Let me start this by saying I love Ryan Bartholomew. He is the best player on the offensive line, their leader and the rock in the middle. When he was temporarily injured on Saturday, I feared the O-line would not be able to recover without him.
That being said, Syracuse needs a shotgun snapper. Nassib was taking hits before he even set up his drops yesterday, and that could have been easily solved by going into the shotgun. If Big Bart can't do it, Marrone needs to find someone who will.
Relax now ... I'm not saying you bench the best player on a mediocre offensive line. That would just be foolish. There's a precedent for this though, with the 2001 New England Patriots. Damien Woody was a fantastic center at the time, who could not snap the ball in the shotgun. The Patriots didn't want to lose that part of their offense, and they also didn't want to take one of their best players off the O-line, so they would slide Mike Compton (a guard) over to center for shotgun plays and move Woody to guard. They did this all season, including in a 20-17 win over the Rams to earn the franchise its first of three super bowl titles.
Bartholomew has played guard before, so it wouldn't be much of a challenge for him to slide over a spot occasionally during the game. The question is, can one of the guards move over to center and snap shotgun. Frankly, it's not that hard to do. The shotgun snap is nowhere near as difficult as a long snap, but sometimes players like Bart get the yips and simply can't do it.
It's worth a try, because opposing teams will follow the Louisville blueprint the rest of the season and bring the heat on Nassib. If he can't get a head start into his drops, he won't stand a chance to be successful.
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