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Consistency on Offense

1

1983 Griz

Well-known member
At the risk of beating a dead horse on this board, I feel the need to revisit our woes on offense this year. We are facing purportedly one of the best defenses in FCS and can't afford multiple series to stall-out inside the red zone.

I am not a football expert by any means. Much like my vehicles where I expect reliabilility but diagnosing a problem myself by looking under the hood is a colossal waste of time, I would like to hear what others see as our biggest offensive issues and any hope for remedy this week.

A few items for fodder:
- Offensive line. Coaching? Athleticism? Meaness?
- Quarterback decision-making?
- Injuries at running back?
- Offensive scheme. Too simplistic and predictiable?
- Play calling? (Hey diddle-diddle, up the middle)
- Others?

Bring it!
 
I think a few things feed into this. It all centers around the running game and the injuries to Knight and Ostmo. The line, while it has had its woes, has been hampered by the running back situation. Consider this: ALL RBs are freshmen. They don’t have the collegiate game experience, are undersized, or were never supposed to be a RB to begin with. Now try and run the football. Hard to do.

Without that experience, any issue that the line has is magnified. Holes that Knight and Ostmo might have seen or exploited are missed by the frosh RBs. Harris and Bergen don’t have the power that the starting two might have had. Childs has the power, but not the collegiate level vision yet. With these handicaps, pass protection/blitz pickup suffers. RBs aren’t as much of a pass threat as before. Defenses can stuff the run and get after the QB.

Then we get an injured Cam. Brown now has to make something happen with a running game that is less than stellar, defenses that have their ears pinned back, and HIS adjustment to collegiate speed. Coaches needed to simplify everything for him because the game is going too fast.

Now coaches have vanilla offense, trying to get frosh RBs to see the holes, inexperience at QB, and opposing defenses not respecting the run. Brown now can’t stretch the field because the defensive front seven can simply bring it and force him to win it with his arm. Thus short passes and very little downfield shots.

It all comes from the running game and its absence.
 
PDXGrizzly said:
I think a few things feed into this. It all centers around the running game and the injuries to Knight and Ostmo. The line, while it has had its woes, has been hampered by the running back situation. Consider this: ALL RBs are freshmen. They don’t have the collegiate game experience, are undersized, or were never supposed to be a RB to begin with. Now try and run the football. Hard to do.

Without that experience, any issue that the line has is magnified. Holes that Knight and Ostmo might have seen or exploited are missed by the frosh RBs. Harris and Bergen don’t have the power that the starting two might have had. Childs has the power, but not the collegiate level vision yet. With these handicaps, pass protection/blitz pickup suffers. RBs aren’t as much of a pass threat as before. Defenses can stuff the run and get after the QB.

Then we get an injured Cam. Brown now has to make something happen with a running game that is less than stellar, defenses that have their ears pinned back, and HIS adjustment to collegiate speed. Coaches needed to simplify everything for him because the game is going too fast.

Now coaches have vanilla offense, trying to get frosh RBs to see the holes, inexperience at QB, and opposing defenses not respecting the run. Brown now can’t stretch the field because the defensive front seven can simply bring it and force him to win it with his arm. Thus short passes and very little downfield shots.

It all comes from the running game and its absence.
Click to expand...

what this dude said.
 
If I may interject. If we did not have Bergen emerge this year, we would have had ZERO run game. Period. Kid is a legend waiting to happen.

Next year, all will be right with Knight and Ostmo, I hope. And, it will be a completely different story.
 
Montanabear777 said:
If I may interject. If we did not have Bergen emerge this year, we would have had ZERO run game. Period. Kid is a legend waiting to happen.

Next year, all will be right with Knight and Ostmo, I hope. And, it will be a completely different story.
Click to expand...

I agree. Bergen has been heaven sent this year. Kid is a true weapon. I should point out that he took some lumps early on playing a position he had no experience with. What has been impressive is the maturation of both Bergen and Harris as the season progressed. Neither of them will be a power back (Bergen is best outside the tackles), but they have gotten better and better.

My only knock on Harris is that he is a bit indecisive in the hole. He has a tendency to wait for blocking to develop too long before hitting it. By that time the pursuit has caught up and whatever blocks he was trying to set up are ineffective. You can overrun your blocking, but he is under running it. I’d like him to hit the hole harder ( ;) ) and be more aggressive. He’s getting there though!
 
PDXGrizzly said:
Montanabear777 said:
If I may interject. If we did not have Bergen emerge this year, we would have had ZERO run game. Period. Kid is a legend waiting to happen.

Next year, all will be right with Knight and Ostmo, I hope. And, it will be a completely different story.
Click to expand...

I agree. Bergen has been heaven sent this year. Kid is a true weapon. I should point out that he took some lumps early on playing a position he had no experience with. What has been impressive is the maturation of both Bergen and Harris as the season progressed. Neither of them will be a power back (Bergen is best outside the tackles), but they have gotten better and better.

My only knock on Harris is that he is a bit indecisive in the hole. He has a tendency to wait for blocking to develop too long before hitting it. By that time the pursuit has caught up and whatever blocks he was trying to set up are ineffective. You can overrun your blocking, but he is under running it. I’d like him to hit the hole harder ( ;) ) and be more aggressive. He’s getting there though!
Click to expand...

Absolutely. I'd love to see Bergen next year in the slot/RB/jack of all trades/etc kind of a deal. With our RBs healthy again and an emerging receiving corps, (lets not forget Grossman) he would give DCs FITS!!!
 
