OT Sean Harlow [Oregon State Commit]

dylan said:
Mistakes happen on every line. I think it's pretty obvious that our line has improved each of the last couple of years, both in providing a more consistent running game and in pass blocking. Have they reached the level we should expect at NU? No, but there's been progress. If we don't continue to see progress this year, I'll join the barney bashing bandwagon.

I just feel like there's been an inordinate amount of venom directed at him since his one year as OC of solich's offense and much of it is unwarranted considering the mess he took over. We finally have an effective ground game again and an offense that's showing signs of life and people want to junk a big part of it and start over. I'd rather see if we can keep making progress first.

Also, I'd say our weakest link on the team last year was the passing game, between Taylor's inconsistency and all of the receiver drops. Defensive back and defensive line play were hardly stellar either.
Click to expand...
plus 1, this is how i feel as well. We were 16th in rush offense last year, i believe 100 some yards away from 3 1000 yard rushers in 2010. Certainly can improve, but not terrible like some would love to think. i think most of the hate stems from the false start penalites, which have been terrbile, but improved last year.

 
We were 16th in Rush Offense last year because we played one team that was top-ten in rush defense. Every other team we played was ranked 39th or worse against the rush, and we played seven teams in the bottom half (60th or worse) in rush defense.

Further, we were ranked 104th in Pass Offense and only 14 teams in D1A attempted fewer passes - meaning we were bad at passing and we didn't try to do it very often - so we were forced to run, run, run all the time. We attempted more than twice as many rushes (611) as passes (293) last year, and we ended up 31st in the nation in yards per carry - and only eight of those 30 teams ahead of us carried the ball more than we did last year.

What does that mean? We rushed the ball because we couldn't pass, but even our go-to method of rushing the ball wasn't very effective, and we played against mediocre rush defenses while doing it.

You cannot tell me that's a "good" offensive line. Those are not the numbers of a good offensive line.

 
knapplc said:
We were 16th in Rush Offense last year because we played one team that was top-ten in rush defense. Every other team we played was ranked 39th or worse against the rush, and we played seven teams in the bottom half (60th or worse) in rush defense.

Further, we were ranked 104th in Pass Offense and only 14 teams in D1A attempted fewer passes - meaning we were bad at passing and we didn't try to do it very often - so we were forced to run, run, run all the time. We attempted more than twice as many rushes (611) as passes (293) last year, and we ended up 31st in the nation in yards per carry - and only eight of those 30 teams ahead of us carried the ball more than we did last year.

What does that mean? We rushed the ball because we couldn't pass, but even our go-to method of rushing the ball wasn't very effective, and we played against mediocre rush defenses while doing it.

You cannot tell me that's a "good" offensive line. Those are not the numbers of a good offensive line.
Click to expand...

When you consider everyone and their dog knew we were going to run, and we were still able to run(against a loaded box) says something to me. The passing stats are all on Taylor, he is the reason we attempted so few passes, not the Oline, so its not fair to pin the 104th pass offense on just the Oline. If we were more balanced, ypc would be up, and all the sudden our offensive line would look like they were road graders. Im not saying our Oline is Elite, but their not as bad as everyone is saying. We get rid of Barney and were going to get a guy who is already coaching the line in Garrisson imo because they are going to promote Vince Marrow first chance they get. They wont go and hire an Oline coach, even thou it would be awesome if they did.

IMO most of the reason we are inconsistent is youth. We never seem to have experience across the line all at the same time, were seeing new starters every single year, then when they become seniors we have freshman starting next to them. Its a cycle that needs to end, we need to have Jrs and Seniors always starting, and the underclassmen ready to step in, and we havent had that for a long long time. I agee were inconsistent.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I'm not pinning the 104th passing offense on the O Line. I'm saying we couldn't pass (for whatever reasons, fill in your own blank), so we had to run. Despite having to run, and despite playing very mediocre rush defense teams, we still didn't run very effectively.

This isn't in dispute - the numbers are right there on the NCAA website.

