I mentioned this in the preseason, but when Phil Steele is ranking three of our linemen in his Top 50 rankings, that's huge. Two Guards, Lechner and Herman, and Center Allen made his list. That's pretty good for any program let alone a MAC school.
Lechner will be All-MAC, but not this year, because he's not even starting, at least, most games. Carlotta, Herman, and Allen all deserve consideration for All-MAC, but so does McGrath, who is having an amazing first year as a starter, and Prior is playing well, too. It wouldn't surprise me if Herman gets drafted, either.
As an aside, it's a shame the old Bobcatattack archives have been deleted. When the offer was made to Herman, some clown came on and posted ad nauseam about what a mistake Ohio had made, and how his friend was a much better choice, and that Herman would be awful... I'd love to go back and find that thread and see whatever happened to the guy that clown was touting as better than Herman.
Back on subject, the offensive line has shown steady improvement over the last 8 years. The way I see it, the initial line, in 2005, was pretty good...until the BG game, when 3 starters were injured in one 5 minute period, and there was really no one behind them. From that point on it was a struggle. The 2005 class had a lot of linemen, but you don't take a high school kid and turn him into a college level player overnight. It takes years in the weight room. Unfortunately, a lot of those early players had career ending injuries, so it was 2 steps forward, 1 step back. Paul Johnson, Flowers, Laudermilch, Black, Britain, Philbin, Bunner, and Ferrainolo and just some of the names I recall of injured linemen. Each year, however, the quality of the recruits kept getting better, and that seems to still be true. Thus I don't think that the line quality has peaked yet - it is still getting better and better.