There's a lot key clicking here but not a lot of actual research or thought. Here is our OL distribution for the upcoming season based on what is shown on the roster:
SR: Pole
JR: Tialavea, Kylany, Hilborn, Dieu, Fa'amoe
SO: Landon Roaten, Miller, Luke Roaten, Machado, Lester
FR: Gates, Pritchard, White, Tripp, Dunham
New: Lino, Osmus, Thorpe, Hasson
We have a metric crapton of young guys on the roster at the OL position. In most years, it's going to make sense to take 4-5 OL guys and sometimes 6 if you have had some attrition. That said, with the advent of the transfer portal and NIL, it doesn't make sense to panic about recruiting HS players. If we overstock with dudes, we are just as likely to lose a guy who isn't getting playing time. Looking at the fact that we have 11 scholarship OL players in the freshman and sophomore classes...whining about getting only four potential OL guys this year just feels like Biggs doing his normal b!tching and moaning about Dickert because of his insecurities with the guy.
If the coaching staff think we have good dudes, 3-4 guys this year is the right number. Whining about having "only" 21 offensive linemen on scholarship instead of 23 is just kind of stupid....but hey...we are kind of good at being whiny, b!tchy and stupid. The cool thing about bringing in "6 guys minimum" every year is that we could throw away a few hundred grand in scholarship money that we don't have when most of them leave without taking a snap.