Upgrade or Downgrade? Left Guard

Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

In my "Upgrade or Downgrade? Left Tackle" post, I showed Micah Kia as the final starter for UCLA at left guard. This spring Darius Savage tops the depth chart, so the natural question would be whether or not Savage is an upgrade over Micah Kia. If I polled just based on that it would be a little deceptive since Darius Savage also started multiple games at left guard last season. So... yikes.

To confuse things even more we have Eddie Williams listed at guard and Stan Hasiak also listed at guard coming in this summer both of whom are expected to compete for playing time in 2009. Please comment if you can fill in any more details for us than what is in these guys' bios. I for one would love to hear any thoughts on our guard situation in 2009.

At right guard we have Nick Ekbatani. Nick was our only lineman to start all 12 games and he's an experienced senior, something we are lacking on the O-line, so I tend to think he'll make the starting lineup again, which would leave four guys who either played last year or are highly touted incoming players to compete for the starting spot at left guard. That is good news for an upgrade in my mind.

I think we all know what the the results of this poll are going to look like, so let's also discuss to what degree this position will be improved. I think what we're looking at for this year at least is a marginal upgrade in either talent with a guy like Hasiak, or experience, with Savage, Kia, or Williams. I can't say what would be best though. However it all washes out, we are finally going to have depth and some guys with experience at guard this season.  

Is the combination of Hasiak, Savage, Kia, and Williams, an upgrade from last year's Kia and Savage?