While I was watching the game live on Saturday I thought we were fortunate on many occasions with our running game because it seemed like we caught Oregon St slanting away from the play; obviously your job as an offensive lineman gets easier if you’re supposed to block down when the DT or DE slants the exact way you’re supposed to move them. The more time I spent dissecting the film I’ve come to the conclusion that we played better up front than I thought. Even the stalled drives in the first half, you could see how we were a lot closer to making it work than the week before against Utah. As for the position groups:
QB’s
I thought Rudock was fine…again. I thought his pocket presence was as good as any QB we’ve had since Drew Henson actually. Gardner, Robinson, even Chad Henne never really learned how to shift around while staying in the pocket to buy an extra second or so. Rudock did this on a couple of occasions and kept his eyes downfield without making panicked decisions. It’s a very underrated attribute for a QB and one that a lot of dual threat guys never master because they can do damage with their legs outside of the pocket. The only exception was on the fumble. He's got to realize that the ball has to come out quick when you go empty. Oregon St runs a base 3 - man front and that makes it really easy to disguise blitzes, so he should've been prepared to dump it if necessary knowing he was alone back there. I don't know if we emptied the backfield again the rest of the game after that play.
But I like Rudock, and things sure did start to look easy for him once we started running the ball more effectively. He didn’t step into a deep ball to Chesson that caused it to die, and he was late on the INT. But the throw to Smith on 4th down was just a really well designed play. Butt ran a short crossing route over the middle while Smith ran a quick out route. Smith’s depth in the backfield added an element of delay to his route, and sure enough, the LB in flat coverage jumped Butt’s route in the middle and opened up the short flat to right. On the INT, I get that Butt’s his boy and all, but I wish Rudock would’ve read the defense a little bit because he’d have noticed Drake Harris on a post route that would’ve went for a TD. A simple survey of the safety’s would’ve told him that.
Rudock is what he is, and if you can put him in manageable situations and run some busy, manipulative sets he’s smart enough to get it to the right guy and accurate enough to give him the chance to run with it. I think he’s a really good fit for what we’re doing.
RB’s
Smith was quite a bit better than he was against Utah. He still missed a bunch of holes, but he ran with some desperation and broke a ton of tackles. On his first carry of the day he cut back inside and ran himself into a tackle. A TE missed a block on a LB but when your OL is blocking down you have to be really careful about when and where you cut back because that’s the way your entire OL is moving; he does that too often. You want to cut off their butts rather than crossing their face. Smith did make a nice quick cut on a 3rd & short and he picked up nice yardage. It was definitely more good than bad and his effort can be inspiring for the OL, but this blocking scheme is pretty much all block down/kick out, and the way they block it pushes the backs to the outside. Smith needs to be more mindful of that. I don’t want it to seem like I’m picking on him because he gained a lot of yards after contact, but there’s a real noticeable difference between Smith and the other backs in terms of lateral quickness. Smith slows down in his cuts while some of the other back glide and accelerate. That doesn’t make them better backs necessarily, it just forces Smith to take on more contact and grind for yards. He played well, but I worry that his lack of quickness and acceleration is going to cause some decent holes to close up against the big boys on our schedule.
I think it’s interesting that they’re trying to find a role for Ty Isaac, as they seem to use him quite a bit on 3rd downs. Unfortunately for Ty he’s quite poor in pass protection so he seems a little ill-suited for the role. He catches the ball well so I get why he’s out there, but he’s got all kinds of problems when he stays in to block. On one play he’s out of control and he attacks a blitzing LB, who promptly puts him on his butt, another time he tries to chop out a DE but he doesn’t get him to the ground. The dude’s as big as the LB’s that are blitzing so he should be able to pick this stuff up. He just needs to learn to stay balanced and patient. Isaac takes advantage of his opportunities when he gets to carry the ball but somehow he looks a little soft between the tackles even though the pile always moves forward. He finds tiny cracks that allow him to squeeze out extra yards and he never seems to take direct contact. Once again, I’d like to know what it would look like if he were given 20 carries.
I don’t want to come across as a Derrick Green cheerleader, but I thought he looked pretty good. He’s the absolute polar opposite of Smith though. Green doesn’t break many tackles, but he sets up his blockers really well at the second level and makes clean cuts. He looks lighter and quicker than he’s ever been and honestly, I think the type of runner he is directly contrasts his body. In my opinion, Green should probably drop another 10 – 15 pounds to improve his quickness and speed that much more. Why lug around all that weight if you’re not going to punish people with it? But I think there’s still potential there and that he’s coming along.
