Miami Hurricanes RG Navaughn Donaldson moving to RT
Navaughn Donaldson who started ten games at right guard last season and was named a true Freshman All-American by ESPN is being moved to right tackle. The move was made after the Miami Hurricanes offensive line has struggled this Spring.
Miami Hurricanes Head Coach Mark Richt said on Wednesday that there is a good chance that the move that was made during Tuesday’s practice is permanent. Richt said the move was made to get the five most physical and experienced offensive linemen on the field.
The four players that will be starting up front with Donaldson are Senior left tackle Tyree St. Louis, Senior left guard Jahair Jones, Senior Center Tyler Gauthier and redshirt Junior Right Guard Hayden Mahoney. St. Louis will also be playing a new position this fall. He is moving from right tackle to left.
The Hurricanes offensive line allowed nine sacks to their defense in Saturday’s first scrimmage of the Spring. Four of those sacks were by Freshman defensive end Greg Rousseau. Richt spoke about his new offensive line configuration with the Joe Rose show on WQAM on Wednesday morning.
"“If that holds up, that will be good for us because we’d have a lot of veteran guys with a lot of experience. … I like the progress”"
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The Miami Hurricanes defensive line was dominant on Saturday. End Scott Patchan who returned to defense after playing tight end last season and linebacker Bradley Jennings accounted for four of the other five sacks.
Redshirt Junior George Brown played right tackle with the first team during the first nine practices this Spring. He struggled a lot. That necessitated Donaldson’s move.
Other candidates that were speculated on the right side of the offensive line were Sophomore Kai-Leon Herbert, Redshirt Freshman Zalon’tae Hillery and Freshman Delone Scaife and John Campbell.
Richt explained the reasoning that they had to move Donaldson to right tackle.
"“We thought we might have some answers out there [at tackle], but part of the reason we had so many sacks was we just couldn’t even get off of the snap,…Those young, long, fast ends were just running right by us and not getting touched. We had to make a move.”"
Richt made it clear that they didn’t want to have to rely on the Freshman on the offensive line. Starting four four year players on the offensive line plus Donaldson gives Miami that.
"“We’ve got some good, young linemen, but you’d hate to rely on true freshmen if you don’t have to,…I’m not sure we have a true, true left tackle in the program, so in recruiting, we’ll definitely have to find that guy that could be that left tackle.”"
Next: Could Navaughn Donaldson be the right tackle?
Richt’s statement is surprising given that Donaldson and Herbert were both four-star recruits that were projected at tackle coming out of high school. They were the 11th and 25th ranked tackles in the Class of 2017.