Line Woes

[77GTFan]

I don't get to make as many home games as I used to, so I had to enjoy the Gardner-Webb game as much as possible. It was a bizarre day on the Tech sideline. But, a 10-7 win is better than an OT loss, which could have happened.

The O-line was really a mess. They were trying to do what Coach Johnson had said after the Duke game about getting lower, under the pads of defenders. But, they would fire out low and usually just fall on the ground. I thought Voss and Howard had the hardest time of all, Smith struggled too. Gardner-Webb's D-line backed off, kept their feet, and penetrated after our O-line fell to the ground. Plus, linebackers would see the O-line fall forward and shoot the gaps. With Calvin slow coming down the line they messed things up all day long. They are a good run defend team - in the five games before us the program said they had given up 228 yards rushing on 117 attempts - that's 45.6 yards per game and 1.9 yards per rush. In the air they had given up 1,100+ yards. We did not take full advantage of that.

I feel like it was our week of experimenting with getting our line to fire out low like CPJ wants. They did what they were told, but they did not keep their feet and the results were disastrous. I hope they get better in a hurry. We have played our four easiest games of the season already. With this line, our splits can't be as wide as Coach Johnson would like. Our QB's are going to have to get quicker to the corner or our blockers get better or we will see a lot more runs for losses.

But, that D-line is our best in my memory. Young LB's are playing hard and getting better and the secondary is fine. We may not win pretty, but I think some more wins are out there for us.

 

[beej67]

They were trying to do what Coach Johnoson had said after the Duke game about getting lower, under the pads of defenders. But, they would fire out low and usually just fall on the ground.

I've wondered if it wouldn't be better for PJ to just abandon (or revise) his cut blocking scheme with our current O linemen because of their inability to do it like he wants it.

 

[SMoney]

I've wondered if it wouldn't be better for PJ to just abandon (or revise) his cut blocking scheme with our current O linemen because of their inability to do it like he wants it.

What if they were to mix up the schemes to throw the defense off balance? They never know when someone is coming in low vs high...

 

[cajunjacket]

Yea, I agree with you both. This is not the coaches fault. Sometimes, as a player, you are trying so hard to do what the coach tells you that you forget to just go out there, use your head, and play football. That is what it looked like this past week.

 

[beej67]

I've seen a lot of DL players just try to "hop" over the cut block, time their jump with the snap, and come unmolested into our backfield.

I think when you know you're going to get cut every play, it makes it easier for you to avoid being cut.



beej67,
curious what RM's take on that is..

 

[mmbt0ne]

I think when you know you're going to get cut every play, it makes it easier for you to avoid being cut.

You'd think, but then Denver runs off cut blocks for 2k yards a year between their backs. So maybe we're just doing it wrong.

 

[odw]

beej67,
curious what RM's take on that is..

I'm curious as well. He'd probably have better insight on this any of us. I think at this point, out best beat may be to mix up the blocking since we are struggling with the cut blocks.

 

[refrigeratormover]

Guys, I'm not very knowledgable on the blocking schemes for this offense.

I will say this however, WE ARE NOT THAT GOOD UPFRONT!

The goal is to get your pads lower and get enough movement that the back can make cuts. DUH! I know many of you are saying that. These guys are playing very hesitant, with no confidence in what they are doing. That is a recipe for failure.

In this offense the OLine is the hardest to learn and perfect. These kids were trained to catch and push by the previous OL coach and now they are being taught to attack, stay low and get movement. It's new too them. Don't give me ( it's been 6+weeks including preseason. It just doesn't happen this fast)

Defense is going to keep us in a lot of games this year and JN will make some great plays to get us some scores while the OLine is still learning. It's just as frustrating to me but after talking to some sources bottom line is we are not that good. The future is bright though so lets hope a light turns on and we can get our 8 maybe 9 wins and get an east coast bowl.

 

[lonestarjacket]

So, what's an ideal OL for this offense? Is it a bunch of guys who might play FB in a more traditional offense?

P.S.
Some schools (service academies, Rice) turned to option style offenses as a way to compensate for undersized linemen. It would be ironic to have to compensate for an "oversized" line.

 

[ncjacket]

I've seen a lot of DL players just try to "hop" over the cut block, time their jump with the snap, and come unmolested into our backfield.

I think when you know you're going to get cut every play, it makes it easier for you to avoid being cut.



beej67,
curious what RM's take on that is..

I never played OL and don't really know the techniques, but it seems to me that the problem we're having is that we're simply missing on our blocks. Firing off low is fine, but you have to actually hit someone. If DL are hopping over us doesn't that really mean we aren't hitting them, we're just throwing the old body block in the path of where we think they're going?

 

[ken04thompson]

So, what's an ideal OL for this offense? Is it a bunch of guys who might play FB in a more traditional offense?

P.S.
Some schools (service academies, Rice) turned to option style offenses as a way to compensate for undersized linemen. It would be ironic to have to compensate for an "oversized" line.

CPJ said to Wes on the post game show that he wants good lineman and the bigger the better as long as they are good

 

[RamblinPeck]

Its all really basic. The bigger guy normally wins, unless he's too big to get where he needs to be. All other things being equal you take the bigger guy, but seldom are all other things equal.

