Robin posted that O-line strength and conditioning was critical to success this Fall. Is three months in the weight room enough to get them where they need to be? Do they continue to work in the weight room once Fall camp starts?
O-line development
- Thread starter westcliffe
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No, but they’ll be closer to where they need to be. I assume the nature of the weight work changes in season.
Instead of pushing burgers and pizza...they will be doing squats and presses while enjoying protein shakes.
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where they need to be is kinda subjective.
watching the spring game they looked a lot more athletic. if they continue through the summer they can be more agile and all of them should have the ability to pull and be a factor as well as move down field to help on the second level.
relative to brute strength it's a long way off to be in the upper tier of the league. the O line needs to live it and breath it to be in a position to punish defenses. for this season they need to condition themselves to play 4+ quarters at game speed because they aren't going to wear down the B1G big guys.
It becomes more of a maintain along with injury prevention routine, but they will definitely lift during the season.
To answer your questions - the best I can. You run into problems when you say "them" which means all of them I assume. Yes, a lot can be done in three months to change the body. To be blunt, they have planted in everyone's heads how they are changing the linemen's bodies so now everyone can "see" the physical differences. Most likely not, we are talking a group here. There is a lot more to it than changing a body shape, you still have a ton of technique to learn for how they want to block. Just the art of pulling is very detailed and precise. Hand placement, leverage, footwork, is all a part of it. Very likely you could have kept the same bodies and changed some technique and seen some improvement but doing all of it gives the results everyone is looking for. What few games I was able to watch of UCF I didn't see linemen overpowering anyone, it was more body position and setting the defender up with angles. I remember one particular play that went for big yards, maybe a TD, don't recall and I played it back several times to look at blocking and almost no one on the line really effectively blocked anyone, a couple screened guys because of the angles the defender took. There is no question their bodies need to change for the pace that Frost and Co will run, that is a given.
Absolutely.
Angles are so important in blocking. Everyone wants the pancake, and thats ideal, but not necessary.
Nothing more infuriating than seeing a lineman take a poor angle on a play where he knows the general area the RB will be looking at his reads.
Pulling is, indeed, invested in angles and better when things happen quickly, IMO. If It is done quickly in the middle of the controlled chaos of the line play, the defender often times doesn't see it coming, and therefore, brute strength is not often necessary, at least in my experience as an OL.
Why should we be concerned if 3 months is enough to get them where they need to be, when they'll have 7 1/2 total months from mid-Jan until Sept when our first game is?
I played RB/FB depending on what type of set we were in back in the day. I had a coach do the old forward-backward motion of me "blocking" a backer on a sweep on game film replay. The team had lots of laughs watching it. I saw the guy out of the corner of my eye at the last minute and had to peel back awkwardly to get a body on him. Yeah I got knocked on my keester, but it sprung the other back for a long TD run. You don't have to put people on the ground to be effective and if the guy you're blocking for has speed, all you might have to do is just get in a defender's way long enough for him to not be able to mess up the play.
Well, as HCSF stating that running the ball is priority #1.....that's terrific good news for our Olinemen. They'll be attacking the opponent's Dline & LBs. For years & years of watching TO's pipeline wear down the opponent's defenders into dust in the 2nd half....it'll be a huge, huge breath of fresh air. Add to that we very well might have some big, vicious TEs which is also a huge asset.
The Big10 is in for a big surprise. Them running over our Huskers (on both sides of the ball) like a Mercedes Benz over a paper clip is long, long gone.
Sure, year one won't have us where we need to be but it'll be way, wayyyy better than where we've been recently. Buh bye fluff-ball.
GBR!!
The Big10 is in for a big surprise. Them running over our Huskers (on both sides of the ball) like a Mercedes Benz over a paper clip is long, long gone.
Sure, year one won't have us where we need to be but it'll be way, wayyyy better than where we've been recently. Buh bye fluff-ball.
GBR!!
That's true enough sir!
However, smashmouth blocking has it's assets. Especially in the 2nd half of the game. Punish the opponent's defense without mercy.
If you are expecting smash mouth blocking from this offense, you are going to be disappointed. The offense isn’t necessarily designed for the OL to take a man and knock him down.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Riley, Pelini and Callahan all say running the ball was their priority?
Knock downs were called pancakes I thought..
So isn't smash mouth just a term for being aggressive.. Strike First (Cobra Kai) mentality?
I guess you could say smash mouth is related to knock downs, but one is a characteristic, while the other is an action.
What does smash mouth mean to you guys? I'm just kind of curious what the general thinking is.
So isn't smash mouth just a term for being aggressive.. Strike First (Cobra Kai) mentality?
I guess you could say smash mouth is related to knock downs, but one is a characteristic, while the other is an action.
What does smash mouth mean to you guys? I'm just kind of curious what the general thinking is.
Actually, as I re-read this, I am really referring more to trapping as in FB traps. But this involved pulling for me.
Smash mouth to me is hitting hard and sustaining the block, when indicated, to the whistle.
Well, that's a good question. To "me" it means a deep desire to run over the opponent. But to each their own.
Smash mouth isn't just blocking hard on O. It is a relentless mentality where on every play you go "through" the opponent whether it is blocking or tackling and all special teams. Tuco is correct in that the Frost O does not lend itself as much on the inside for straight ahead pancake type blocking. That said, it does involve more on the edge blocking from the WR's.
One of the traits I remember from the old days of the TO O's was how we would often leave the ML unblocked and he would have a record number of tackles against us. Eventually you wear him down and get outside/around him. When you looked at stat lines the ML was generally way up there in tackles and sometimes a safety as well. Destroy them at the direct point of attack and the back will take it from there.