I'm with you on the "hope for the future" thing. I'm simply saying that what we saw last year doesn't leave much reason to be excited for this year. I agree with you that we never seem to have experience at the same time, and I'll add to that that we seem to have a lot of injuries, further depleting what little depth we have.

However, when you have a guy in Cotton who should know the ins-and-outs of rush blocking as well as anyone in the nation, and four years into his tenure as O Line coach we're still thin at the position and we're starting very young guys, and on top of that we miss out on recruits who should be coming here based on immediate playing time, that is a problem. I don't see any way around that conclusion.

 
I just think 16th is pretty good when you consider teams knew we were going to run, i would say thats effective, but thats just me and my tempered expectations. If we were 50th i would say we werent very effective, just average. Again i will say that with balance we would be a top 10 rushing and hell, combined with even a top 50 passing and we would win another game or 2. Top 20 passing and we would be downright dangerous, but i think thats too much improvment to ask for in just one year, i would be happy if we cut the 104th ranking in half, and keep or slightly improve rushing stats. Especially if Bo straightens out the D to normal levels.

 
HuskerFowler said:
I just think 16th is pretty good when you consider teams knew we were going to run, i would say thats effective, but thats just me and my tempered expectations. If we were 50th i would say we werent very effective, just average. Again i will say that with balance we would be a top 10 rushing and hell, combined with even a top 50 passing and we would win another game or 2. Top 20 passing and we would be downright dangerous, but i think thats too much improvment to ask for in just one year, i would be happy if we cut the 104th ranking in half, and keep or slightly improve rushing stats. Especially if Bo straightens out the D to normal levels.
Click to expand...
I don't want to look like I'm totally down on the team. What with injuries that Yoshi and Marcel suffered, Caputo being banged up and teams stacking the box on us, they didn't do terribly. I just don't want to come across as being that strongly against the O Line.

 
knapplc said:
HuskerFowler said:
I just think 16th is pretty good when you consider teams knew we were going to run, i would say thats effective, but thats just me and my tempered expectations. If we were 50th i would say we werent very effective, just average. Again i will say that with balance we would be a top 10 rushing and hell, combined with even a top 50 passing and we would win another game or 2. Top 20 passing and we would be downright dangerous, but i think thats too much improvment to ask for in just one year, i would be happy if we cut the 104th ranking in half, and keep or slightly improve rushing stats. Especially if Bo straightens out the D to normal levels.
Click to expand...
I don't want to look like I'm totally down on the team. What with injuries that Yoshi and Marcel suffered, Caputo being banged up and teams stacking the box on us, they didn't do terribly. I just don't want to come across as being that strongly against the O Line.
Click to expand...
I hear ya, i know theirs plenty of room for improvement. Wisconsin was 8th in rushing and 42 in passing, thats the balance i would like to see out of our offense, and it all starts on the line, we know that.

 
Nate Clouse (@NateClouse) tweeted at 1:44 PM on Fri, Oct 19, 2012:

“@adamgorney: #Washington commit Sean Harlow is visiting #Wisconsin this weekend.”

(


)
 
corncraze said:
ibleedredsince1985 said:
Decommitted from Washington and committed to Oregon State.
Click to expand...
This is confusing, because I thought I saw a teaser on HI earlier that said we may be back in it with Harlow.
Click to expand...
Think they were trolling, I saw it to and clicked on it, the article only said he liked us at one point and Stanton was in his ear then 10 min later he posted about the commit and the other tweet was deleted

 
Amac3309 said:
corncraze said:
ibleedredsince1985 said:
Decommitted from Washington and committed to Oregon State.
Click to expand...
This is confusing, because I thought I saw a teaser on HI earlier that said we may be back in it with Harlow.
Click to expand...
Think they were trolling, I saw it to and clicked on it, the article only said he liked us at one point and Stanton was in his ear then 10 min later he posted about the commit and the other tweet was deleted
Click to expand...
Got it. Thanks for the clarification!

 
Back
Top