 

[dodd_54]

I know this might sound like the easy answer, but I think we just had an off day and they played pretty good. Winning a close game, this will serve us well in the future.

 

[Jacque]

Whatever happened to plain old down and dirty kicking @ss grunt work

 

[alpha]

http://www.ajc.com/gatech/content/sports/gatech/stories/2008/10/12/georgia_tech_clemson.html

Tigers will be watching tape, too. It won’t be novel, but count on Clemson to show a similar defensive look to the Jackets that Gardner-Webb did Saturday and Duke did the week before. Both Duke and Gardner-Webb committed themselves to stopping the run and left themselves vulnerable to the pass, using similar “gap control” techniques along the defensive line to plug up holes. “They were diving on the ground, diving at our knees a lot,” Voss said. “We just didn’t adjust as well as we should have as a line.”

From that quote, it sounds like our guys were being cut blocked instead of being the cut blockers and they had no idea how to adjust to account for that. So this is a big concern because CPJ said that the o-line's job is to get low to the ground and launch forward when the ball is snapped. How are they supposed to do that if they are being cut blocked?

If you re-watch the Dwyer run (link) for 88 yards in the MSU game, you can clearly see the right guard and tackle cut blocking their middle linebacker which we can only assume is assigned to watch for the dive and A-backs in motion. Their OLB on the Dwyer's side commits to Jaybo while their other OLB becomes ineffective due to Jon's speed.

I kind of wish there were clips of the GW game so I could see what their d-line was doing.

Considering CPJ ran this option for how many ever years, I'm sure this isn't the first time he's seen this kind of technique against his system. I am surprised however that he didn't help our o-line make the adjustments to counter it.

 

[GT98]

I know this might sound like the easy answer, but I think we just had an off day and they played pretty good. Winning a close game, this will serve us well in the future.

I agree as far as the team goes, but our o-line has been physically whipped and manhandled in pretty much every game.

Perhaps, our poor o-line recruiting has come home to roost which is hurting as much as having a very different scheme?

 

[ramblinwise1]

I don't get to make as many home games as I used to, so I had to enjoy the Gardner-Webb game as much as possible. It was a bizarre day on the Tech sideline. But, a 10-7 win is better than an OT loss, which could have happened.

The O-line was really a mess. They were trying to do what Coach Johnoson had said after the Duke game about getting lower, under the pads of defenders. But, they would fire out low and usually just fall on the ground. I thought Voss and Howard had the hardest time of all, Smith struggled too. Gardner-Webb's D-line backed off, kept their feet, and penetrated after our O-line fell to the ground. Plus, linebackers would see the O-line fall forward and shoot the gaps. With Calvin slow coming down the line they messed things up all day long. They are a good run defend team - in the five games before us the program said they had given up 228 yards rushing on 117 attempts - that's 45.6 yards per game and 1.9 yards per rush. In the air they had given up 1,100+ yards. We did not take full advantage of that.

I feel like it was our week of experimenting with getting our line to fire out low like CPJ wants. They did what they were told, but they did not keep their feet and the results were disastrous. I hope they get better in a hurry. We have played our four easiest games of the season already. With this line, our splits can't be as wide as Coach Johnson would like. Our QB's are going to have to get quicker to the corner or our blockers get better or we will see a lot more runs for losses.

But, that D-line is our best in my memory. Young LB's are playing hard and getting better and the secondary is fine. We may not win pretty, but I think some more wins are out there for us.

That is what I saw as well. You can't just dive at the D lines ankles. We were taught the crab technique, get low and get under but keep driving on all 4s. If you are going to just dive out you MUST knock the guy off his feet.

 

[00Burdell]

I thought we had some improvement at O-Line recruiting the last couple years.

I watch recruiting every year and usually understand how good we have or haven't done at most positions but I am clueless at how good our O-Line recruits are. So, I end up looking at stars and it seems to me that we have gotten more "good" O-Line prospects than in years past.

I'm getting more than a little annoyed at the utter - if not complete - lack of progress we have made on the O-Line the last few years. Every other position has either improved or showed an occasional flash of brilliance except for that one. I'm fighting the temptation to just write off our O-Line as a talent graveyard.

 

[JoeCakeEater]

I thought we had some improvement at O-Line recruiting the last couple years.

I watch recruiting every year and usually understand how good we have or haven't done at most positions but I am clueless at how good our O-Line recruits are. So, I end up looking at stars and it seems to me that we have gotten more "good" O-Line prospects than in years past.

I'm getting more than a little annoyed at the utter - if not complete - lack of progress we have made on the O-Line the last few years. Every other position has either improved or showed an occasional flash of brilliance except for that one. I'm fighting the temptation to just write off our O-Line as a talent graveyard.

It's a different scheme which is causing some mixed results for our Lineman. It's not that they aren't talented, but maybe we are just not playing to their strengths with our new scheme. They need to figure it out and adjust, which they clearly haven't to this point, but I don't necessarily blame it on a lack of talent. I don't really know what to blame it on honestly, but to say that we have a lineman talent graveyard here at Tech seems a little miss informed to me. Especially considering that we've led the ACC in rushing the past how-ever-many years using the zone blocking scheme, before we went to our current scheme which hasn't produced good results in the trenches, YET.