One of the traits I remember from the old days of the TO O's was how we would often leave the ML unblocked and he would have a record number of tackles against us. Eventually you wear him down and get outside/around him. When you looked at stat lines the ML was generally way up there in tackles and sometimes a safety as well. Destroy them at the direct point of attack and the back will take it from there.
Yeah, when I pulled on a sweep, I would try to drill the DE in a 5-2 or turn upfield if we had a TE on him and then get a "piece" of the LB or DB. If the RB had the space and time to set up the block, I would sometimes just have to graze them and the RB would cut off of my block.
I was previously referring more to pulling for a trap play in the interior line or a cross block type trap.
Smashmouth is nothing more than a traditional run heavy football team. There is a power spread which is what Auburn runs, that is about as smashmouth as you get with these spreads and Frost does run some concepts from it.
To me smash mouth is running straight at an opponent with a 70/30 or 75/25 run/pass ratio wearing them out by just bludgeoning them into submission. Even though there are some elements of smash mouth in Frost’s offense, that isn’t what is going to wear them down. The speed, tempo and keeping the defense from substituting is. Then come the 4th quarter, when the defense is tired you will see a much higher run/pass. If you look at UCF stats from last year, they were pretty much 50/50 through 3 quarters then in the 4th heavy run. Some of that is because big leads and were just running out the clock.
The offense is designed to get one on one matchups in space, the run ratio will be closer to 55 than it is 70 and the Oline will just “get in the way” more than they will “smash mouth” block.
The offense is designed to get one on one matchups in space, the run ratio will be closer to 55 than it is 70 and the Oline will just “get in the way” more than they will “smash mouth” block.
Something to ponder is the question of whether Frost's offense doesn't require ideal "measurables" from the Olinemen, but reasonably athletic and highly conditioned kids that block to the scheme. Going forward, if Frost and Co. can up the level of recruiting on the Oline, he can then mix in more power elements into the running game (which I think is a goal of his), which would be advantageous for playing in the B1G.
They will be lifting during the season, but they will actually have roughly 7 months of lifting with the current staff by the time Fall camp begins. They take off the month of May and some of July, but these players will be on Campus, working out, for most of the summer.
Defin "more power elements"? Explain how he doesn't recruit the players with ideal measurables but is still going to go to more power elements? Seems contradictory to me. He will run his O, that is what he does and does it well.
Frost has said he wants to integrate more power into the offense and combine elements of what Osborne did and what Kelly did. So I get where people are coming from. However, what I see in RB recruiting is a bunch of 5'10" 175lb backs that can fly. That doesn't lead me to think power running attack.
Personally, I think everyone posting in this thread is right to a degree. It's going to be fun to watch and see how it all plays out over the next 3 years and more.
What I mean is that Frost's 12-0 squad at UCF featured starting Olinemen that were on the roster of an zero win team just two years before. In two years, the UCF Oline was more than up to the task. And I didn't say recruit, I said require. What I am basically getting at is whether the current Oline personnel (and in reality, that will be NUs Oline personnel for the next couple of years) is sufficient to compete in the B1G, perhaps not for a title but maybe for a spot in the title game.
As for the idea of morphing power elements into Duck ball, take a look at this article by Shatel. TO doesn't tip his hand much, but he is tipping big time here. The rub on Oregon was that the fast kids wouldn't fair so well when they got into a fight with larger, athletic defenses. Frost wants a team that can compete with tOSU on a yearly basis.
http://www.omaha.com/huskers/footba...cle_328172e0-ee1d-5111-ac2a-3a2366a45abb.html
There is short-term and there is long term. I think Frost's offense will always feature these kinds of kids, much like the speedy backs of OU used to give NU fans a headache back in the Switzer years. The current roster does have Ziggy, and Bell is 6-0/200. I think the idea of integrating power elements will be a multi-year project.
My point as well. The “more power” will be up front. Relying on a speed and physically positioning game by the O linemen needs to morph into one where the linemen can “lock up” head to head when they run into the more dominate teams up front. I think everyone sees the “power” as a fullback, 220 lb RB, road grader linemen and throw in some option for good measure. It could the increased “power” is barely noticeable by joe average fan up front.
But if you lock up head to head up front you aren't you changing the basic foundation of the offense? To me you are.
Power blocking schemes are designed to get yards inside the tackles. The Olinemen assignments are based on gap assignment, many times you leave the center trying to block 2 gaps. Because you are locking up one on one, you are also a lot more reliant on winning those one on one matchups up front. Against good teams you are only going to win 50% of those battles. The only time Olinemen will get to the next level is when they don't have a defender in their assigned gap. The running back has a specific hole he is supposed to hit.
In a spread the the Olinemen block an area, backside linemen are taught to seal their guys from the inside and the playside linemen are to push the defenders to the outside. The back has keys that tell him where to run, the QB has keys that tell him when to hand off, linemen are taught to hit and run and get to the next level.
I think you can become much more physical in a zone scheme, but it is still a zone scheme where you block an area.
Very interesting sir "and" that makes perfect sense. Smashmouth "and" the fast tempo could leave the 4th quarter belonging to NU.
Also, just from watching the spring game, a lot of those passes are short and almost like option pitches. Maybe I'm wrong but it looks so far like it's not the typical "bombs away" fluff-ball (thank God).
Last year NU won 4 games and ranked 119th in rushing yards per game. That crap has to stop now.
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