I wonder if HCSF keeps calling endless horizontal passes (that go nowhere) only because nothing else even remotely works?
So what exactly is wrong with our OLine?
- Thread starter dand84
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I wonder if HCSF keeps calling endless horizontal passes (that go nowhere) only because nothing else even remotely works?
I think the lack of depth on this team has had a big impact on the results. When you don't have a suitable replacement it's difficult to hold your starters accountable. Right now, you can blow assignment after assignment and still keep your job. That goes for pretty much all positions on the team.
Really, how many teams have the luxury of replacing someone when they make a mistake or two or three. MAYBE the top 2-3 teams. Name another team in the league besides tOSU that has that kind of depth.
Haha It was a good post, but post of the year? Nah, not really, but thanks anyway. I know we agree on this topic. Some of our fellow fans just need a little more patience.
A lot of fans are mistakenly blaming strength and conditioning for lack of aggression and attitude. The former is objective and measurable, the latter is subjective and harder to measure or manage.
Strength and conditioning has become a handy excuse for poor line play. All these guys are strong enough to battle in the B10, they are more than 18 month's into Duvall's S&C program Players and coaches have stated that the program is an unqualified success. If its conditioning then the coaches should have had that issue fixed in Fall camp.
Zach Sterup was a kid who played much better as a guard than a tackle. It can happen.
We dont even throw that many, so I dont know why people get so worked up about it. they would work just fine if the qb led the WR correctly.
But, but, but, but, ......we weren't really get beat physically. (I joke) The replays I saw we were getting our butts whipped.
Zatechka's podcast was really good about the offense in general. He specifically mentions that Farniok is too heavy (slow), Wilson and Hixson are too small. He didn't mention Jaimes but in my book he looks pretty slender but he's also injured. He also stresses the lack of playmakers at the skill positions. We don't have a WR who can stretch the defense (because our speed guys make too many mistakes so they don't play) and we don't have an every down feature back. Mo and Wandale are 3rd down guys and special play guys. We need a big badass feature back like Devine.
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Yeah, it's clear we are really hurting at WR. We've gotten little from the TEs which has been a huge disappointment. Mills hasn't been near the player we were hoping for, though I do think he can improve if we get him the ball more.
Yeah, it's clear we are really hurting at WR. We've gotten little from the TEs which has been a huge disappointment. Mills hasn't been near the player we were hoping for, though I do think he can improve if we get him the ball more.
Wonder why Hixson got planted in Vedral's lap then. To their credit they tried somebody else shortly after that. You know though, when they don't disclose injuries, it's probably bad to rag on individual guys. You just don't know what they might be dealing with. I got the impressioin that Zatechka thinks our O line got whipped. I agree that our D line held up pretty well for the most part. Their job is to occupy as many blockers as possible and then the linebackers are supposed to clean up. Our linebackers didn't play well IMO. Too many bad fits.
I kept hoping that the would feed Mills more and maybe slow down their pace a little. Once they got down 3 TDs my sense was that they felt they needed to try to score quickly. I wonder if Mills is nicked up too. The WR spot has really been disappointing. We clearly have some guys with good speed but they like to false start, don't block well and don't run great routes. It's why a guy like Warner can get reps and make plays even with his limited speed.
The D line's job isn't just to occupy blockers. They should also be making the running back second guess where the hole is and how they should hit it. They didn't do that at all and instead let the running back run exactly where he wanted and hit every cutback lane at full speed. A good Dline doesn't allow that. It puts a ton of pressure on your linebackers to properly fill and be in position to tackle if the running back is allowed to hit the hole at full speed every play.
In a 3-4 when your NT and DEs are getting doubled at the point of attack, they're not going to be able to dictate sh## to a RB. It really doesn't matter which direction the RB is headed. He's going to daylight no matter where the DE or NT goes. Its the LINEBACKER's job to fill the void that's left.no matter where the hell it is. The problem is that our linebackers are so bad at fits that teams don't usually even have to worry about them. I agree that at times our DEs got pushed in to a pile with our NT, but good heavens 660 lbs usually wins over 300lbs. What the hell are they supposed to do?
Hoping warner is able to play a bunch down the stretch. He gets open and catches the ball, two fairly important traits in a WR.
Football IQ is very important and can make a guy play faster than his 40 time would seem to indicate. Jay Foreman was a perfect example. The guy was just phenomenal at always being in the right place at the right time even though he maybe lacked a tick of foot speed. I keep thinking we're going to see a walk on play at linebacker who maybe is able to fill a cutback lane or shed a block to make a tackle.
You know the solution to that right? The only way your players are going to get better is by practicing at full speed. Say you're starting at a lower level than another team. If you're practicing at full speed and they're practicing at half speed, eventually full speed is going to get easier and you're going to catch up to that other team.
It seems we've done the opposite of that. We are so concerned about injuries to the few good players we have that we don't go as hard in practice. We allow our players to take it easy in a sense. Then it's no surprise that our players don't get any better or some even get worse. I'd much rather our players go hard and run things full speed in practice. Yeah you may be risking injury, but at least your players will actually develop. I think the benefits would far outweigh the risk.
You can use a double team to your advantage. If our dline was actually capable of putting up any kind of resistance, you can squeeze the offensive lineman into the gap and block the lane for the running back without a defensive player actually occupying that gap. Of course I've never seen our dline do anything like that, but good lines are capable of that.
- I'm sure "back in the day" in high school you and Al Bundy could take on a double team and squeeze the O line in to a gap. You just want to ***** without really looking at what is happening. Do you even watch the games? Have you even looked at what happened to our linebackers on big runs? I'm done arguing with you. All you want to do is ***** about our D line and I think you're off base. On almost every running play it's 6 versus our 3 d-linemen because our linebackers are no where near where they need to be OR they follow the RB on a read option when the QB keeps the ball.
