Our offensive line
- Thread starter Clevinger
- Start date
Jurgens is one of many of the issues. I just rewatched the first quarter of the game focusing on the o-line (every offensive play, nearly frame by frame 5-7 times).
Jurgens snaps are way better. But he missed some blocks. However, it not more (maybe even less) than Hixson, Wilson, and Farniok.
The pass blocking was not absolutely terrible. Martinez had a lot of clean pockets (again this is Q1 only). Run blocking on the other hand was poor. On Mills big run is was perfect. One the shovel pass to Washington on the sweep, it was perfect. And a few towards the end of the quarter where the blocking was decent, but Martinez just wasn’t decisive and it killed the play.
With all that being said, Wilson, Hixson and Farniok all need to improve. There were a lot sloppy combo blocks where the pass off is bad or they get split. There was a a lot of just straight up getting beat one on one. Some of them embarrassingly beat one on one.
Jurgens is not the issue, he’s one of many issues.
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I don't know...the one for sure pants-pisser I knew of was Mark Schlereth of the Washington Redskins/Denver Broncos....3x Super Bowl Champion, 3x Pro Bowl selection. Nebraska (and several others) could use pants-pissers of that kind.
Maybe its time for HCSF to re-evaluate OL coaching.
It doesn't seem to be getting much better.
This is a problem that won’t be solved overnight, in a week or probably even this season.
I don’t recall losing a bunch of offensive lineman when Frost took over. I posted their offer sheets above. There aren’t any Outland trophy winners but almost all had pretty reasonable power 5 offer lists. We should be able to field a serviceable offensive line.
The offer lists of the offensive lineman we took in 2019 are roughly the same as the group Frost inherited.
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Gotta give them time. It sucks to wait, but it is what it is. The fact we don’t have a group of seniors to play says a lot.
Despite that, I was hoping things would look better than they do. When we play tough B1G defenses, it’s gonna be rough. So the OL needs to improve as fast as possible.
TE, WR, RB all need to contribute to the blocking as well.
Despite that, I was hoping things would look better than they do. When we play tough B1G defenses, it’s gonna be rough. So the OL needs to improve as fast as possible.
TE, WR, RB all need to contribute to the blocking as well.
When was the last time we had a freshman center holding the starting position? That alone is enough to cause concern and those who were worried about it prior to the season were concerned for a reason. You’re not stupid, you know that there isn’t some magical fix to this.
It is one thing if there are mental mistakes which can be fixed with some film review and getting the communication better among the group. There are way too many physical problems, initial strike and no follow up, whiffs, dives at DL feet, clean misses and it goes on.
Don't get caught up confusing a few long runs with good blocking. The problems were exposed playing USA and they have not substantially improved especially given the opponent Saturday. The B1G opponents will continue to put fronts up that confuse our blocking assignments and create angles we can't handle.
Your eyes are not wrong, there are far too many plays where there is penetration before Adrian sets up or our RB even takes a single step. For those of you who are ticked about the play calling, start there.
Don't get caught up confusing a few long runs with good blocking. The problems were exposed playing USA and they have not substantially improved especially given the opponent Saturday. The B1G opponents will continue to put fronts up that confuse our blocking assignments and create angles we can't handle.
Your eyes are not wrong, there are far too many plays where there is penetration before Adrian sets up or our RB even takes a single step. For those of you who are ticked about the play calling, start there.
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In my opinion this OL problem stems back to the Barney Cotton days. Say what you will about Bill Callahan but our offensive lines were impeccable when he was here. After his guys graduated, we took a big hit. Then Cav got here and we really shit the bed. I like what Greg Austin has done. I do think he's a solid coach but make no mistake the cupboard was empty when SF and CO. got here.
Barney Cotton was an underrated coach. We always had decent to good line play under him. The problem in those days was consistency. Some weeks we were blowing everybody off the ball and some weeks we couldn't move anybody.
It was when Cav got here when our line play really took a nosedive. Our line play was genuinely poor and unfortunately it hasn't gotten any better under Greg Austin.