WR’s
Is it just me or do our WR’s look like way faster than last year? Darboh has some quickness that I didn’t know he had and Chesson caught a hitch route and exploded right past a CB for a 1st down…these guys look dangerous in the open field. Drake Harris hasn’t played football in a long time, which is pretty evident. He caught a ball on a WR screen that went for a loss but I don’t blame Perry for missing the block. Harris has to come back to the ball because when you do that, two things happen: 1 – you shorten the throw for the QB, which gives the defense less time to pursue, and 2 – you improve the angle for the WR that’s coming down to make the block on your man. That opens up a little crease between your block on the outside and the inside pursuit. Harris just stood there and waited for the ball. Brain Cole did the same thing last week.
But I like how we’re using our WR’s because it all seems so simple and it makes so much sense. Against zone coverage, a lot of the time they have a WR standing in the flat sitting on a hitch route. I’ve never seen a team do that so frequently, but it really stretches the zone coverage horizontally and vertically. It’s a really simple, yet unusual concept that forces the defense to cover the entire field and keeps the flat coverage from converging into the middle and taking away our TE’s. It also lends some insight into our recruiting. Guys like Ahmir Mitchell, Ennis or Evans could be monsters with the ball in their hands going one on one with a LB in the flat. The same can be said for Brian Cole.
TE’s/HB’s/FB
Our TE’s have come along as receivers but they’re not great in the run game. Butt falls off LB’s too often at the second level. It’s not an easy thing because they have to hold those blocks for what seems like forever, but he needs to keep his head up and his feet moving. A lot of times he’s not physical enough with DE’s when he’s blocking down and that causes him to stand up a little bit. Bunting has the same problems. On a pitch to Smith going right UM had them completely outflanked as Kalis led up. I think a CB actually blitzed right into the play but Kalis did a nice job of keeping his head up and took him out, freeing up the WR to look inside. This play was set up, but Bunting whiffed on a LB inside and his pursuit gummed everything up. Bunting was lined up outside of the LB and all he had to do was come down and get in the way to seal that thing off. That’s not a hard block, in fact they don’t get much easier than that. Williams made a nice block on the edge that Smith cut off from on a 3rd & short and made a nice grab on a good throw from Rudock. They gave Poggi quite a bit of help this week rather than isolating him as a blocker and the results were much better. There are still times when he wants to lower his head and stomp right over people though. In one instance he led up the hole and lowered his shoulder and his LB bounces right off him…that may have been the 1st play of the second half now that I think about it. Another time he sealed a DE inside but then he relaxed a bit and the defender almost spun right off the block and into the play. The holding call in the 1st half…ehh. I hate calls like that because it had no effect on the play and he tugged on the defenders jersey a little. Technically yeah, it’s a hold, but Poggi was pushing him out and had no idea Rudock was going to flee the pocket. Not an egregious hold and not one that sprung the play; it happens. He played better, much better in fact but he was probably a net – negative against Utah so he had a long way to go to begin with, but I’d call it encouraging improvement from one week to the next.
OL
Cole – I thought Cole was pretty good, though there were some obvious mistakes. On the second drive of the game it looked like Cole & Braden mixed up a combo block. They were blocking down and there was a LB to the outside that Braden tried to reach when Cole had a much, much better angle on. On another play he got way too deep when pulling. He also missed a block on a screen pass that would’ve popped a little bit otherwise. He missed a block on a LB in the second half that looked pretty bad too. But that’s just the negative stuff. He did some work blocking down and setting the edge all day long. On one occasion we ran a straight power play where Braden blocked down and Cole blocked out and a huge hole opened. He did a nice job overall and was solid in pass protection.
Braden – Braden was quite a bit better this week. They had him moving a ton and that’s probably a good thing. Early in the first half he allowed his man to cross his face, which forced Kerridge to cut it back which really ruined the play. On another play he lets a DT cross his face again and almost get a hit on Rudock on a stinkin’ WR screen; that’s not good. Later he gets his head on the wrong side of a LB, who easily sheds him. But he also almost decapitated a S on the TD right before halftime and also blasted open holes on a bunch of other occasions when trapping & pulling. He did his best work when on the move and most of his struggles came when blocking down, not that it was a major problem this week but there were instances. There’s hope for Braden yet, as his performance in the 2nd & 3rd quarter was pretty impressive, though he wasn’t nearly as good in the 1st quarter.
