Whitworth staying at LSU Posted: Wednesday April 6, 2005 1:55PM BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- The NFL draft is April 23-24, but for Andrew Whitworth it'll be just another free weekend, the first after LSU spring practice ends. After weighing his options most of last season, the LSU offensive lineman passed up this year's draft for a senior season with the Tigers. He went through the process of applying to the NFL draft advisory board, and the answer that came back was predictable. Whitworth was projected as a second- or third-round pick, likely the third or fourth tackle taken, quite respectable territory for an offensive lineman. "That was something people wanted me to look at," Whitworth said. "But I wanted to be back with these guys that I love and have been with so long. I didn't want a chance to waste that." Whitworth's decision affords LSU a rare luxury: the entire offensive line that started the final four games last season after center Ben Wilkerson's knee injury returns intact. Whitworth is at left tackle along side sophomore Will Arnold at left guard, senior Rudy Niswanger at center, senior Nate Livings at right guard and junior Brian Johnson at right tackle. "Playing together is huge," Whitworth said. "When the offensive line is a unit, you can be successful. We know each other's problems, what each guy struggles with. You help each other on certain things and certain movements." Link
With 4 returning starters that are seniors and one a soph in his second season of starting, the RB's should be drooling and the QB's should be able to feel comfortable standing in the pocket. If this line plays up to it's potential they will be the best in the country. As much as I hate to say it, Big Ben getting hurt and missing the last 4 games was a blessing for this year's team.
Brian Johnson is just a junior so thats 3 Sr's a Jr and a Soph. As much as loosing Wilkerson hurt us last year it did help Rudy get some PT in more than just mop up duty and should help us this year. I hope the 2nd group can push the 1st and give us some quality depth because you never know when someone is going to go down on the OL. Returning all 5 guys that ended the season is a definite plus and OL should be a strong point of the team.
I'm glad Whitworth is back, too, but the decision to stay couldn't have been too difficult for him. I mean, the knock on this draft is it's a weak OLineman draft, so if scouts are telling you that you'd last to the 3rd or 4th round in a weak draft for your position, that makes things pretty simple and straightforward, I'd think.
He could go 1st or 2nd round next year with a commanding year this year. It's basically just him, Gilles from Georgia, Winston from Miami, McNeill from Auburn and Stenavich from Michigan at OT. Maybe W. Justice of USC (boo) if he comes out. The only one that really pulls away from that group right now is Winston, who'll probably be a top 8 pick, depending on needs and teams.
Twisted, I know the SI article list Johnson as being a starter right now but Whitworth says he is coming along as a back up in the Advocate article yesterday, which I can't access w/o paying. They have Terrill McGill as the LG starter and Arnold as the RG with Livings at tackle. 4 seniors. Add to that Jones at TE and that's 5 of 6 seniors.
IMHO, Nate Livings is best suited to play guard, the Jawja game last year really showed how exposed he can be at tackle.
Don't put too much stock into that one game though, or even a few. He played very well in a few games at tackle last year and the coaches are working very hard trying to put the best overall unit on the field I think. I remember watching Willie Roaf get burned for like 5 sacks vs the Falcooons one game. If you were to base your opinion on whether or not he was a good tackle on that one game you would have been very wrong. I believe those may have been the only sacks he allowed all year.
