UCLA Football Recruiting: O-line, what a difference a year makes

The UCLA Football team has had an upswing in recruiting the offensive line, something they desperately needed moving forward.

In the summer before the 2016 season, the UCLA Football team lost a vital offensive line graduate transfer and nothing really seemed right after that. In contrast, the 2017 offseason is looking much better.

Last offseason, Jake Raulerson, a Texas Longhorns graduate announced that he would transfer and bring his talents and remaining years of eligibility to UCLA, only to end up at Arkansas after problems with admission into the UCLA MBA program.

At the very least, Raulerson would have added depth to a question mark at the center position with previous season’s starter, Jake Brendel, NFL bound and the talented Scott Quessenberry returning from a double shoulder injury in 2015. At best, his veteran presence would have allowed the versatile Quessenberry to shift to Guard and maybe, last years running game MIGHT HAVE BEEN better.

Fast forward to Offseason 2017 and the story this year is much different. The questions are still there since former RT Conor McDermott‘s departure for the NFL had Kolton Miller shifting from right tackle to left tackle, which left a huge hole at right tackle. There was no certainty of what the 2017 UCLA offensive line would look like, let alone whether or not they would play well under a new O-line coach!

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Well, things began looking way up on June 9 when FOX Sports’ Bruce Feldman tweeted that Miami Hurricane offensive tackle and graduate transfer Sunny Odogwu (6’8″, 325 lbs.) would be joining the Bruins in 2017 to help protect Rosen and clear the edge on running plays. Then, a week later, on June 16, Jason Dickson, a 6′ 7”, 310 lbs. starting offensive tackle from Diablo Valley (Calif.) College ended his recruitment with “4s Up” and a committment to UCLA for the 2017 season as well.

Not only did UCLA find veteran behemoths to fight it out between themselves for the empty right tackle spot, but the competition for the 2 remaining guard spots just became really heavy!

A few days after Jason Dickson committed, UCLA received its third offensive line committment in 10 days, when standout offensive lineman and former Nittany Lions recruit, Chris Bleich, committed to UCLA.

This 6′ 5, 308 lbs. #2 O-lineman from Pennsylvania, according to Scout, will come in and compete right away for playing time and provide valuable depth as his body seems ready to go as far as mass and strength goes, so don’t look for him to redshirt in 2017.

Next: Go Joe Bruin predicts the 2017 UCLA Football record

So it is possible that 2016’s glaring weakness for the UCLA Football team’s offensive line could become an adequate to good group that leads UCLA out of the desert in 2017!