Offensive line assignments

[rolldog]

Question for the X's and O's guys here.  4th quarter, midway through the quarter, Tanner gets sacked on 4th down.  Purdue was rushing 4, our LT takes one guy, another guy goes free, LG, C and RG are blocking one man and the RT is blocking another.  The RB is shielded by the LT but then goes to the left into the flat.  The "free" Purdue defender goes after Tanner and takes him down.

 

My questions.  What the hell happened here?  Did one of our OL miss an assignment?  Did someone call the wrong blocking assignments?  Was the RB supposed to take the Purdue rusher?  I can't even say the guy was a blitzer as they only rushed 4 and I think he was a lineman.  Did Tanner call something incorrectly?  Is our OL stupid?

 

It seems that this happens quite a bit during the game.  Obvious missed blocks, assignments, etc.  WTF?

[Mavric]

We basically have no communication on the OL.  We've struggled with anything out of the norm all year.  Even the simplest of blitzes or twists give us fits.

 

Guys are obviously confused on how the protection is supposed to work.  Not sure about the specific play you're referencing but there were several times during the game that we had three OL blocking two rushers inside while a different rusher came free through B gap.  That's pretty basic protection stuff that we are apparently terrible at.

[onlyHskrfaninIL]

my question is how much is it bad coaching vs bad players because its clearly both.

[Pedro Guerrero]

4 minutes ago, Mavric said:

We basically have no communication on the OL. 

 

To my untrained eye the communication on the OL was better when Decker is/was playing (healthy).  The OL play went downhill fast when he left  the game. 

[Pedro Guerrero]

2 minutes ago, onlyHskrfaninIL said:

my question is how much is it bad coaching vs bad players because its clearly both.

 

There are some OL that are a poopy (why they continue to play is beyond me) but the OL coach is a poopy also.  It's his job to get these guys prepared to play and if they aren't it's his job to remove them and put someone else in.

 

#68 isn't a LT and might be better suited to play RT.  #62 isn't a C and might be better suited to play RG.  #76 has been playing decent but as a True Frosh you have to expect ups and downs in his play.  There are also a couple younger OL that haven't even had a chance to play but were talked about early on (not playing them or sticking with guys that struggle is on Cav)

 

So I would say 70% coaching to 30% players (others on here will say 100% coaching).

[Nebfanatic]

We are so spotty and inconsistent here more than anywhere else though that is a problem that has plagued most of the team. Some plays the OL does a good job in protection even when the defense tries to do a stunt or twist, then the next play they look completely clueless out there and free rushers get to TL. 

[ColoradoHusk]

12 minutes ago, Pedro Guerrero said:

 

To my untrained eye the communication on the OL was better when Decker is/was playing (healthy).  The OL play went downhill fast when he left  the game. 

Decker is known to be a very smart guy, so I think he was able to make the calls on the o-line and help with the communication.  Hopefully he can make it back this week, because Conrad hasn't been good when he's been playing.

 

Regarding the coaching vs. players fault, it's definitely a mixture of both.  Cavanaugh has had a pretty bad o-line for 3 years now, so I put a lot of blame on him.  However, the players aren't blameless.  They are the ones out there playing and making the effort (or lack thereof).

[TonyStalloni]

53 minutes ago, rolldog said:

Question for the X's and O's guys here.  4th quarter, midway through the quarter, Tanner gets sacked on 4th down.  Purdue was rushing 4, our LT takes one guy, another guy goes free, LG, C and RG are blocking one man and the RT is blocking another.  The RB is shielded by the LT but then goes to the left into the flat.  The "free" Purdue defender goes after Tanner and takes him down.

 

My questions.  What the hell happened here?  Did one of our OL miss an assignment?  Did someone call the wrong blocking assignments?  Was the RB supposed to take the Purdue rusher?  I can't even say the guy was a blitzer as they only rushed 4 and I think he was a lineman.  Did Tanner call something incorrectly?  Is our OL stupid?

