Stampede Bonus: 2025 USF Offensive Line Breakdown

The Bulls are betting on experience to improve an up-and-down offensive line. Will it be enough?

As mentioned earlier, when we’ve finished profiling an entire unit, we’ll run through a final breakdown of that position group at large. We’ll touch on a quick overview of the group, then I’ll break it down by tiers as far as how I see playing time shaking out. Finally, I’ll pose one Big Question that I have about the unit approaching the season, and my general level of confidence.

First up: the offensive line.

The Overview:

Note: from left to right, the columns are player number, player name, specific position, eligibility, On3 consensus recruit rating out of high school (asterisk if the player transferred to USF), offensive FBS snaps in 2024, career FBS games (with 2024 games in parentheses), career FBS starts (with 2024 starts in parenthesis), and the school they played at in 2024, if different from USF. Any players not yet on campus are italicized.

I’m sure you’re tired of me pointing it out by now, but… this is just absurd, right? The extra COVID year of eligibility and loosened transfer rules have made it easier than ever for teams to bring in experienced players, but I’m still not sure I’ve ever seen a unit with quite this much experience at USF before. Seven (!!!!) players in this unit have started at least 10 games in their college careers. Nine (!!!!) have started at least one. In the “pure experience” department, at least, it’s an embarrassment of riches. Bulls offensive line coach Tyler Hudanick (likely better known to Bulls fans as Coach Hoodie) agrees:

“Probably the deepest (offensive) line room — hopefully, knock on wood — I’ll ever be a part of if it stays the course going into the fall.”

Take it from him, not me. Generally in these position group breakdowns, I’m trying to figure out which inexperienced players might take a big leap. Here, I’m trying to figure out which experienced players are going to be stuck on the bench. Let’s break it down.

The Prospectus:

Acknowledging that we can never write off the possibility of transfer portal weirdness, the Bulls are currently set to enter the fall with 19 offensive linemen on scholarship. I currently see this group in five different tiers.

Tier 1: Zane Herring and Derek Bowman

These two are locks, or as close as I’ll get to anointing “locks” in the middle of the summer. Both Herring and Bowman are multi-year starters for USF. When they were healthy in 2024, they were starting. I have no reason to believe that changes in 2025, at least not at the start of the season.

Herring played right guard for the Bulls in 2024 and Bowman played right tackle, but either could conceivably play on the left side of the line if the situation demands it. Given that he struggled with injuries last year, Herring’s health is something to keep an eye on this offseason.

Tier 2: Cole Best, Connor McLaughlin, Thomas Shrader, Jack Wilty, and Mike Lofton

This group is full of players that I think have a very real shot at winning a starting spot this fall. Assuming that Herring and Bowman are indeed locks, that’s six players competing for three remaining starting spots on the line: one center, one guard, and one tackle.

I see it shaping up like this: Best is the closest of the bunch to being in Tier 1. He started the final seven games of the 2024 season at center, and the Bulls’ offensive line performance improved markedly once he took over (with the caveat, of course, that the back half of the schedule was very soft). I suspect he’s got the early leg up on Mike Lofton at center, but discounting Lofton - who’s started 22 games at USF, including all 13 at center in 2023 - would be foolish. Best and Lofton both have experience at guard as well, so the loser of this battle is still going to be an invaluable depth piece for the line.

That leaves McLaughlin, Shrader and Wilty competing for the guard and tackle spots. Both McLaughlin and Shrader played tackle exclusively last season, but Shrader has experience playing inside as well. Wilty played all over the line for USF last season, but ended the season starting at right guard while Zane Herring was hurt. It’s anyone’s guess how this battle shakes out, but it seems that any of the three could win the job at tackle, while the guard competition will come down to Shrader or Wilty. One could argue that Wilty’s year in green and gold will give him an edge over McLaughlin and Shrader, but I’m not sure I buy it. Even on the offensive line, Alex Golesh has never been shy about plugging transfers into the starting lineup right away.

So to sum up: there’s probably three week-one starters among this tier, but the two players who don’t start are almost certainly seeing significant snaps at some point, whether it’s due to rotation or injury.

