This staff had Bryan Felter and CJ Hanson in a center guard rotation with Krimin and Palliant last season. What happened to them? A wasted year of development if they are so bad converted D linemen are ahead of them. Bordner and Rainey from D to O line may eventually work out but right now they are liabilities. This staff elevated Pierce to a prominent role in the line up and he too is currently a liability for the most part. Granted Sutton injury hurts and O'Neil has missed some time but the line play was better before this staff made the changes/so-called improvements they've made this season
The line looked a lot better once it looked like Hanson (though maybe could have been Gus) was in at center with Krimin at guard. Paillant looked like he was playing hurt and his replacement Ireland Brown (formerly Burke) flashed a little, but also got beaten a few times. Troy Rainey on the rewatch wasn't as bad as I saw in real time, but is still not reliable in pass protection on his own. Pierce gave up one sack where Vedral was 11 yards behind the line of scrimmage and the DE just ran around the outside, otherwise Hollin is still servicable though not "good" per se, yet. Blitz pickup was not great, but a few times it was because the back got in the way of the blitzer but Vedral stepped into space that allowed the defender to not even need to engage the back.
I don't understand why they can't play Felter though he was better in run blocking than pass last year also, so they probably think Paillant and Rainey mainly will get more push in the run game. They need to just forget the run game though as a priority because if you score 7 points on Northwestern, you are not going to be able to run against anybody else without the threat of a pass. So they need to get the best pass blocking OL combination possible by whatever means necessary and then if they get a lead or are in non-passing situations when they can play action OR throw on early downs, then maybe you reconsider and put in someone like Rainey who can shove some people around. Otherwise just run off of the pass since what they are doing now isn't working anyway, especially with quick hitting runs that were successful. Even though runs were not working, play action would have worked if the ball came out quick because the linebackers were biting. Unfortunately they had way too much time to recover back to the second level when the ball was coming out in more than 4 seconds virtually every time. Watching the Gleeson Princeton highlights, the ball always came out quick. At Oklahoma State, the ball either came out quick OR the quarterback rolled in a pre-designed way so the line knew where he was going. When they didn't do that the OSU QBs faced the same fate Vedral did today, you just can't put that much pressure on this Offensive line. Northwestern's OL would have been just as bad if they always had to block for 4 seconds.
The long developing, particularly QB option runs were allowing NW to have one crashing LB take both the QB and the RB, like on the fumble play. Monangai has success because he dives the ball quick and is at the line of scrimmage within 1 second, not more than 2. You can't do a strategy with long developing runs AND long developing passes, it has to be one or the other.
