baffling Oline still struggling

dressedcheeseside

dressedcheeseside

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Just listened to the call in show and coach held nothing back in his criticism of the Oline. Brandon suggested they have turned a corner and coach shot that notion out of the sky like a scud missile.

My question to coach would be what is so different from last year to this year? Outside of two guys (Shaq and Chris Griffin), it's basically the same bunch and they're a year older, bigger, stronger.

It still baffles me to no end how we can be so less effective upfront. Is it primarily the loss of the two guys above, is it the effect of the inexperienced surrounding cast, is it effort, is it something the defenses are doing? What the heck?

Maybe the OL wasn't much better last year and it was just better skill guys.... is that it? I know this topic has been beaten to death, but I haven't read anything in previous discussion that clears it up for me. We, coaches included, came into the season expecting this group to be the strength of the team and they're the exact opposite. Amazing how we could have been so wrong.
 
BuzzStone

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The drop off this year is big. And I am wondering is it that we don't have a real leader on the front line? I mean every team needs that guy that is in the locker room hyping the guys up and tearing them down when they are not playing to potential. That is a key role. Are we missing that?
 
IronJacket7

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One huge change is we don't have Shaq Mason to run behind like we did last season. Not saying that is the entire reason but he was a huge asset.
 
Cam

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dressedcheeseside said:
Maybe the OL wasn't much better last year and it was just better skill guys.... is that it? I know this topic has been beaten to death, but I haven't read anything in previous discussion that clears it up for me. We, coaches included, came into the season expecting this group to be the strength of the team and they're the exact opposite. Amazing how we could have been so wrong.
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I'm pretty sure I heard CPJ say earlier this year that this was the case. He said outside of Shaq, the OL wasn't really playing too much better. Maybe it's just that we executed so much better last year, so the speed of the game caused the DL to play confused.
 

jandrews

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We still are having a really hard time getting to the MLB. On JTs long run, the FSU MLB over ran the play. If he didn't it would have been a marginal gain. We really aren't blocking the second level effectively. This improves the run game will be dangerous.
 
dressedcheeseside

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jandrews said:
We still are having a really hard time getting to the MLB. On JTs long run, the FSU MLB over ran the play. If he didn't it would have been a marginal gain. We really aren't blocking the second level effectively. This improves the run game will be dangerous.
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I notice this happening also. So why are we not getting there this year? It seems to me defenses are focusing on disrupting our efforts to move past the LOS primarily by plugging gaps with additional players. Also, it seems our interior OL are struggling to maintain the gaps created by our wide split by allowing the DT's to move them around like rag dolls.

One thing I'm not seeing is our OL rolling around on the ground a bunch. But I am seeing guys bursting into the second level only to hit a guy's coat tails or looking around cause there's nobody there.

I will say that moving Joe from RT to LT seemed to work out somewhat as he was able to get a piece of the mike a few times.
 
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B Lifsey

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BufordJacket said:
From what I understand Shaq was the one that would call out the blocking assignments for the OL. Shaq was able to identify alignments pretty good. He is missed Im guessing.
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I totally agree about missing his blocking and leadership. But, when looking at assignments Shaq called last year vs what we are trying this year, can anyone pinpoint if Shaq's calls would've helped with the MLB? I guess I'm curious if we are running wrong assignments or not executing the right ones.
 
OldJacketFan

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PJ has commented on the calls being missed, Burden also commented on this as well saying he was having issues getting the line calls right and having all the linemen on the same page. If 4 do it right and 1 doesn't....................
 
dressedcheeseside

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OldJacketFan said:
PJ has commented on the calls being missed, Burden also commented on this as well saying he was having issues getting the line calls right and having all the linemen on the same page. If 4 do it right and 1 doesn't....................
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Are defenses causing the confusion by doing different stuff? It's not like Burden is a noob.
 
OldJacketFan

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dressedcheeseside said:
Are defenses causing the confusion by doing different stuff? It's not like Burden is a noob.
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I suspect so. But again Burden indicated the calls are getting made but there are times when an assignment is blown. We have to remember also the back goes to the wrong hole or a bad read is made it can look like the O line screwed up.
 

danny daniel

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dressedcheeseside said:
Just listened to the call in show and coach held nothing back in his criticism of the Oline. Brandon suggested they have turned a corner and coach shot that notion out of the sky like a scud missile.

My question to coach would be what is so different from last year to this year? Outside of two guys (Shaq and Chris Griffin), it's basically the same bunch and they're a year older, bigger, stronger.

It still baffles me to no end how we can be so less effective upfront. Is it primarily the loss of the two guys above, is it the effect of the inexperienced surrounding cast, is it effort, is it something the defenses are doing? What the heck?

Maybe the OL wasn't much better last year and it was just better skill guys.... is that it? I know this topic has been beaten to death, but I haven't read anything in previous discussion that clears it up for me. We, coaches included, came into the season expecting this group to be the strength of the team and they're the exact opposite. Amazing how we could have been so wrong.
Click to expand...

On a previous show or CPJ discussion Coach indicated that maybe the 2014 OL was not as good as we thought and the experienced supporting cast made a big difference.
My personal opinion is that many teams (VT, UGA, Miss St) backed their DL off and played more react whereas this year I think we are seeing much more aggressive/attacking play be the oponents DL forcing us to go outside more where our perimeter blocking has been learning. We are also seeing our OTs and C jammed more and the MLB getting to JT and forcing him to pitch or eat while the normal pitch key floats and helps out .
dressedcheeseside said:
Are defenses causing the confusion by doing different stuff? It's not like Burden is a noob.
Click to expand...
 
GTonTop88

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We were ranked the #1 OL in the country by many sites. Remember hearing how we were blowing UGA,FSU, and possibly be best DL in Miss St. off the ball like they weren't even there. Shaq and our skill guys were good blockers but most of our offense last year against the bigger teams was running it right down their throats where our skill guys weren't the main blockers. They just have to do better plain and simple. Yea we lost Griffin but he wasn't there when our offense was really shining. Shaq was a huge loss but if our guys blocked last year like they are this year we don't beat UGA or Miss St for sure. We really had a lot of things go our way last year that helped our defensive numbers but our offense always keep us in the game and gave us a chance to win. This year it's been kinda the opposite other than Pitt and UNc except we haven't had anything go our way.
 
dressedcheeseside

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danny daniel said:
On a previous show or CPJ discussion Coach indicated that maybe the 2014 OL was not as good as we thought and the experienced supporting cast made a big difference.
My personal opinion is that many teams (VT, UGA, Miss St) backed their DL off and played more react whereas this year I think we are seeing much more aggressive/attacking play be the oponents DL forcing us to go outside more where our perimeter blocking has been learning. We are also seeing our OTs and C jammed more and the MLB getting to JT and forcing him to pitch or eat while the normal pitch key floats and helps out .
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Agree with most of this except I remember seeing the MLB shooting to the pitch man more often than JT. This allows the pitch key to take JT without fear of the pitch because he knew the MLB was gonna be there.
 
JacketFromUGA

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Also I think somehting should be said of the run we went on to end the season last year. When you're doing well and confident you tend to play better anyway.
 
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