After my little ban for a joke I did my little analysis of the game and I’m fairly confident our offense can get it done. I’m starting to believe again. The offensive line and 3rd down conversions still bug me.
Purdue showed everyone that tOSU can be beat and beaten thoroughly.
Nebraska can do the same thing...as long as the defense can hold strong. There are a few glaring problems however. I’m going to start off with what I believe to be the obvious problem:
Pass defense, specifically the coverage. Chinander’s system can work but you need two things to work right, coaching the scheme correctly and have the right players to fit that scheme. I’m starting to think the team is falling short in both categories. Not by a large margin but still short.
The scheme: players are often in man coverage, which that isn’t the problem, the problem is leaving the players so far back and not having them being able to jam opponents at the line to throw off the route and timing. Too often there seems to be 5 yard cushions and any reciever within that cushion can easily get the ball, especially late in game. The coaches should be preaching “get in his face” for man coverage. That is how I view it. The cushions are also attributed to the 2nd problem:
Lack of agility and acceleration. We have talented backs for sure but too often the get burned on a route because they can’t recover from a reciever making a good cut on a route. Some defenders are too far back and a quick short route can leave them out of place but even if is a deep route, the back gets burned on a good move.
They need to scheme around the current talent better and look to get agile ball hawks on the team down the road.
Obviously a good pass rush can help a lot but if I was Ohio State I would do what we did to Minnesota.
Purdue showed everyone that tOSU can be beat and beaten thoroughly.
Nebraska can do the same thing...as long as the defense can hold strong. There are a few glaring problems however. I’m going to start off with what I believe to be the obvious problem:
Pass defense, specifically the coverage. Chinander’s system can work but you need two things to work right, coaching the scheme correctly and have the right players to fit that scheme. I’m starting to think the team is falling short in both categories. Not by a large margin but still short.
The scheme: players are often in man coverage, which that isn’t the problem, the problem is leaving the players so far back and not having them being able to jam opponents at the line to throw off the route and timing. Too often there seems to be 5 yard cushions and any reciever within that cushion can easily get the ball, especially late in game. The coaches should be preaching “get in his face” for man coverage. That is how I view it. The cushions are also attributed to the 2nd problem:
Lack of agility and acceleration. We have talented backs for sure but too often the get burned on a route because they can’t recover from a reciever making a good cut on a route. Some defenders are too far back and a quick short route can leave them out of place but even if is a deep route, the back gets burned on a good move.
They need to scheme around the current talent better and look to get agile ball hawks on the team down the road.
Obviously a good pass rush can help a lot but if I was Ohio State I would do what we did to Minnesota.