Just what are we going to need to do to bring the title back the corn state?

[The Dude]

I read many good ideas for what we need to get over the hump. To me the key to winning more and bigger football games is the offensive and defensive lines. Until we have the big uglies who can dominate their opponent in the trenches we will stumble in the big games. We have solid Qb's, Rb's and receivers. We seem to have more speed coming on the defensive back 7. What I'm not seeing in our recruiting is those incredible giants that set the tone in a big game.

 

Two examples I give are:

 

1. Nebraska's national championship teams had big guys on both sides of the line who could rip your head off and play error free.

 

2. Alabama a few nights ago dominated what was thought to be a pretty good D line of ND.

 

Control the line of scrimmage .....control the game. Eat up the clock and keep the other teams offense off the field.

I think part of it is recruiting. We seem to do a very good job recruiting "skill" players, but continue to struggle with the trenches. Part of it is recruiting to our offensive scheme. 320+lb guys who can move like we need them to are very rare, and often come with 5 stars next to their name.

 

I can appreciate the great job our offensive line did this year, but we won't flat out dominate many teams like Bama did until we see a huge boost in recruiting, or change the offense. Personally, I'm fine with the direction our offensive line has been going the last couple seasons. We don't necessarily need to be dominant all the time, just good enough to have a very good, very productive offense; capable of explosive plays - and we do. Playing the ball control game - controlling the clock- is overrated. Explosive plays is the biggest reason Alabama dominated. The luxury of playing ball control was just a byproduct of having a huge lead.

 

 

I've said for the last 3 seasons the biggest thing our defense lacks is big, strong, physical defensive tackles. Crick was a little undersized for the defense we run, but he made it work because he was very strong and athletic for his size. He's the exception and not the rule. We need to sign bigger, stronger tackles. Outside of Valentine, we've mostly failed to do so. Hopefully guys like Collins and Curry have the strength to dominate the line of scrimmage, like Crick often did.