Final take: Jurgens and Hixson have the early leg up on two open line spots

We give our final take on spring practice as we look back on each position group. Today we look at Nebraska's offensive line.

Related: QB | RB | WR

A year ago we got a pretty good snapshot of how offensive line coach Greg Austin wants to go about doing things.

Austin has been on record multiple times saying his mission is to find the "best five" linemen and put them on the field.

That might mean moving a tackle to guard or a guard to center. We saw that a year ago with Tanner Farmer. NU went with Farmer over Cole Conrad at center to get Boe Wilson on the field. That move ended up being a spark for the offense.

This spring, Austin tried several different combinations. We know at this point juniors Boe Wilson, Matt Farniok and Brenden Jaimes are the three pieces to build the line around for 2019. After that, redshirt freshmen Cameron Jurgens and Will Farniok, sophomore Trenton Hixon and senior Christian Gaylord appear to be the other four guys that got a look for one of the two open spots.

Today, Hixson (left guard) and Jurgens (center) appear to have the leg up. However, we saw combinations of Matt Farniok at left guard and Gaylord at right tackle this spring.

Austin continues to give himself plenty of different looks and options and, quite frankly, that's what spring practice and Fall Camp are for.

Make no bones about it, if things go according to plan, Jurgens should be Nebraska's starting center in 2019.

However, there are still a lot of questions that need to be answered. Can Jurgens stay healthy and operate well at his new weight of over 280 pounds?

Jurgens hasn't finished a football season healthy since his junior year of high school. He suffered a broken leg/ankle as a senior and a foot injury this past season for the Huskers. There were even some rumors this spring his foot was still giving him some problems over the winter. How will that foot and Jurgens body respond to the weight he's put on in the last year?

Everything is there for this move to make Scott Frost look like a genius; Jurgens needs to prove now his body is up to the challenge. It's also going take a lot of film work and studying over the off-season to learn and master all of the offensive line calls.

If Frost and Austin had their druthers, they'd find a Trent Hixson in Nebraska every year as a walk-on.

The Omaha Skutt product came to Nebraska after South Dakota pulled their offer and other Dakota schools passed on him. Hixson has everything you want in a good walk-on. At 6-foot-4, he was very lean and had a wrestling background, placing fifth as a junior and second as a senior for the powerhouse SkyHawks.

He's taken that attitude and developed into one of the better young walk-ons in the program and has a real chance to be on scholarship for his final three years at NU.

When you see guys like Hixson develop, this is a perfect example of why the walk-on program is still very important. Not every in-state player is offer material as a senior, but within two to three years several of them might be able to get to that level.

The Huskers will add the most length in program history to their offensive line this summer when four true freshmen, ranging from 6-foot-7 to 6-foot-9, will join the program.

Of that group, Minnesota native Bryce Benhart is the most intriguing. The 6-foot-9, 300-pound Benhart is fresh off winning the heavyweight wrestling title in Minnesota and has one of the better frames we've seen on an incoming lineman in several years.

What will be the plan for a guy like Benhart? I think a lot of it will be based on the reports strength and conditioning coach Zach Duval gives to Frost and the coaching staff. If he's somebody they think can play right away, they are going to fast track him this summer.

The beauty is NU has the four-game redshirt rule to possibly get him on the field early in some of the non-conference games.