Stai has said on several occasions that it took the Pipeline 5-6 games to really gel and the same was true for the O lines he played for in the NFL. I really think our center's inexperience. has been one of our biggest problems. IF you throw one first year starter underclassmen in there, the rest of the guys can kind of cover for him. Throw 2 in there, and all bets are off. As far as Wilson and Farniok "struggling" goes, a couple of our biggest runs were on their side behind their blocks.
To me that signals a coaching problem. We have 3 returning starters and all of them are playing worse than they did last year. Communication seems very poor and their fundamentals aren't any better.
The first game this season was one of the worst examples of line play I've seen. I honestly think they have improved each week, but they're starting from such a low bar that they have to make huge improvements each week just to get to average by mid-season. There's no reason that our offensive line should have been that poorly prepared to start the season going on 2 years in a row now.
the communication starts with the center. I've seen multiple times where Farniok stands up, looks at the center and appears to ask WTF are you calling? Perhaps we would be better off moving an upperclassmen to center for this season? Just asking the question. When a former pipeline member says that he thinks the biggest problem is the line calls.......
He expects the 90s OL's right off the bat. Snowflake thinking " I want it now, or I'm throwing a temper tantrum and running home to mommy!
Brian Kelly in the ND picture kind manipulates the picture but that’s ok. Let’s not also state that that was a picture of ND from 2016, a line that made Kaizer look a lot better then he was. And that dark colors vs white and the effects that has. And our 68 isn’t a starter for us.
But What I’m tired as hell of on this board is trying to compare us to the top 5. You show 2 massively great O-line man And try to compare them to ours. Yes we ain’t there yet. But do you remember what it was like just two years ago? Fat bellies and skinny arms. At least we can say we don’t have that anymore. Our staff was handed a shit show and they are improving it
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This. Mike McGlinchey (#68) is a massive human being at 6'8" 300-whatever. He was the first tackle taken in the 2018 Draft (#9 pick overall). He was the second lineman taken behind Quenton Nelson (#56), his teammate flanking Kelly in the photo (#6 pick overall).
So yeah, turns out Frost didn't inherit two AA-quality lineman with the potential to go top 10 overall in the Draft. If we're lucky, we've recruited the equivalent of those guys in Benhart and Corcoran. But even assuming both max out, we're still 3-ish years away from enjoying them as developed upperclassmen.
In the meantime, comparisons like these are masochistic and don't serve much purpose other than to wring hands and gnash teeth. Wish we were already there too but it's going to take some time. Even still, it's extremely rare for any school to have two top 10 lineman in the same draft class.
Factoid that blew my mind. Barney Cotton OL's were responsible for 4 of the Top 10 All-Time leading rushers in Nebraska history.
Ameer #2, Helu #5, Burkhead #6 and Talor Martinez #9.
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The comparison made is to show what we are up against. ND at that stage is at the pinnacle. When our guys look comparable, we are there talent wise. Right now, no dice...GBR
I get that. I just think that the majority of rational Husker fans are well aware at this point. Comparisons like there are only necessary for the fringe fans that somehow thought (or wanted to believe) that our talent was near the pinnacle already.
But yeah, we're all ready for our lineman to look like 30-year-old men again. This is the comparison photo I would personally use. Even then, none of these guys went in the 1st round. ND landing two in the top 9 is nutso.
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I never played real football (ymca), just wrestled.
but I was told Dr. Tom oline had 7 plays, but each play had 7 different ways to run it. a lot of it seemed run based because pancakes were smiled upon.
then we got into the west coast offense, where I think making a pocket was more important then pancakes....
this new oregon offense, does it require a lot more then the before mentioned offenses? as far and blocking and such? are we asking linemen to do a lot more then we have in the past?
I understand it year 2 and they are young, this is not a bitch post...just wondering if it's harder to play on the oline now compared to the past?
but I was told Dr. Tom oline had 7 plays, but each play had 7 different ways to run it. a lot of it seemed run based because pancakes were smiled upon.
then we got into the west coast offense, where I think making a pocket was more important then pancakes....
this new oregon offense, does it require a lot more then the before mentioned offenses? as far and blocking and such? are we asking linemen to do a lot more then we have in the past?
I understand it year 2 and they are young, this is not a bitch post...just wondering if it's harder to play on the oline now compared to the past?
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