MIAMI (May 21, 2020) - This week we preview FIU's offensive line as we look ahead to the upcoming season. 

POSITION BREAKDOWN
Position: Offensive Line
Position Coach: Joel Rodriguez 
Key Returner: Shane McGough

PLAYER TO WATCH
Shane McGough played in all 13 games last season, making 12 starts mostly at center. He aided an offensive line that allowed just 14 sacks on the year, which tied for the fifth-lowest in the nation and first in C-USA. The 14 allowed sacks also ranked as the third-lowest in FIU history. McGough is now preparing for his final season at FIU.

QUOTES FROM MCGOUGH
McGough on Goals for 2020: "A goal for myself is to be a great leader this season and set an example for my teammates. For the team, our goal is to overcome all the adversity that was thrown at us this offseason and have a productive season."

McGough on the Coach Joel Rodriguez: "Coach Rodriguez is awesome, he's super cool and has a lot of football knowledge. I'm excited to learn from him this year."

McGough on What He's Improving This Year: "There's always room to get better in every aspect of play, but this year I want to focus on technique and football IQ."

QUOTES FROM COACH JOEL RODRIGUEZ
Rodriguez on Goals for 2020: "Our goal is staying focused on putting ourselves in a position to win the conference. In terms for the offensive line, we have goals that change from week to week that ultimately lead to that overall team goal. Some weeks it's controlling the ball, how many yards you want to rush for or how many sacks you want to give up depending on the team you face. Ultimately, we want to win in whatever way the team needs us to win from week to week."

Rodriguez on Shane McGough: "Shane is part of a dying breed, as a guy who just gets it. He's played and had successful experience. It's one thing to just play and get your butt beat for two straight years, but he's had successful experience and knows what it takes from a preparation standpoint or in terms of training in the offseason. He also has great leadership qualities because when he speaks, people listen. Part of that is because he has so much experience and part of that is his demeanor in general. Having a guy like that in your room is great, because you can always use him as an example and someone you can lean on when you want something done. Him being unselfish and a team player is great as well because it just makes everyone want to listen and do as he does."

Rodriguez on Demery/Hudson: "The first thing that sticks out with D'Antne Demery is that God only made so many people in this world big enough to play on the offensive line in the NFL and he is one of them. He definitely fits that old school height/weight prototype that the Bill Parcells or Bill Belichick-type organizations look for on their draft boards. He has great size and he can still move like he's under 300 pounds, so I think Demery's got significantly above average movement skill, great length and his balance and body control is very important. If you watched his film from last year, as he got more comfortable you definitely saw some high-level athleticism which excites us going forward. When you watch Lyndell Hudson Jr. on film, for a guy with his size he has really high movement skills. He played over 100 snaps last year as a redshirt freshman, so that's awesome because he will be more comfortable and more experienced which will help accelerate his growth this year. He has NFL measurables and athleticism as well, and with continued growth in the weight room with Coach Andreu Swasey, he has a great chance to be a very good player for us."

Rodriguez on Miller/Finau: "Mershawn Miller is a guy who has a ton of experience and is a local kid that comes from a great program in Miami Central that plays on a national stage week-in and week-out. I think his ability to respond and play well in big spots is impressive. Now it's about becoming the guy, because last year he played 30-40 snaps a game and now it's about getting in good enough shape to go 60-plus snaps a game. Sione Finau is similar to Mershawn, he's a year younger but played in a bunch of games as a true freshman last year. Players tend to make their biggest jump from year one to year two and we're excited to see all these guys making that jump going forward."

Rodriguez on Newcomers: "Almost every one of our players in the two-deep this season will be a newcomer or redshirted last season. It's insane how young we are as a unit. Julius Pierce is a guy who played tight end in high school, but we moved to the offensive line and he's so flexible. We had Chris Myers on our zoom call today, and it's so funny because Julius reminds me so much of him. One of the things that made Chris so unique was that he started games at all five positions on the offensive line in college. His body type and athleticism reminds me a lot of Julius Pierce where he can play center, but is also athletic enough to play tackle as well and do all those sorts of things. Shamar Hobdy-Lee is also a guy we're very excited about. He has some length and athletic ability and we're excited to see his growth coming off the redshirt. With our newcomers who were early enrollees, their advantage was almost negated because of the loss of a spring season. Now it's about how disciplined they were with their workouts when they went home and their eating regiments and how well they kept in playing shape."

Rodriguez on Keeping Motivation During Zoom Meetings: "The first thing is to keep your meetings very tight in terms of content. They have to be very focused, direct and made for small groups. We have the biggest group on the team I believe, so it's 20 microphones that could go off, 20 dogs that are barking in the background, so just too many distractions. Also, some of the things we talk about might pertain to a guard or interior player, so the tackles might tune out mentally. What we've done is split the groups up between tackles and interior players to avoid that. We have groups that are no bigger than eight people, which is much easier to control. Now you can have more of a classroom setting and it's easier to engage with them. We've made our content more narrow driven as well, where we will watch NFL cut ups and watch the pros do it. What's great about that is someone like a Jose Mirabal can think a Tyron Smith must never make any mistakes, but after watching his tape you can find 6-8 things and coach Jose as he's watching Tyron Smith. They like watching that and it's really engaging, because then you can go back and watch your own tape and get different ways of looking at it."

SOCIAL MEDIA
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