Glasgow – I didn’t think Glasgow played great. He was decent but he also missed and fell off some blocks that he usually makes. On one Isaac run he completely whiffed on a LB. Another time he pulled around and picked up a S that Perry was blocking rather than working outside and finding the unblocked LB. Another time a LB slid off him and made a tackle after a 5 or 6 yard gain. He was good but he also missed some plays that he typically makes. That being said I have absolutely no worries about him going forward.
Kalis – Kalis was okay for the second straight week. In some ways he’s the polar opposite of Braden where he tends to struggle in space but is more comfortable in-line. He did give up leverage on Johnson’s only carry and it allowed the DT to trip up Drake. There was a huge surge on that play and Johnson probably shouldn’t have gone down with such minimal contact, but that was a bad play. He also got beat on the backside on the screen to Smith and Cole whiffed on. He got absolutely driven back by a DT on a 3rd & short but Williams and Smith bailed him out. His man also pursues all the way down the line to make a tackle on a reverse; great play by the DT, but you don’t need to get much of a DT to keep him from running that far down the line. But he did do a nice job blocking down for the most part and he looks better in space, though they don’t move him as much as Braden. He keeps his head up when pulling/trapping and is able to identify the most dangerous man, so his awareness is much improved. He does a nice job sliding in pass protection but he still stands up a bit on run plays. He’s not a weakness or a bad player, but he hasn’t been dominant to this point either.
Mags – I’ve seen Mags play better. He got a little lose in pass protection and allowed a blitzing DB to get inside on him in the first quarter. Later he lost leverage on a DE that fought back toward the play. Another time he completely whiffed on a LB at the second level. Mags is typically consistently solid so I was pretty surprised to see him make some blatant mistakes. But he was also pretty solid coming down and sealing things off; after all Braden can’t trap and blow people up without the edge being set in the first place. Overall he played well but he also made some uncharacteristic mistakes.
There was a lot to like about this game. Everybody played better yet they proved that they can’t quite overcome mistakes, which mostly came in the form of penalties. Those are drive killers and things get a little ugly when we’re behind in the sticks. I like our scheme though. This kind of block down/kick out stuff is exactly what Jim used at Stanford and you could see its effects in the 4th quarter. When you’re a LB or DE, you’re continually asked to take on trapping G’s and HB’s leading up. Eventually you get tired of that shit and you don’t want to take on that physicality anymore. It tests your resolve all game long, and frankly Oregon St just had enough of it. I think it’s coming together and you can begin to see how Rudock is actually a pretty good fit for what they want to do. But he needs all other phases of the offense to be in sink because he’s not good enough to compensate for them. It was a significant step forward and I’m beginning to like our pieces. Hopefully they look even better on Saturday.
QB’s
I thought Rudock was fine…again. I thought his pocket presence was as good as any QB we’ve had since Drew Henson actually. Gardner, Robinson, even Chad Henne never really learned how to shift around while staying in the pocket to buy an extra second or so. Rudock did this on a couple of occasions and kept his eyes downfield without making panicked decisions. It’s a very underrated attribute for a QB and one that a lot of dual threat guys never master because they can do damage with their legs outside of the pocket. The only exception was on the fumble. He's got to realize that the ball has to come out quick when you go empty. Oregon St runs a base 3 - man front and that makes it really easy to disguise blitzes, so he should've been prepared to dump it if necessary knowing he was alone back there. I don't know if we emptied the backfield again the rest of the game after that play.
But I like Rudock, and things sure did start to look easy for him once we started running the ball more effectively. He didn’t step into a deep ball to Chesson that caused it to die, and he was late on the INT. But the throw to Smith on 4th down was just a really well designed play. Butt ran a short crossing route over the middle while Smith ran a quick out route. Smith’s depth in the backfield added an element of delay to his route, and sure enough, the LB in flat coverage jumped Butt’s route in the middle and opened up the short flat to right. On the INT, I get that Butt’s his boy and all, but I wish Rudock would’ve read the defense a little bit because he’d have noticed Drake Harris on a post route that would’ve went for a TD. A simple survey of the safety’s would’ve told him that.
Rudock is what he is, and if you can put him in manageable situations and run some busy, manipulative sets he’s smart enough to get it to the right guy and accurate enough to give him the chance to run with it. I think he’s a really good fit for what we’re doing.
