Upon reflection as I’ve been sulking around the house today, a couple things hit me.
1. Our offense is predicated on strong defense and running dominance. The latter happens via some combination of offensive line dominance and RB ability. Our o-line is solid, physical, and well coached. But not nearly talented enough to be dominant against talented opponents. I think PSU gave us a bit of false hope in how good our line can be against a good front 7 - we’re just not that stout up front and are limited by the number of low talent ceiling players we have across the line.
I would say the same is true for our RBs. This offense demands a bellcow running back. One that’s durable, gets stronger as the game goes on, punishes defenses and makes yards after contact. Karan and Chris are great kids, above average runners and willing blockers, but neither of them are centerpiece RBs you can build an offense around. One of the more puzzling things about the Harbaugh era has been our inability to recruit blue chip RBs despite how RB-centric our offense is. Let’s hope Charbonnet is finally the answer to our prayers there.
2. It’s a bit of a trope and a lazy argument at times, but there’s some truth to it: our coaches have to be more creative on offense for games like this. We experienced slow starts in several of our wins this year and were lucky enough that our defense held well into the second halves of these games for the offense to finally start imposing its will. We fell into the same script against OSU but it was doomed to fail against an offense as explosive as theirs. An early plan designed to introduce new concepts or at least substantially break from tendencies would have likely put OSU’s liability units at LB, CB, and S on their heels and not building the early confidence they did. OSU played their best game of the year not by accident but because what we showed was for the most part what we had put on film.
3. A huge and underrated advantage OSU has is their lack of other rivals. Having MSU on our schedule especially with the way the rivalry has gone the past several years has us essentially dividing our rivalry focus between two games. OSU on the other hand has exactly one school it’s thinking about during the rest of their schedule. Don’t underestimate how impactful this is. One of the reasons I hate putting ND on the schedule - 2 rivals is enough for crying out loud.
Anyways, onward and upward.
1. Our offense is predicated on strong defense and running dominance. The latter happens via some combination of offensive line dominance and RB ability. Our o-line is solid, physical, and well coached. But not nearly talented enough to be dominant against talented opponents. I think PSU gave us a bit of false hope in how good our line can be against a good front 7 - we’re just not that stout up front and are limited by the number of low talent ceiling players we have across the line.
I would say the same is true for our RBs. This offense demands a bellcow running back. One that’s durable, gets stronger as the game goes on, punishes defenses and makes yards after contact. Karan and Chris are great kids, above average runners and willing blockers, but neither of them are centerpiece RBs you can build an offense around. One of the more puzzling things about the Harbaugh era has been our inability to recruit blue chip RBs despite how RB-centric our offense is. Let’s hope Charbonnet is finally the answer to our prayers there.
2. It’s a bit of a trope and a lazy argument at times, but there’s some truth to it: our coaches have to be more creative on offense for games like this. We experienced slow starts in several of our wins this year and were lucky enough that our defense held well into the second halves of these games for the offense to finally start imposing its will. We fell into the same script against OSU but it was doomed to fail against an offense as explosive as theirs. An early plan designed to introduce new concepts or at least substantially break from tendencies would have likely put OSU’s liability units at LB, CB, and S on their heels and not building the early confidence they did. OSU played their best game of the year not by accident but because what we showed was for the most part what we had put on film.
3. A huge and underrated advantage OSU has is their lack of other rivals. Having MSU on our schedule especially with the way the rivalry has gone the past several years has us essentially dividing our rivalry focus between two games. OSU on the other hand has exactly one school it’s thinking about during the rest of their schedule. Don’t underestimate how impactful this is. One of the reasons I hate putting ND on the schedule - 2 rivals is enough for crying out loud.
Anyways, onward and upward.