Tier 3: Deonte Bowie and Cole Skinner

This is a “tweener” tier of sorts. Both of these players have started at left guard for the Bulls before (Bowie in the Hawaii Bowl last year, and Skinner for a few games late in the 2023 season), and they’re both mainstays on the two-deep. In a normal season, these would be the “next men up” that I’d expect to take the jump into the starting line, but - of course - USF returns everyone and their grandmother on the offensive line. As it stands, these are clearly two players that USF feels comfortable with and are in the larger offensive line rotation, but I haven’t seen any indications that they’re serious contenders for a starting spot in August. That said, it wouldn’t stun me if either Bowie or Skinner ends up starting some games this season, and I certainly expect to see them on the field at some point. Hudanick says he wants eight or nine players in his offensive line rotation, and these would be players eight and nine.

Another point on this tier: very literally every player listed above these two is a senior. Subject, of course, to the whims of the Chaotic Eligibility Goblin, I expect every member of Tiers 1 and 2 (apart from possibly Jack Wilty) to be gone in 2026. Skinner is just a junior and Bowie may very well have eligibility left as well, with the pending JUCO ruling. Trying to predict the future in this day and age of college football is a fool’s errand, but you could be looking at two locked-in 2026 starters here.

Tier 4: Teriyan Morman, Tyreek Major, TJ Lawrence, Braden Carter, Khalil Collins, Khalil Walker, and James Jenkins

This tier is mostly young players that have been with the team for a year or two now (Morman, Major, Lawrence, Carter, and Jenkins), plus Collins, who is just a true freshman but earned rave reviews in spring practice, and Walker, who comes in with some experience as a JUCO transfer. None of these players seem poised to compete for a starting job, but on a purely mathematical basis, at least one of them is likely to end up on the two-deep. It’s too early to tell which of the redshirt freshmen has the highest trajectory, but Morman and Major earned the most playing time of the bunch last year - and Major was the designated third-string center - so perhaps those are two names to watch. If all goes well, we’ll only see these players on special teams and mop-up duty in the fall, but don’t discount the possibility of Golesh and Hudanick opting to call up some of these players to the proverbial big leagues if the seniors struggle again in 2025. At any rate, there are likely multiple future starters among this tier.

Tier 5: Gerrick Gordon Jr., Collin Bellomy, and Caleb Harris

These are the three remaining incoming freshmen. Gordon and Bellomy are already on campus, while Harris is set to enroll in August. They could be important pieces of a future offensive line, but they’re not likely to see much playing time this season.

The Big Question: Does more experience mean better performance?

So yeah, USF’s offensive line is obscenely experienced. But how much does that actually matter?

Evaluating offensive line play is not for the faint of heart, but it’s fair to say that the offensive line has not been a strength for the Bulls recently. We’ll dive into this more in the quarterback unit breakdown, but here’s one cherrypicked tidbit for you, per PFF: when Byrum Brown was playing in 2024, the offensive line gave him a clean pocket just 57.3% of the time. Extrapolated over a full season, that would’ve been the worst mark by a USF offensive line in well over a decade.

Now in fairness, the offensive line’s performance got significantly better down the stretch last season. Take a look at how much things changed from the first half of the season to the second half. The chart below shows the percentage of snaps in which USF’s line kept the pocket clean, USF’s yards per carry, and sacks surrendered per game. None of these figures are conclusive on their own, but together they paint quite a picture.

I know what you’re thinking: obviously the offensive line played better in the second half of the season, because USF played a much easier schedule in the second half of the season. And to that I say… yes, agreed. We’re going to need to see some more evidence before we can confidently label this as genuine improvement and not just the byproduct of an softer schedule. But do note that the “Games 1-6” totals also include games against Bethune-Cookman and Southern Miss, who were famously not very good at football last fall.

Point being: USF may be incredibly deep along the offensive line this season, but deep doesn’t necessarily mean good. They may match up well against the bottom-tier teams in the AAC, but if these players weren’t getting the job done against the likes of Tulane and Memphis as juniors, you can’t automatically assume they’re going to get the job done as seniors. If the goal is competing for a conference title this season, that could be a big issue.

That said, offensive line is possibly the hardest position group to build in today’s portal-happy era. Unlike other groups, it’s a true unit that benefits from time to gel together in the same system. For that reason, I do like that USF hasn’t pressed the panic button here. Sure, they brought in a couple experienced transfers in McLaughlin and Shrader who might play right away, but by and large, the players on this line are entering their second or third years playing together. Even with their recent struggles, the upturn in form at the end of 2024 and the mountains of experience have me cautiously optimistic that there’s a pretty good unit somewhere in here. Whether it can be good enough to stand toe-to-toe with the best teams in the AAC remains to be seen.