RB’s
Smith was quite a bit better than he was against Utah. He still missed a bunch of holes, but he ran with some desperation and broke a ton of tackles. On his first carry of the day he cut back inside and ran himself into a tackle. A TE missed a block on a LB but when your OL is blocking down you have to be really careful about when and where you cut back because that’s the way your entire OL is moving; he does that too often. You want to cut off their butts rather than crossing their face. Smith did make a nice quick cut on a 3rd & short and he picked up nice yardage. It was definitely more good than bad and his effort can be inspiring for the OL, but this blocking scheme is pretty much all block down/kick out, and the way they block it pushes the backs to the outside. Smith needs to be more mindful of that. I don’t want it to seem like I’m picking on him because he gained a lot of yards after contact, but there’s a real noticeable difference between Smith and the other backs in terms of lateral quickness. Smith slows down in his cuts while some of the other back glide and accelerate. That doesn’t make them better backs necessarily, it just forces Smith to take on more contact and grind for yards. He played well, but I worry that his lack of quickness and acceleration is going to cause some decent holes to close up against the big boys on our schedule.
I think it’s interesting that they’re trying to find a role for Ty Isaac, as they seem to use him quite a bit on 3rd downs. Unfortunately for Ty he’s quite poor in pass protection so he seems a little ill-suited for the role. He catches the ball well so I get why he’s out there, but he’s got all kinds of problems when he stays in to block. On one play he’s out of control and he attacks a blitzing LB, who promptly puts him on his butt, another time he tries to chop out a DE but he doesn’t get him to the ground. The dude’s as big as the LB’s that are blitzing so he should be able to pick this stuff up. He just needs to learn to stay balanced and patient. Isaac takes advantage of his opportunities when he gets to carry the ball but somehow he looks a little soft between the tackles even though the pile always moves forward. He finds tiny cracks that allow him to squeeze out extra yards and he never seems to take direct contact. Once again, I’d like to know what it would look like if he were given 20 carries.
I don’t want to come across as a Derrick Green cheerleader, but I thought he looked pretty good. He’s the absolute polar opposite of Smith though. Green doesn’t break many tackles, but he sets up his blockers really well at the second level and makes clean cuts. He looks lighter and quicker than he’s ever been and honestly, I think the type of runner he is directly contrasts his body. In my opinion, Green should probably drop another 10 – 15 pounds to improve his quickness and speed that much more. Why lug around all that weight if you’re not going to punish people with it? But I think there’s still potential there and that he’s coming along.
WR’s
Is it just me or do our WR’s look like way faster than last year? Darboh has some quickness that I didn’t know he had and Chesson caught a hitch route and exploded right past a CB for a 1st down…these guys look dangerous in the open field. Drake Harris hasn’t played football in a long time, which is pretty evident. He caught a ball on a WR screen that went for a loss but I don’t blame Perry for missing the block. Harris has to come back to the ball because when you do that, two things happen: 1 – you shorten the throw for the QB, which gives the defense less time to pursue, and 2 – you improve the angle for the WR that’s coming down to make the block on your man. That opens up a little crease between your block on the outside and the inside pursuit. Harris just stood there and waited for the ball. Brain Cole did the same thing last week.
But I like how we’re using our WR’s because it all seems so simple and it makes so much sense. Against zone coverage, a lot of the time they have a WR standing in the flat sitting on a hitch route. I’ve never seen a team do that so frequently, but it really stretches the zone coverage horizontally and vertically. It’s a really simple, yet unusual concept that forces the defense to cover the entire field and keeps the flat coverage from converging into the middle and taking away our TE’s. It also lends some insight into our recruiting. Guys like Ahmir Mitchell, Ennis or Evans could be monsters with the ball in their hands going one on one with a LB in the flat. The same can be said for Brian Cole.
TE’s/HB’s/FB
Our TE’s have come along as receivers but they’re not great in the run game. Butt falls off LB’s too often at the second level. It’s not an easy thing because they have to hold those blocks for what seems like forever, but he needs to keep his head up and his feet moving. A lot of times he’s not physical enough with DE’s when he’s blocking down and that causes him to stand up a little bit. Bunting has the same problems. On a pitch to Smith going right UM had them completely outflanked as Kalis led up. I think a CB actually blitzed right into the play but Kalis did a nice job of keeping his head up and took him out, freeing up the WR to look inside. This play was set up, but Bunting whiffed on a LB inside and his pursuit gummed everything up. Bunting was lined up outside of the LB and all he had to do was come down and get in the way to seal that thing off. That’s not a hard block, in fact they don’t get much easier than that. Williams made a nice block on the edge that Smith cut off from on a 3rd & short and made a nice grab on a good throw from Rudock. They gave Poggi quite a bit of help this week rather than isolating him as a blocker and the results were much better. There are still times when he wants to lower his head and stomp right over people though. In one instance he led up the hole and lowered his shoulder and his LB bounces right off him…that may have been the 1st play of the second half now that I think about it. Another time he sealed a DE inside but then he relaxed a bit and the defender almost spun right off the block and into the play. The holding call in the 1st half…ehh. I hate calls like that because it had no effect on the play and he tugged on the defenders jersey a little. Technically yeah, it’s a hold, but Poggi was pushing him out and had no idea Rudock was going to flee the pocket. Not an egregious hold and not one that sprung the play; it happens. He played better, much better in fact but he was probably a net – negative against Utah so he had a long way to go to begin with, but I’d call it encouraging improvement from one week to the next.
