Undone

I wish I would have rephrased that original comment in this way: "If our offensive line isn't playing motivated, the responsibility falls on Greg Austin to fix the problem."

I know. Starting to feel almost painful that, given that Moos clearly opened up a blank check to turn this thing around, our leadership (including Frost) didn't go that route. I have grave concerns about Chinander. He has a ton to prove.

I had big concerns about both depth and quality, but then those concerns largely went away when: 1. Mills starting reading his blocks better. 2. We started seeing how well Wan'Dale can fill in at RB in a pinch. Mills is a really durable back that's suited for B1G play. The real, underlying problem is that our line just doesn't execute blocks very well. If they did, the addition of Mills would have us in a pretty good situation IMO with our RBs.

I won't name names, but I've seen quite a few posters that seems to be personally offended that reality didn't meet expectations. That's just a thing that happens sometimes as a college football fan and in life in general. I'm really directing the comment more at that crowd.

He's too short in my opinion to be expected to be a 'great' tackle. I could see him at guard for sure. His body type and natural athleticism leans him more towards being a center. I'm honestly fairly confident he'll be a good one in a season or two. And I can wait patiently. From your first post in this thread: I think it's a good assessment. My main contention though at this point is that in year 2, this falls back to Greg Austin. Greg coaches the squad, and he's responsible for their success. If <insert_lineman_here> isn't "playing motivated football," Greg needs to put a guy in that is. This is not directed at you now, BRB, but I see a bit of hesitancy to criticize this staff because the Prodigal Son is at the helm. I think that is unnecessary, and I think Austin deserves some criticism. He can't control the body size of the guys he has to work with, I'll definitely give him that.

Nothing wrong with it either way, agreed. We all know that we find out whether it's true when the games are played. It's kind of on the fans for buying into hype. I think it's a stupid argument to somehow be butthurt that we sucked after all of the inflation; that's on you & me if we bought into it. You gotta love Paul Chryst's approach, though. The guy plays it low key and lets his team do the talking. Frost is definitely getting humbled a bit right now in my opinion. He came in riding a huge wave of confidence from that 2017 season and I imagine has probably faced some disbelief in how hard it is to actually win a bunch of games in the B1G. The need to retool for this conference is more glaring than ever. The fans should be following our offensive line recruiting & development and also to understand that position takes time to build up. If you can't accept that, that's also on you.

First want to say that I agree with your basic premise, for sure. I could make a good argument by posting clips and analyzing plays that supports the claim that Ohio State is actually running a spread offense that is similar to what quite a few PAC 12 teams do under Ryan Day. The difference is that their offensive line recruiting, size, development, and preparation is as good as any in the country and this then allows them to run power whenever they feel like it with a 'feature back' type of running back. Their all star offensive line allows them to do this. I'm a broken record with this, but if guys like Benhart, Banks, & Corcoran stay on/get to campus and stick with this program we'll be a different football team in 2-3 years. I don't mind waiting for that time to come. I'm excited about those players. But I'm not falling for spring ball/fall camp hype next year, and also in my opinion Chinander has a ton to prove next year.

And I think it's plain as day that the quick sideline WR screen plays from last year have just been eradicated from the playbook. I agree with your observation. It's not to say that Frost doesn't have a really, really good reason that he hasn't adjusted in this regard. I will fully give him the benefit of the doubt that such a reason exists. But while you're watching the game, it's perplexing as to why we don't go quickly outside on a pass play on designed throws to go to one guy.

Another thing that's a bit confusing is why Frost calls so many inside zones when Washington is in there. I can understand the idea that the opponent will think you're running outside the tackles when he's in, so then you do the opposite...but man, he just isn't built for that kind of running and it takes a pretty quick toll on his body. When we come back from our bye week, I'd love to try something different and start Mills. Give him some outside power tosses in our two tight end sets.

Yeah, that was my basic line of thinking. The thing about those RB screen plays is that you don't need the biggest, strongest Wisconsin-style linemen to execute that play. You just need five guys and a tight end that are well prepared and look for a chip block after a certain 'count' after the snap. It's just so infuriating because both Wan'Dale & Washington are the perfect kind of players to run that play with...but a safety comes in and just crushes our RB unblocked.

Just a theory here. I'm betting that in practices that the delayed RB screen plays to Wan'Dale look pretty awesome because our front seven is just plain bad. Then in game situations when we face a smart defense where each player is maintaining his space and reading the play intelligently, our offense just can't block. Watching that play fail over and over this season has been miserable.

The reason he gets pancaked is because he doesn't set his feet behind him, plant, and slam forward with leverage. He's basically upright. Look at the difference between him, Jaimes, Jurgens, & Farniok as far as position angle to confirm. It reeks of not having your head in the game and also just being poorly prepared to play the position. Need some bigger bodies in there that start hitting their squats, cleans, overhead press, and the dinner table starting in January.

There's just so much that's confusing about what we've done on defense so far in this staff's young career here that I'm not even sure where to begin. We have the bodies to play in a traditional 3-4. Chinander just isn't doing it. To my eye, he's way too keen on being cute and having a ton of different situational looks. This isn't directed at you Ern but at a lot of other posters here: It's fine to say that some of our seniors are talent-less and that this is the reason for our struggles. I personally disagree and believe that it's coaching. But regardless, there is no excuse next year. Next year we'll have JoJo as a senior and both Tannor and Miller as juniors. So there'll be no more excuses of "well, we're young" or "well, we're ________."

If I'm not mistaken, Hixson got benched because he got pancaked. How is it that we've recruited these four star guards like John Raridon and then instead of them seeing the field we see a walk-on? WTF are we doing wrong with our offensive line coaching and more importantly offensive line DEVELOPMENT to be in this position? I'm honestly surprised that Hixson got benched at all. But there's no use at singling out certain individual offensive linemen's play at this point. Here's the bottom line: As a unit, we can't pass block. We suck as a pass blocking unit and it's killing the season.

Probably will draw some fire for this but don't care. Barrett Ruud needs to get a hold of Colin Miller and coach this over-pursuing bug out of him. It's too late for Mo Barry, but not for the younger guys.