushing glory right now (another version here).  Glorious.

It was all about the offensive line yesterday.  There were shake-ups.  There were scrums.  There were shenanigans.  But it was all good as far as the learning process goes.

"I don’t like to use the term fights, but there were about four or five," Marrone said Thursday. "I think that’s a sign of the third or fourth practice. Usually around the third or fourth practice you usually start to get a little sore, little tired but I’ll tell you what, it really picked up practice a little bit."

Special kudos goes out to Conor Orr at the D.O. for working in the phrase "hogmolly."

The O-line didn't get just shaken up on the field, it got shaken up on the depth chart as well. 

Sophomore Josh White (6-foot-5, 272 pounds), who entered camp as the backup right tackle, is now the starting left tackle. Junior Ryan Bartholomew (6-3, 288) stays at left guard, and junior Jim McKenzie (6-4, 284) remains at center. Junior Jonathan Meldrum (6-5, 314), the backup left tackle at the start of camp, is now the starting right guard. Redshirt freshman Nick Speller (6-5, 299) moves from starting left tackle to starting right tackle.

White and Meldrum jammed into seats once occupied by juniors Tucker Baumbach (6-5, 317) and Adam Rosner (6-6, 305), who moved to the second team along with sophomore Nick Lepak (6-4, 328) at center, freshman Justin Pugh (6-5, 280) at left guard and junior Andrew Tiller (6-5, 382) at right tackle.

Andrew Robinson sighting!  The former quarterback and once savior-in-waiting is currently working as the second-team holder with the kicking team.  Robinson continues to just put his head down and do what he can for the team.  Seriously, we all need to buy this kid a beer one day.  Class f***ing act.

Also nice to hear Shane Raupers is not afraid to get into it with his special teams unit when they screw up.  Hooray leadership.

A bunch of players are trying out new helmets, courtesy of Riddell.  The polycarbonate helmet with fancy indentations and padding is catching in around the lockerroom and you can expect to see many of the SU players wearing it during the season.

Check out some video of Ryan Nassib working with the other quarterbacks and the o-line.  Special bonus...Doug Marrone in ACTION!

Oh and just in case you didn't understand why they're referred to as "hogmollies"...

Mitch Browning would not be pleased.