O-Line

Oct 20, 2016, 9:54 PM

I may have been a bit harsh on the O-line for the NC State game. So far, I've looked closely at the 1st quarter and some of the 2nd quarter. What I've seen in that short review is a very, very aggressive and hard hitting State defense that came to play and they gave us at least one new look. Early, they ran mostly a 4-3 (nothing fancy) and at times brought up a safety in the box. On a couple of occasions, they backed up the 4-down front with two triangles off tackle on each side, consisting of LBs, safeties and CBs. It gave them a tremendous defense against the run, with these triangles - the ability to shift 2 inside if the run went there, 2 outside if the run went to the edge and all 3 on either side if the run went off-tackle. It may be a standard scheme, but I haven't noticed that double triangle in any D before. That opened it up for Williams on the underneath L-R drag route.

The O'line was doing fine until Gallman went out. What I see so far is that the other backs were slow to hit the hole, or missed the hole entirely. I don't yet know if it's an every carry thing, but I did see Choice with a little hop-step hitch before he started forward to the mesh point. The hole was there, but his delay gave the State D time to close the hole before he hit it. I saw Fuller miss a hole. On the goal line, the hole was there, but closed before the snap was handled after the bobble. These are timing issues and can be improved, but it did not appear (to me) to be only an O-line problem. Sure, maybe they could get a little more push, but give State some credit for that..... State was playing really, really well on D. It was almost like they knew our tendencies perfectly - which maybe they did. If so, that's not a player problem.

Gallman is really missed for his ability to hit the hole hard and in a hurry. If we can get him back against FSU, it will help the O-line a lot.

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Run-blocking and pass-blocking are 2 different things entirely. We've been very good on pass-blocking for several years - really good. There's something going on in the run game that's causing issues and I'm not sure if it has to do with lack of nastiness and attitude in our blocking or defensive schemes that have figured us out. One is lack of effort (which I have seen at times) and the other is play-calling. But - I'm not sure that it's enough of an issue to create big problems, so long as we're playing well and with the first team guys.

One thing I think we all have to recognize...... other teams have scholarship players, too - and they can play. In the case of NC State, those are some big, strong, quick bodies in the front 7 - and when they have a good scheme and are motivated, they're not much different than our D - they can wreck an O-line.

The other piece of our disappointing run performance (117 yards?) has to include the loss of Gallman. We were really moving the ball on the ground with him early. Once he was out, the timing issues showed up. That's one thing we never seem to consider when we talk about the run game and when you run an offense that sets the backs as deep as we do, the runner has to hit the hole on time and trust that the hole will be there when he arrives. A fraction of a second makes a big difference, as does the speed and power of the runner at the point of initial contact. Gallman does it better than any back we've had for a while.

FSU should be interesting.

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