Biggest Needs for Hobart in 2017 - Part II

How about that Super Bowl?!? With such a great display by Tom Brady and the Patriots offense it makes sense to talk about the "O" in this post.

The Statesmen offense set a number of school records and had two players individually ranked in the Top 10 nationally given the high-flying "Air Show" of JR QB Shane Sweeney and 1st team D3football.com All-American JR WR Brandon Shed. A big reason for that success was strong pass blocking by the OL and the fact Sweeney had a multitude weapons at his disposal including WRs like Sean Cunningham '17 and Jack Pfohl '17 as well as JR TE Zach Withers and SO TE Matt Woods.

While the departure of two WRs with the talent of Cunningham and Pfohl is hard to replace, fortunately the Statesmen have a lot of depth with players like SO WR Joe Barrocas, SO WR Jake Henzes, FY WR Isaiah Hill and several other potential candidates waiting in the wings.

With JR RB Joe Letizia and SO RB Ty Barfield likely returning, the Statesmen should be able to improve upon the running game in 2017. While OC Jon Drach has moved away from the Power-I formations of seasons past, when a FB is needed, JR FB Dylan Quay should add depth and experience to this role he shared last season with Sean Bright '17.

Needless to say, Hobart's main needs on offense will be fairly limited. The biggest loss to graduation in my opinion was that of Nick Testani '17 who was the starting center for the Statesmen for the past couple of seasons and who was the only Statesmen OL to earn 1st team All-LL recognition. JR OL Liam Murphy backed up Testani during the year and could be poised to take over in 2017.

Otherwise Sweeney and the Hobart offense will benefit from experienced starters returning at basically all the other OL positions. Certainly Justin DiJiulio '17 will be missed, but when he suffered a knee injury early in the 2016 season he was ably replaced at RT by JR OL Stephen VanHoesen who also started at RG. Patrick O'Connell III '17 was a leader on the sidelines and locker room, but injuries made it so SO OL Jack Koch and JR OL Alex Helm had to fill in for him in 2016. The positive from this unfortunate turn of events is they gained valuable experience at guard. SO OL John Deveney started at LT all season and earned 2nd team All-LL honors.

Based on this depth and experience, Hobart's offense should be primed for another big season in 2017.

Thanks for reading and go 'Bart!