The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga has a bevy of talented athletes at the running back, wide receiver and tight end positions. The Mocs also have a pair of skilled quarterbacks with big arms.
Yet if they don't have a quality offensive line, those other players won't get many chances to shine.
Midway through the second week of camp, the group up front - much-maligned a year ago - has made significant strides. That's in part due to some talented additions, but also due to progress from players already in the system.
UTC quarterbacks were sacked a Southern Conference-high 34 times in 2017, a number that ranked 109th in protection in the Football Championship Subdivision. The unit slowly got better as the season went along, but that improvement was from bad to just OK.
Now, with a season and an offseason, the unit looks and feels better.
"Just in a couple of weeks, what we saw over summertime, they've gone from being a group that was very young that had some experience and we were going to push to keep improving - keep getting better but still very thin - to now being a group that has good depth," UTC head coach Tom Arth said recently. "They've really taken a big step forward in development as individuals and as a unit, so I've been really pleased with that group.
"I think they're protecting better. They get the opportunity to go against a good pass rush every day - and we have some really good rushers, and there have been some great pressures our defense has been bringing - so it's tough, but we're doing a better job in pass protection and a better job in the run game."
The coaching staff wasted no time changing the look of the line in the offseason. It started with adding recruits Dylan Cole and Zach Fox. Next came Mississippi State transfer Harrison Moon, who spent the spring with the program. The coaches continued to add with Georgia transfer Chris Barnes; then Noah Ramsey decided to move on from Louisiana-Monroe.
Barnes, Moon and Ramsey have been working with the first team since camp began, along with junior and two-year starter Malcolm White and sophomore Cole Strange, who is listed at 275 but looks much bigger this preseason.
Add in 2017 starter Taylor Helton, Luke Schultheiss, Brian Marshall, Tyler Martin and redshirt freshman McClendon Curtis, and the team is looking at turning last season's most glaring weakness into a strength with not only skill, but depth.
A good sign for the coaching staff is that only Schultheiss is a senior. The youth should give the Mocs opportunities to continue to develop over the next couple of seasons.
"We've made steady progress as we went last year through the spring, and steady progression to get where we've gotten right now," offensive line coach Nick Hennessey said. "We're better, but it's only a week and a half into practice so I can't say exactly where we're at right now, but I know every day we've gotten better than we were the day before for the last year and a half, so we're better now than we were.
"What's great is that they're all a tight-knit group right now where they're all pretty close with each other. They work well together, they challenge each other and they compete with each other."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3.