(11-27-2019, 08:52 AM)BostonCard Wrote: Yeah, every time I watch us do an inside handoff from the shotgun, I have nightmares of the Buddy Teevens shotgun draw.
I agree that our run game is slow to develop. I'm not sure if that is by design, to give the running back a chance to read the hole or if it is just that our linemen are not as adept at creating the hole in the first place.
BC
Another issue is that we switched from man blocking to zone blocking quite a few years ago. This change has also taken place across most of football, and is (at least partially) caused by defenses presenting different fronts (and then shifting or slanting) to make man blocking difficult. This makes an exact "point of attack" difficult to define and almost requires that the back read the play and choose a hole, as opposed to just running to a spot. This read will inevitably slow down the play.
As to the ability of our OL to make a hole at least someplace in the defense, it does seem to have generally declined. Currently, on some significant percentage of our running plays, you see a lineman blocking nobody. This is clearly some kind of misread or the defense has created a numerical advantage by guessing right/reading the play. It used to be that the defense had a pretty good idea that they would see lots of "power" but still couldn't stop it. I think the staff decided that the defenses had evolved to the point that they could stop it, and we switched blocking schemes.
That worked for a while, but then we also had two backs (CMAC and BL) who were very good but would be wasted running power all the time. They were both "patient" runners who could change direction on a dime. That led to changes in the offense that resulted in a running game that became progressively less effective. For a while, we had a "feast or famine" game that relied on just creating a crease for BL occasionally. When he got hurt, that quit working and we became a "pass and pray the receiver can out-fight the DB for the ball" team. At the end of this year, we became a "pass only" team.
Right now, running game wise, we don't know what our "bread and butter" is, if we have any. Next year, we have two backs that, while possibly good runners, are not very big. So far, they haven't shown me anything that inspires confidence. Granted, we have been using several freshmen OL. However, most of them have played the better part of a year, so you would expect our running game should be improving. No sign of that. It used to be conventional wisdom that teaching run blocking was easier than teaching pass blocking, because in run blocking the OL was attacking and knew what to do without "thinking" while pass blocking required reacting to what the defense did. That may no longer be the case. Anybody know? We also have a tackle who is a junior and was supposed to be one of the best in America. Yet we can't make one yard running right against Cal.
IMHO, this collective lack of a running game is the most serious, by far, question for the offense. This needs to get fixed, or else the offense will be in serious trouble next year. We don't have the personnel or intention of running an Air Raid. We absolutely need to be at least balanced, if not run-heavy. That is Shaw's stated goal in the past. This is an area where the coaching staff does need to "do something" to fix the problem.
