Trending down in the Trenches?

ColoradoHusk said:
Cav is a complete moron.  I think the o-line has improved since Decker and Jaimes have entered the starting lineup. But those guys only sniffed playing time because there were injuries in front of them. I don't know what he sees in practice or if he plays favorites to certain guys, but when he kept on saying Cole Conrad was the best center, when he's obviously not, it shows me that Cav is dumb and stubborn. 
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Rob Zatechka has been talking about this on his podcast (Husker Doc Talk). They're off this week, but next week's podcast should be interesting.

 
Yeah, Cav seems to care more about how much time they've been here than how good they are. I understand wanting to lean on the older guys, but you just can't do that if they're not the best players. All in all I thought the line played a pretty solid game against a tough defense, but they're still inconsistent and I think if Cav had a choice it would still be Conrad and Knevel starting. They have improved, but I think Langs/Riley should be the ones to decide who plays on the line. Cav either can't or won't figure out who should be starting.

 
I am more than ready for Cav to be replaced.  It's clear the O line in run blocking is not improving when you look at an entire game against a good team.  Here's the frustration for me though.

I honestly thought they did a good job at pass protection.  I thought Lee would be running for his life in this game and he actually had a lot of time to find receivers and wasn't hit very much.

Also, the line started the game run blocking fairly well.  The first half, we were moving the ball and Ozigbo was able to pick up some decent chunks on runs.  I think he was around 100 yards at half.

BUT....why the hell couldn't they do it in the second half?  I absolutely refuse to believe Wisconsin is recruiting a higher level of physical talent.  I just don't see it.  BUT....their line comes with an attitude and they KNOW they are going to kick your a$$.

When we got our pick six against them, it was like it pissed them off.  Everyone on that offense (especially the line) said, fine....we will just run it down your throat from now on them.  AND...they did.

Someone has got to instill that attitude on this line.

Another thing I realized after looking it up.  Wisconsin averaged 322.4 lbs across the line.  Nebraska averaged 299 across the line.  Almost 24 lbs per lineman....makes a difference.

 
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A lot of the second half issues had to do with the playcalling. I'd have to re-watch it to make sure I'm remembering right (and I don't really want to do that), but it seemed like if we got stopped once on a run we wouldn't try again that drive. You're not going to get 4 yards every carry against Wisconsin, but we did show that we could break off some decent runs. Our line didn't really have a chance to try and assert their dominance in the second half, but I'm not sure they would've been able to anyway.

Size is definitely a factor but they just all get where they're supposed to be, and we were either too tired or too athletically limited to get off the blocks. Block destruction only works if you can actually disrupt the block, we just ran right into them and got driven back. Kind of reminds me of the B1G championship where they regretted redshirting Valentine - Stoltenberg couldn't hold up all game, and in his defense most NTs don't play every snap. It would not have been a game-changing difference, but Daniels might've helped. Deontre played a little bit, but they have him playing a weird technique way off the ball. Probably helps him use his quickness to avoid double teams, but it doesn't fly against a team like Wisconsin and I don't remember seeing him out there a lot.

 
Another thing I want to point out.  I just rematched the game.  I didn't see their RBs doing anything our RBs can't do.  Honestly, Taylor looks like Ozigbo.  BUT...the difference is he has an O line that is blowing holes for him and pushing the D line two yards off the ball.  Taylor wasn't juking defensive players out of their shoes.  He was grabbing the ball, running hard to a wide open hole and, after 10 yard head of steam, running over an LB or DB.

We absolutely got manhandled in the trenches in the run game on Saturday.

 
The administration is soft, the head coach is soft, the coaching staff is relatively soft, what else do you expect the team to be? MR wants to be Wisconsin but we are simply too soft to touch them or any of the other powers of the B1G. Recruiting doesn't mean anything if they can't be developed. 

 
Nebfanatic said:
Well Raridon has also played. The guys Riley have brought in haven't been here long enough to be our top lineman which is fine, ideally we want our juniors and seniors to be better than our redshirt frosh 

And I have seen improvement actually, 5 straight games with a 100 yard rusher and Lee sacked only once I believe against Wisconsin who got NW 8 times. The line has been steadily improving. 
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Agreed with the bolded part. And for as well as Jaimes has been playing the fact that he is playing tells you all you need to know about some of the "talent" Riley inherited across the O-line. Once could make the argument that our 2 worst lineman right now are the 2 most veteran lineman. Now I'm still not sold that Cav is a good coach along the line but once he made the switch to Decker and Jaimes, which was forced upon him due to injuries, our line has looked better. Hopefully that can continue this week and into the rest of the season. 