 

It seems that this happens quite a bit during the game.  Obvious missed blocks, assignments, etc.  WTF?

I remember this play and saying to myself "What in the world happened?"  LT was blocking the end, LG slid over to double team the Purdue DT while the other tackle had a clear shot to Tanner Lee.  We didn't even chip him and maybe the RB was supposed to stay home but who knows at this point.  Can't make those mistakes anytime but especially not 4th down.

[Crusader Husker]

3 minutes ago, TonyStalloni said:

I remember this play and saying to myself "What in the world happened?"  LT was blocking the end, LG slid over to double team the Purdue DT while the other tackle had a clear shot to Tanner Lee.  We didn't even chip him and maybe the RB was supposed to stay home but who knows at this point.  Can't make those mistakes anytime but especially not 4th down.

My initial read on the play is that the guard should stay home, then double team?  Not sure I will have to look at it again.  I will tell you this, our guys better start picking up our QB after they get him killed instead of standing there looking stupid.  It shows how many problems that group has to over come.  I thought it was interesting after the game watching our OL coach being the first one out of the locker room and sprinting to the bus.  He was the first one on the bus by at least 15 minutes.  That is when we left.  It looked weird.  

[Mavric]

Just now, ColoradoHusk said:

Decker is known to be a very smart guy, so I think he was able to make the calls on the o-line and help with the communication.  Hopefully he can make it back this week, because Conrad hasn't been good when he's been playing.

 

Regarding the coaching vs. players fault, it's definitely a mixture of both.  Cavanaugh has had a pretty bad o-line for 3 years now, so I put a lot of blame on him.  However, the players aren't blameless.  They are the ones out there playing and making the effort (or lack thereof).

 

My own personal opinion is that we're trying to do too much so the guys have a hard time keeping up with all the different protection schemes.  On one play Gates had two guys coming from his side.  He initially looked inside then turned to block outside as if he was expecting the RB to pick up the inside guy.  However, just as he got to the outside guy the RB got to the same guy so he tried to work back inside but it was too late.

 

Now obviously that might have been completely Gates' fault.  But it would seem like if there was always some straight-forward rule - block inside first, RB picks up LB, etc. - we wouldn't see as many screw-ups as we do.

 

But it's impossible to know from our end.

[Hedley Lamarr]

Always take the inside guy as a tackle and let RB pick up perimeter. Unblocked through the middle gives Tanner zero options but to get thrown to the ground. We always operated on inside has shortest path to QB

[Cdog923]

The communication (and quality of play, in general), goes to crap when Conrad is in for Decker. 

[NUinID]

I think they are asking them to do too much sometimes in their scheme.  They are getting to cute in the blocking assignments 

[Roll Skers]

I thought it was funny on that play how the guy who got the sack wasn't the free guy, it was the dude Gates was blocking that got the sack. lol

[BigRedBuster]

The entire "they are trying to do too much" doesn't fly with me.  These guys are trying to play Div 1 football at the highest level.  Teams all over the country are successful doing what we are doing.  There are also teams that are successful doing things differently than we are.  

On the particular play mentioned in the OP, when I saw it, I was convinced the RB was supposed to stay in and help block.  But, that could be totally wrong because obviously commutation totally failed on the play.  

 

I will continue to believe we have MUCH better talent on the line than the level of play we are seeing.  There are O lines all over the country that could run more than 8 yards on Purdue and they have much less talent on the line than Nebraska.

 

This gets down to two things.

 

a)  Coaching = these guys are not getting coached to play at anywhere close to the level a Husker line should be.

 

b)  Attitude = These guys do not have the attitude to go kick everyone's ass like is needed at this level.  

Now....honestly....both a and b are manifested in Sunday through Friday.  It's clear that this line did not prepare appropriately last week to be successful against a team like Purdue.  They might THINK they show up to the game with the right attitude.  But, that needs to happen all week.

 

The only way I see this changing is a change at the O line coach to one that can manifest this type of nasty attitude in them every time they put on a uniform no matter if it's in practice or a game..