In a 3-4 our MLB are going to have to defeat guards. Mo is a stud but he’s undersized. Honas too but he’s a little quicker through traffic. Read how Pete Carroll ran some 3-4 at Seattle. Get guys like Bobby Wagner and KJ Wright at around 240lbs that run 4.4s, press man on the outside, Earl Thomas in centerfield running numbers to numbers, drop Kam Chancellor into the box for run support. Easy. Our constant cover 2 is getting eaten up in the run game.
I'm not arguing that the linebackers and safeties aren't doing their jobs, but the defensive line isn't either. It usually takes at least 2 players on defense not executing as well as they should in order for a positive offensive play to happen. Yeah it's true the linebackers aren't filling against the run like they should. But it's also true that the Dline isn't capable of disrupting much of anything. Watch Clemson or Bama and half of the plays are completely stuffed before the offense is even capable of getting past the line of scrimmage and it's entirely due to the defensive line.
Are you insane? You think we have the D lne talent that Clemson and Bama have? Last time I checked, SUH GRADUATED quite a few years ago. We DO have a guy committed right now who might be that kind of player but your expectations for our D line are WAY out of whack with reality.
My gut feeling is the main culprit has something to do with how they are practicing. We have heard "practices were great" "We had a good week of practice" "Best Practice ever" We have even had people say, who have watched practices that they look really good.
So for whatever reason what is being done in practices are not preparing these players for live in game action. Now is that because the coaches aren't preparing them or is in the talent level each side is facing is sub par. Iron sharpens Iron, but rust just brings more rust. So our offense looks great and clean against our piss poor D, but face a competent D and things fall apart. Same with our D. The D looks good and fast against our crap offense, but against a good offense they look horrible. I do think it is just going to take getting more talent, getting guys in the S&C for 2 3 and 4 years. Getting guys who have been in the same system with the same coaches for more than a year or 2.
We also still have to remember 15 of 23 starters are still MR guys. So yes the overall roster is mostly Frost guys. The guys doing the work on the field are majority of MR. If there still is a bad mentality in those players it is going to take getting them out of here to know for sure. Now I agree with some that almost 2 years in there really is no reason this should still be an issue that falls on Frost, but I have no idea how that works or how long it takes to fix bad work ethic and mentality on a team. I know many are saying if these players don't want to put in 100% every time then bench them. That is great in theory but if the guy below them isn't ready all that is doing is hurting them mentally and possible getting them injured.
Yes I see a lot of half speed stuff and guys not playing through the whole play. You do that in practice all the time and it's going to carry over to games. Every opportunity this staff gets, they take it to do more installs instead of scrimmaging. They did that during one of the last weeks of fall camp where they skipped the scrimmage to focus on installs.
Also with some of the drills I don't understand what running under an obstacle before catching a ball accomplishes. I've never seen a situation in a game where you'd have to run under an obstacle before catching a pass. Every Oline drill I see is like jr high level stuff. They do this sidestep drill at a walking pace and they do this other drill where they jerk the guy and barely move him. They use that same "technique" during games and people wonder why we can't get any push or why our O lineman are getting dominated and controlled by the other guy with their jr high level technique. I've never seen the Oline running a drill at full speed or simulate a situation where they have to pick up a blitz. And imagine that, they're not able to do those things during games either.
Frost said himself coming in here that the team plays like it practices. He also said that practices should simulate as close as possible real game situations. He is right about that, that's how your players develop and get better. Unfortunately this staff hasn't been practicing what they've been preaching. The results you see on the field- the undisciplined play, the missed tackles, players not knowing their assignment, not playing at full speed, etc., it's all a result of what they do in practice everyday. Practices need to get a heck of a lot better, not just from the players but the coaches as well, before we start to see improvement on gamedays.
I agree completely, but my question is, why would Frost come out and say they didn't really get blown off the ball, etc., etc.? It was obvious to anyone watching. Another thing, when you get in a goal line situation - shouldn't we have went with a bigger front on D? There were 6 jumbo OL's going against 3 DL's - that's never going to work.
These are pretty bold statements coming from someone (I am assuming here, correct me if I am incorrect) who has never been to a practice or several practices.
What you are really saying is the coaches are wasting time installing new stuff and not teaching anything if value. Hmmm
When everybody is slow and not playing at the level they should be, I can see how it would be hard to evaluate how good your players actually are. Your offense may be able to move the ball on your defense in practice, but not be able to do it in games. And that's because your defense isn't very good either.
As far as UCF goes, I get the impression that their prior coach was a hardass and they probably quit on him his last year, but those players knew how to play hard because of his prior coaching. When Frost came in at UCF, those players had a different mentality than when he got here with Riley giving everybody sprinkles.
As far as UCF goes, I get the impression that their prior coach was a hardass and they probably quit on him his last year, but those players knew how to play hard because of his prior coaching. When Frost came in at UCF, those players had a different mentality than when he got here with Riley giving everybody sprinkles.
Literally almost every other team in the B1G has better depth across its full roster than NU does right now this year.
That should change within a year or two and NU should pull up behind OSU, UM, and PSU in terms of star power on the roster.
They can install new stuff but they can also run things at full speed. Those things aren't mutually exclusive. No I don't go to practices but I don't need to. The same thing I saw in those little practice clips during fall camp is the same way this team plays on Saturday's. Guys that are walking around doing things half speed in practice and not playing through the whole play, it's no different than what you see on gameday.
The QBs I don't blame quite as much, when you're about to get mowed over by a 4-man rush from Minnesota on every play, how comfortable can you possibly look?
Vedral starting a game showed me just how much pass blocking failure Adrian has been masking with his ability to avoid pressure.