 
Honestly, it seems to me our OL has been improving albeit very slowly. I mean they sure aren't anything to write home about but I think the play calling and offensive flow has hampered us more than the OL.

Whatever happened to taking what the defense is giving and forcing them to stop what's working and then moving on to exploiting that adjustment? Seems whenever we have something work Langsdorf heads in a completely different direction immediately. I think he thinks he's being unpredictable but all he's doing is making it easier for the opposing defense by not forcing them to adjust. Case in point, Ozigbo was having success running at the corner early in the game so what does DL do, he abandons that and starts running him right into our center's a$$, which in turn causes 2nd and 10's and 3rd and longs and makes DL comfortable because then he can call some long developing pass play that doesn't stand a chance in hell because it's our only option and the D knows it. Play calling and flow.

 
HBCScottFrost said:
The administration is soft, the head coach is soft, the coaching staff is relatively soft, what else do you expect the team to be? MR wants to be Wisconsin but we are simply too soft to touch them or any of the other powers of the B1G. Recruiting doesn't mean anything if they can't be developed. 
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Player development is a multi year process.  Recruiting means everything.  Recruiting rankings on the other hand, that's another story.  

You can't squeeze blood out of a turnip.  Receivers who can't create separation from DB's is a direct talent on talent battle.  Never mind Wisky got away with a lot of holding, as most highly ranked undefeated teams do by conference officials, our receivers even when not being held had a tough time creating any separation. 

I was curious to see how MR's OSU team physically dominated Wisky a few years back, nearly shut them out, held Monte Ball to well under 100 yards, and beat them in the process.  I watched on youtube and OSU won the battle upfront on defense with a lot of player substitutions, violent physical ILB play, and physical blanket coverage by their DB's.  You can coach players what to do and where to be, but they are ultimately limited by their talent/experience/size once they get there.

We didn't have the ability to cycle multiple D linemen into the game on Saturday to keep everyone fresh without giving up a drop in performance in the process.  Recruiting the way we are, in a year or two we will and then it's just a matter of sustaining the depth year in and year out.  That's where Wisky is at now, but it took them a while to get there.  We aren't patient enough to do anything that intelligent here.  

 
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ColoradoHusk said:
Cav is a complete moron.  I think the o-line has improved since Decker and Jaimes have entered the starting lineup. But those guys only sniffed playing time because there were injuries in front of them. I don't know what he sees in practice or if he plays favorites to certain guys, but when he kept on saying Cole Conrad was the best center, when he's obviously not, it shows me that Cav is dumb and stubborn. 
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The o-line is playing better, but it's not because Cav decided to make changes. It's because he had no choice. The guy is clueless and should have been gone with Reed and Banker. 

100% agree. 

 
BigRedBuster said:
I am more than ready for Cav to be replaced.  It's clear the O line in run blocking is not improving when you look at an entire game against a good team.  Here's the frustration for me though.

I honestly thought they did a good job at pass protection.  I thought Lee would be running for his life in this game and he actually had a lot of time to find receivers and wasn't hit very much.

Also, the line started the game run blocking fairly well.  The first half, we were moving the ball and Ozigbo was able to pick up some decent chunks on runs.  I think he was around 100 yards at half.

BUT....why the hell couldn't they do it in the second half?  I absolutely refuse to believe Wisconsin is recruiting a higher level of physical talent.  I just don't see it.  BUT....their line comes with an attitude and they KNOW they are going to kick your a$$.

When we got our pick six against them, it was like it pissed them off.  Everyone on that offense (especially the line) said, fine....we will just run it down your throat from now on them.  AND...they did.

Someone has got to instill that attitude on this line.

Another thing I realized after looking it up.  Wisconsin averaged 322.4 lbs across the line.  Nebraska averaged 299 across the line.  Almost 24 lbs per lineman....makes a difference.
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The line did do better in pass protection, but Lee also suddenly gained pocket presence I haven't seen all year long. 

 
I'm not a Cav supporter but I still think most of the issues are higher up the chain.  

I thought the line played fairly well against Wisconsin.  Earlier in the year a lot of the issues that people tried to blame on the line really weren't their fault.

How did Cav put it earlier this year?  "It's hard.  But that's what we're doing."  The things we have been asking our line to do are often not putting them in a position to succeed.

 
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