I have an average understanding of football, played through high school, but that's it. I'm terrible at assessing line players performance as I was a cornerback on defense. Anyway, THE major reason Max can't get any offense going has been (by consensus) the O line lack of run blocking and pass blocking. Sure enough it was the problem again in the first half and I turned the tv off.

Until the last drive of the first half, and then no issues w protection, run blocking, or sustaining drives and scoring after that?????

This needs someone smarter than me to determine what changed between

a complete suck Oline performance

And

a very functional oline performance

Different personnel?
Different play calls?
Different qb motion?
Different opposing d-line strategy? Personnel?

Can anyone knowledgeable opine?

TIA

They've been schizophrenic for two seasons now.

Last fall they looked like All Pro NFL linemen one series, then 3A HS freshman the next (hell, sometimes it was one play to the next). Then for the LSU game we run them off the field and it's like "WTF has this been all season ???"

I remember commenting on a game thread last fall about how they flat out looked confused as hell about what they were supposed to be doing play to play. It's hard to be good at something if you don't know where you're going…you could see they were just so unsure about what to do.

All I know is that in the first half I saw Jimbo carrying around a play sheet and in the second half I never saw it again. That should be pretty telling to some degree.

RED III said:

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All I know is that in the first half I saw Jimbo carrying around a play sheet and in the second half I never saw it again. That should be pretty telling to some degree.

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Who is calling anything? And who is in control?!

I'm not knowledgeable but one thing I noticed is we stopped trying to run it right up Bryce's ass. We ran more stretch plays and outside runs instead just straight ahead into the 1/2 hole. The backs were able to find lanes & cut backs instead of running right into the interior DL.

Looked like we had a lot more success with power/pull plays vs zone. Jimbo wants to run more zone because it gives you options but our guards and centers can't reach blocks. Powe/pull concepts allow your blockers to have the advantage in angles but you're more limited.

The backs need to hunt for the hole. Achane was great about slipping down and finding a hole. Our backs also need to run more erect through the line and keep their legs driving. Find a hole.

In my very limited playbook knowledge, we almost always look anemic on offense until we get into our 2 minute drill. Then all of a sudden we can drive down the field at will. I'm sure some of it is the defense reacting to the increased tempo, but my gut tells me that there is something else going on there. I feel like the offense is effective when it has to be parsed down, but otherwise we are disjointed during normal plays because there are too many players trying to account for too many different things.

I wish Petrino would just start running our two minute drill for the entire game and see what happens.

Yes, they lean too much and go down. They need to run like Emmet Smith, Achane, Spiller. They run like they expect to go down instead driving through with minimal lean. Experience.