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I have a group of friends who are convinced we telegraph our plays and everyone knows we do it but us, and everyone knows the tell. This explanation is a warm and fuzzy way of explaining our dismal offensive efforts running. But I suppose it should not be ignored as a possibility.
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There's a theory that spares you having to rewatch the games and try to determine what happened, what worked, and what didn't.
It's flawed. Just watch opposing defenses before, just before, and at the snap, particularly the linebackers and safeties. Are they cheating up and to the play side?
They aren't.
If you rewatch the games--it's not easy--you are certain to see that, with an average of maybe two exceptions a game, our offensive linemen are not finishing their blocks. Their steps are ok, their initial strikes aren't bad, but the finishes are missing. Only rarely is there room to run.
Little is a pass blocker. He's got a weak strike and doesn't have the lower body to finish and drive back his man. Needs a year of explosive lower body work. Can't imagine the NFL beckoning him next year.
This describes Hamilton. Very good feet, weak punch, not enough drive. A much bigger tight end. Play him at RT.
Hall has a few moments run blocking; he threw a terrific block--what may have been our only pancake this season--on Love's TD. (Herbig had a nice block on the play too.) But Hall doesn't have enough of those moments, and his penalty-proneness has killed us far too often.
Burkett's a good center. Doesn't get pushed around but isn't someone you run behind.
Fanaika has struggled to beat out Hamilton. which is telling. A decent, but only decent run blocker, a liability in pass blocking.
Herbig is good. A terrific pass blocker--amazing agility for a man that big--and a good run blocker.
The tight ends don't block nearly as well as Schultz. Smith had a fine block in the SC game and none since. Fisk had one, too, but. . .Still young so there's hope.
None of the WR's approach Rector as a downfield blocker, although that's a high bar. Not sure that any approach Cajuste, either. A few more downfield blocks would make our numbers a little better.
In an ideal world, a simple change of play callers would fix our problem. But there is no such thing as a good play behind poor blocking. A more "creative" play is just a more interesting way to reveal your OL's weaknesses, and this Stanford OL has too many of them--although there were some positive signs against ND.
We had a similar problem last year. Our run failure rate was very high, but Love's brobdingnagian runs obscured that to some degree and often compensated for it. Replacing Bloomgren with Tavita hasn't really changed much. Bright would help a little bit, and the finish issues for our guys could be partly injury-related. If that's the case, we may see improvement as they, we hope, get back to 100%.
I have a group of friends who are convinced we telegraph our plays and everyone knows we do it but us, and everyone knows the tell. This explanation is a warm and fuzzy way of explaining our dismal offensive efforts running. But I suppose it should not be ignored as a possibility.
[/quote]
There's a theory that spares you having to rewatch the games and try to determine what happened, what worked, and what didn't.
It's flawed. Just watch opposing defenses before, just before, and at the snap, particularly the linebackers and safeties. Are they cheating up and to the play side?
They aren't.
If you rewatch the games--it's not easy--you are certain to see that, with an average of maybe two exceptions a game, our offensive linemen are not finishing their blocks. Their steps are ok, their initial strikes aren't bad, but the finishes are missing. Only rarely is there room to run.
Little is a pass blocker. He's got a weak strike and doesn't have the lower body to finish and drive back his man. Needs a year of explosive lower body work. Can't imagine the NFL beckoning him next year.
This describes Hamilton. Very good feet, weak punch, not enough drive. A much bigger tight end. Play him at RT.
Hall has a few moments run blocking; he threw a terrific block--what may have been our only pancake this season--on Love's TD. (Herbig had a nice block on the play too.) But Hall doesn't have enough of those moments, and his penalty-proneness has killed us far too often.
Burkett's a good center. Doesn't get pushed around but isn't someone you run behind.
Fanaika has struggled to beat out Hamilton. which is telling. A decent, but only decent run blocker, a liability in pass blocking.
Herbig is good. A terrific pass blocker--amazing agility for a man that big--and a good run blocker.
The tight ends don't block nearly as well as Schultz. Smith had a fine block in the SC game and none since. Fisk had one, too, but. . .Still young so there's hope.
None of the WR's approach Rector as a downfield blocker, although that's a high bar. Not sure that any approach Cajuste, either. A few more downfield blocks would make our numbers a little better.
In an ideal world, a simple change of play callers would fix our problem. But there is no such thing as a good play behind poor blocking. A more "creative" play is just a more interesting way to reveal your OL's weaknesses, and this Stanford OL has too many of them--although there were some positive signs against ND.
We had a similar problem last year. Our run failure rate was very high, but Love's brobdingnagian runs obscured that to some degree and often compensated for it. Replacing Bloomgren with Tavita hasn't really changed much. Bright would help a little bit, and the finish issues for our guys could be partly injury-related. If that's the case, we may see improvement as they, we hope, get back to 100%.