I think too much handwringing is going on about 3-4 versus 4-3. The truth is we used a number of different combos on the DL last year. Sometimes they were opponent-driven (lighter vs Purdue, heavier vs Stanford), sometimes situational (obvious passing situations, short yardage, goal line, etc), and still other times linemen were rotated to keep people fresh.

We are likely to use up to seven or eight different linemen and ends this year, and in various combos and alignments depending on opponent, situation, and energy replenishment.

Here are a number of DL combos we used in 2008. Even this is superficial; within these groupings, alignments and techniques may have varied. But this should give an idea of the various combinations we used.

Players who saw time on the DL:

9 Johnson
45 Fleming
53 Richardson
56 Neal
90 Ryan
91 Nwankwo
94 Brown
95 I. Williams
96 Kuntz

Reading from left to right along the line:

56 96 94 90
94 95 96 90
-- 94 96 90
56 9 94 90
56 9 94 45
94 95 96 90
-- 96 94 90
56 9 96 45
9 96 90 --
56 9 96 90
45 9 95 53
9 94 56 --
56 96 94 45
-- 9 96 45
45 9 94 90
53 9 95 45
53 9 94 90
56 96 95 94
45 9 96 53
-- 9 96 53
56 95 45 --
96 95 91 94
94 96 9 90
45 9 94 53
etc.

If we want to forecast something, let's figure out who's going to replace Brown and Kuntz. Each of them appeared a lot, and mostly on the inside, with Brown occasionally lining up on the end. If we agree that we need 8-9 players to fill out the rotation, and we know we have seven (or eight):

9 Johnson
45 Fleming (possible move to linebacker?)
53 Richardson
56 Neal
+89 Lewis-Moore
90 Ryan
91 Nwankwo
95 I. Williams
[ ]
[ ]

that leaves two spots to fill to take over for Kuntz and Brown.