We are still a smoke and mirrors team, built on execution and deception more than brute force. With that said, we are a lot more physical than we used to be. In other words, I wouldn't like our chances of having won 11 games doing deep hand offs with a zone blocking scheme. Even when it looked like we were pounding UGA and MSST, there was still a lot of scheme there that was thinning out the defense and confusing them.
I don't see zone blocking as more "smashmouth" than what we do. If anything, I think our blocking scheme is the most smashmouth in all of football. We're telling our guy on our staple play on the playside to fire off the ball hard with a flat back, getting leverage by having a lower pad level than the guy across from you, re-establishing the LOS. Zone blocking is more standing up being a dancing panda bear. Now, granted the teams with the OL who have dancing panda bears with superior upper body strength are going to be better because they're going to be able to handle the DL and steer him the way he's already going, creating a seam for the RB. So, there's physicality there too (more like greco-roman wrestling). But, when you see our drills of OL vs DL are performed on the boards and/or in the cage, that is a greater physicality aspect to me. Our guys are asked to be bulldozers. The lower body strength of our OL will be the most important physical trait.
As far as the finesse part goes. If we're getting whipped at the smashmouth aspect, that part goes south too. The advantage of our offense is that it give you multiple ways to kill the opponent. BUT, it still depends on at least the possibility of success at that smashmouth aspect. If their DL can whip our blocker(s) so bad as to be able to shed him AND make the tackle on the Dive, that defense will be able to cover everything. They might not, if their scheme isn't sound or if their players aren't disciplined, but they CAN actually cover everything numbers wise. However, if our blocker(s) can get push on their DL, then they cannot cover everything. They're going to have to over-commit to something, which is where our finesse comes in. When they over-commit, we've got a plethora of "options" to make them pay and all of that requires precision and execution on the part of the other finesse pieces (QB, AB, WR, pulling or pass-blocking OL).
In short, our finesse is the ideal compliment to our smashmouth.
