If you cannot block the front 7 you have nothing. All the talent in the world at running back, all the talent at QB and all the talent at wide recieved goes down the drain in less than 3 seconds. Stuffed up the middle, off tackle, or a loss sprinting to the sidelines. Coach Davis has got to get the O line in gear. We cannot drive anyone off the ball, are not quick enough to trap, and our zone blocking has too many holes. Part of it is talent in the offensive line, part is technique, the rest in lack of strength and leverage. Alford couln't hit me if I was standing right in front of him, and Wills is helpless in pass protection. Either coachem up, or lets get someone else in there.
Coaching comes in two basic styles, recruit players to a system. Or evaluate your players and design what the do best. We seem to do neither. We have changed the offense, every week. And cannot seem to understand why we cannot move the ball.
And given Coach Fisch's penchant to scheme in favor being disciplined, leads to too many three and outs and an inablity to control the clock. If we win it is a heroic play by the defense.
If Coach Brewster pulls this off during the Bowl Game practices, and the offense comes out crisp, disciplined, and able to block the front 7 then I say give him the extension after the game.
But that's a big IF
Love your approach here, obviously you're a guy who gets it, AKA football is won in the trenches.
I've seen 2 games this year that we actually ran the ball well in, NW and Purdue.
It just seemed like we had a really solid running gameplan in place for NW, and we actually had a physical edge against Purdue.
Why we scrapped the gameplan against NW is beyond me, we mixed in well timed tosses to Whaley, with Gray in the wildcat, as well as classic off tackle, dive, and play action.
That should have been our base offense all year, and the fancy tricks and misdirection could have been built off that gameplan. Stommes in motion playing TE was brillliant, and the dive action tosses to Whaley could have been made extremely effective when Hoese got going late in the year. As for going forward, ISU gives up avg of 170 on the ground, if we can't get 150, we didn't do our jobs up front.
I also expect some young guys to contribute next year, we'll see how ready Olson and Michel are. I hate throwing freshmen linemen into the lineup, but they might just be better than Alford or Bunders. I was not impressed with Wynn last year,and a back injury can be career ending but maybe he contributes at C/G. I'd actually like to see Wills at guard, let him lean into interior tackles, and eliminate his perimeter pass blocking.
Maybe a lineup of Michel-Wills-Wynn-Carufel-Olson?
Any way you cut it, it all starts up front. Tim Davis needs to make a highlight tape of all the missed blocks and light some fires under the big men.