Bergen has emerged as one of the most complete athletes on the team. It's like, "Put me in, coach, I'm ready to play" ... whatever position, whatever time. I love that we get to enjoy his skills for three more years.
 
Maybe this deserves it’s own thread but here’s a question: what is Bergen’s future position?
 
heightsgriz said:
Maybe this deserves it’s own thread but here’s a question: what is Bergen’s future position?
Click to expand...


Next year QB.
Year after Outside LB
Final year Middle LB

That seems vaguely familiar…
 
Grizzlies1982 said:
heightsgriz said:
Maybe this deserves it’s own thread but here’s a question: what is Bergen’s future position?
Click to expand...


Next year QB.
Year after Outside LB
Final year Middle LB

That seems vaguely familiar…
Click to expand...
:clap:
 
Montanabear777 said:
If I may interject. If we did not have Bergen emerge this year, we would have had ZERO run game. Period. Kid is a legend waiting to happen.

Next year, all will be right with Knight and Ostmo, I hope. And, it will be a completely different story.
Click to expand...
Bergen is a stud, just think there can be a little love for Harris as well. He got thrown in probably at least a year before he was fully ready and still ran for 600+ and 4.7 a pop. It's not Infanse or Knight but it's not chicken feed. Glad we have both of them. GO GRIZ
 
heightsgriz said:
Maybe this deserves it’s own thread but here’s a question: what is Bergen’s future position?
Click to expand...

He was recruited as a slot receiver, so I imagine that's where he'll be.
 
SaskGriz said:
Montanabear777 said:
If I may interject. If we did not have Bergen emerge this year, we would have had ZERO run game. Period. Kid is a legend waiting to happen.

Next year, all will be right with Knight and Ostmo, I hope. And, it will be a completely different story.
Click to expand...
Bergen is a stud, just think there can be a little love for Harris as well. He got thrown in probably at least a year before he was fully ready and still ran for 600+ and 4.7 a pop. It's not Infanse or Knight but it's not chicken feed. Glad we have both of them. GO GRIZ
Click to expand...

Same with Childs. But one positive: We are SUPER deep at RB now…with lots of game experience. Get those fellas bulked up by 15-20 lbs and we’ll be set for the next four years.
 
2022

Bergen - Flowers slot this year - Flowers takes over for Akem
Knight
Ostmo
Harris
Childs

Talk about being able to keep a fresh pair of legs in the running game.
 
SaskGriz said:
Montanabear777 said:
If I may interject. If we did not have Bergen emerge this year, we would have had ZERO run game. Period. Kid is a legend waiting to happen.

Next year, all will be right with Knight and Ostmo, I hope. And, it will be a completely different story.
Click to expand...
Bergen is a stud, just think there can be a little love for Harris as well. He got thrown in probably at least a year before he was fully ready and still ran for 600+ and 4.7 a pop. It's not Infanse or Knight but it's not chicken feed. Glad we have both of them. GO GRIZ
Click to expand...

I don’t know if you’ve seen what the grain market is like, but I wish it was chicken feed.
 
SaskGriz said:
Montanabear777 said:
If I may interject. If we did not have Bergen emerge this year, we would have had ZERO run game. Period. Kid is a legend waiting to happen.

Next year, all will be right with Knight and Ostmo, I hope. And, it will be a completely different story.
Click to expand...
Bergen is a stud, just think there can be a little love for Harris as well. He got thrown in probably at least a year before he was fully ready and still ran for 600+ and 4.7 a pop. It's not Infanse or Knight but it's not chicken feed. Glad we have both of them. GO GRIZ
Click to expand...

Definitely. And, Harris is coming on and his vision is improving at the right time of year. I liked what I saw from him against the schmeagles.
 
What has been said is all true we need to be able to run the ball, this will take some of the pressure off of Cam. Noticing that when he has time he is pretty accurate. He needs to get rid of the ball when nothing is there instead of taking the sack. He waits to long for someone to come open. But it’s all getting better and I hope they kick some butt Friday night. Go Griz
 
About a month ago, I heavily criticized the playcalling and lack of player utilization. Both aspects have improved against MSU and EWU. I suggested more pre snap motion, using Bergen on 10+ yard passes, using Akem and Flowers more in different alignments etc, more diversity in play calls and utilization, etc. To my surprise, those things have happened gradually the last 2 games.

Early in the last 2 games we had Bergen burn MSU deep. We had Flowers take a fly sweep 75 yards to the house against EWU.

Now the next step, getting a playmaker or playmakers more touches. Those guys being Akem, Flowers. Bergen, Harris, Grossman, and Roberts. I'd be throwing in more sets with 3 to 5 of those of those guys in the same set. 1 o 2 of those guys would be matched up with LBS in coverage. That's an absolute coverage mismatch for the GRIZ. Add in a double reverse action, Flowers and or Roberts actually throwing a pass (I believe, both played some QB in HS).

Finally, gain faith in Akem and Grossman to make contested catches. Not many defenders can beat either on contested passes. If in doubt, throw it up 30+ plus yards for either, like EWU has done for how long? At worse, throw the damn ball away!

Ironic, if a few other select posters had made these suggestions, prior to the Brawl, they'd be getting praised here.

Regardless, here's to hoping the offense continues to improve. At the very least, minimize lost yardage and turnovers.
 
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