OL
Cole – I thought Cole was pretty good, though there were some obvious mistakes. On the second drive of the game it looked like Cole & Braden mixed up a combo block. They were blocking down and there was a LB to the outside that Braden tried to reach when Cole had a much, much better angle on. On another play he got way too deep when pulling. He also missed a block on a screen pass that would’ve popped a little bit otherwise. He missed a block on a LB in the second half that looked pretty bad too. But that’s just the negative stuff. He did some work blocking down and setting the edge all day long. On one occasion we ran a straight power play where Braden blocked down and Cole blocked out and a huge hole opened. He did a nice job overall and was solid in pass protection.
Braden – Braden was quite a bit better this week. They had him moving a ton and that’s probably a good thing. Early in the first half he allowed his man to cross his face, which forced Kerridge to cut it back which really ruined the play. On another play he lets a DT cross his face again and almost get a hit on Rudock on a stinkin’ WR screen; that’s not good. Later he gets his head on the wrong side of a LB, who easily sheds him. But he also almost decapitated a S on the TD right before halftime and also blasted open holes on a bunch of other occasions when trapping & pulling. He did his best work when on the move and most of his struggles came when blocking down, not that it was a major problem this week but there were instances. There’s hope for Braden yet, as his performance in the 2nd & 3rd quarter was pretty impressive, though he wasn’t nearly as good in the 1st quarter.
Glasgow – I didn’t think Glasgow played great. He was decent but he also missed and fell off some blocks that he usually makes. On one Isaac run he completely whiffed on a LB. Another time he pulled around and picked up a S that Perry was blocking rather than working outside and finding the unblocked LB. Another time a LB slid off him and made a tackle after a 5 or 6 yard gain. He was good but he also missed some plays that he typically makes. That being said I have absolutely no worries about him going forward.
Kalis – Kalis was okay for the second straight week. In some ways he’s the polar opposite of Braden where he tends to struggle in space but is more comfortable in-line. He did give up leverage on Johnson’s only carry and it allowed the DT to trip up Drake. There was a huge surge on that play and Johnson probably shouldn’t have gone down with such minimal contact, but that was a bad play. He also got beat on the backside on the screen to Smith and Cole whiffed on. He got absolutely driven back by a DT on a 3rd & short but Williams and Smith bailed him out. His man also pursues all the way down the line to make a tackle on a reverse; great play by the DT, but you don’t need to get much of a DT to keep him from running that far down the line. But he did do a nice job blocking down for the most part and he looks better in space, though they don’t move him as much as Braden. He keeps his head up when pulling/trapping and is able to identify the most dangerous man, so his awareness is much improved. He does a nice job sliding in pass protection but he still stands up a bit on run plays. He’s not a weakness or a bad player, but he hasn’t been dominant to this point either.
Mags – I’ve seen Mags play better. He got a little lose in pass protection and allowed a blitzing DB to get inside on him in the first quarter. Later he lost leverage on a DE that fought back toward the play. Another time he completely whiffed on a LB at the second level. Mags is typically consistently solid so I was pretty surprised to see him make some blatant mistakes. But he was also pretty solid coming down and sealing things off; after all Braden can’t trap and blow people up without the edge being set in the first place. Overall he played well but he also made some uncharacteristic mistakes.
There was a lot to like about this game. Everybody played better yet they proved that they can’t quite overcome mistakes, which mostly came in the form of penalties. Those are drive killers and things get a little ugly when we’re behind in the sticks. I like our scheme though. This kind of block down/kick out stuff is exactly what Jim used at Stanford and you could see its effects in the 4th quarter. When you’re a LB or DE, you’re continually asked to take on trapping G’s and HB’s leading up. Eventually you get tired of that shit and you don’t want to take on that physicality anymore. It tests your resolve all game long, and frankly Oregon St just had enough of it. I think it’s coming together and you can begin to see how Rudock is actually a pretty good fit for what they want to do. But he needs all other phases of the offense to be in sink because he’s not good enough to compensate for them. It was a significant step forward and I’m beginning to like our pieces. Hopefully they look even better on Saturday.
