Countdown to camp: Will Idaho State’s offensive line grow in depth and production this season?

The Idaho State football team begins fall camp on Aug. 1.

And to get you ready, we’re counting down with a question every day until the start of it.

Today’s question: Will Idaho State’s offensive line grow in depth and production this season?

When your quarterback leads your team in rushing — unless you’re running a read option offense — that’s probably not a good reflection on your offensive line. And that is exactly what happened last season, when backup quarterback Hunter Hays was Idaho State’s leading rusher with a grand total of 223 yards for the season.

As a team, the Bengals averaged just 2.7 yards per carry, and their quarterbacks were sacked 31 times.

Bengal head coach Cody Hawkins spent a lot of time during his weekly press conferences explaining why he wasn’t running the football more. The simple answer was that Hawkins had only five healthy offensive linemen he could trust, and he didn’t want to risk injury to those linemen by “getting physical.” In fact, the one game where Hawkins decided to try and run the ball more, one of his five linemen got hurt.

So when the season ended, Hawkins was determined to beef us his offensive line room. He gave Mark Weber, the offensive line coach at the time, a carte blanche to travel just about anywhere he wanted if it involved recruiting an offensive lineman.

Unfortunately, Weber, probably the most experienced offensive line coach in the Big Sky Conference last season, retired before spring football began. So Hawkins had to turn to John Hughes, who was coaching linemen at Utah Tech last year.

Hughes brought youth, energy — and two of his linemen — with him. Guard Josh Stryker and tackle Ty Hyde both played extensively for Hughes at Utah Tech, and they were joined in the spring by Utah State transfer Jake Hellman, a tackle.

Hawkins has been heaping praise on retuning center Alex Ramirez as a leader in the O-Line room, and mixed in with other returners like tackle Jorgen Miller, who played as a true freshman last year before he got hurt, tackle William Davis, who improved considerably through his freshman season, and returner Vincente Hughes. So suddenly Hawkins feels like he’s got at least eight or nine capable bodies.

The next question becomes is the quality level of play up to the standards necessary to effectively execute the more physical running game that Hawkins wants to employ — and to keep the Bengal quarterbacks upright as they throw the football 30 to 35 times a game. That question will only be answered under live fire.