Offensive line video cutup thread

[adolph rollingover]

I am going to use this thread to give the offensive line credit and try and dispel much of the hate "they" get on this site.
Clip #1 Here UGA is bringing Double A Gap pressure. The Runningback will take the outside threat. The interior line picks up the 4 rushers and Heard handles #5. However, the QB runs into the trouble. In this instance when feeling Outside pressure the release point is up 2 and then the direction he feels the pressure.

As a result, he runs away from the pressure an outside his protection and is forced to throw the ball for grabs. Fans call for the OL "to block someone" . This hurry is a downgrade on the QB.

 

[adolph rollingover]

In this Clip UK is running an outside zone read with Ryan Timmons. The DE is being read. If he hangs or widens with the Outside zone path, the QB will keep and work backside almost like a counter. The playside guard (right side) will zone step right and slam any defender then work up to the backside linebacker. His technique was perfect and the cutback lane was present. The QB made a wrong or inaccurate read. He would receive a downgrade on this snap.

 

[pickled cat]

LEARNING TO STEP UP IN THE POCKET SEAMS TO BE ONE OF THE LAST THINGS THEY FEEL COMFORTABLE DOING, BUT WHEN THEY GET IT IT'S LIKE MAGIC!!!

 

[jnewc2]

I know there are always times you can point to the 1 or 2 times out of 10 that the line did their job blocking, and the QB didn't step up in the pocket or trust his blocking..but let's be honest, when the line ISN'T doing their job the majority of the time (which they weren't in SEC play last year, let's just be real) you can't just expect a first year QB playing in the SEC to fully trust the line when 80 or 90% of the time they're NOT doing their job..that's just not realistic..maybe in a perfect world we could expect a QB to be under constant pressure yet have full trust and not get antsy in the pocket, but come on..it would be hard for Tom Brady to do that..much less a first year underclassmen starter in the SEC...

The QB position is hard enough without having to worry about getting sacked..trying to defend our offensive line last year is going to be an exercise in futility..sure you can point out the few times they did their job and Towles didn't fully trust their blocking and calmly step up in the pocket, but you're just not being realistic (or fair) when you're doing that, I'm sorry

You can't just have the line not doing their job 80% of the time, and then expect that the 20% of the time when they actually do a decent job you can't just jump all over the QB and expect him to trust his line and calmly step up in the pocket..I'm telling you it's just not realistic..it would be hard for an experienced, talented QB to trust a line like that, much less a first year starter playing in the toughest conference in America against NFL defensive linemen and linebackers

If we want to get down to it, Towles actually did a heck of a job to be as confident and play as well as he did behind our line..I know he didn't play perfect or consistent, but he's not perfect..you can't expect him to trust an offensive line that only blocks well on 20% of the plays

Tell me, if you're driving down the road and you know that 5 days out of the week you're going to be in a car wreck and two days you won't be, how well do you think you're going to drive? Someone could point out those 2 days of the week that you didn't get in a wreck and say "man, what happened? You didn't even get in a wreck today, but you were still nervous and looking over your shoulder while you were driving!" That's exactly the same thing that's happening on the football field.

You're not a robot, and neither is Patrick Towles..he doesn't want to have his neck broken anymore than the next guy. It's not a coincidence that most of the time the best QB's in the nation are playing behind some of the best lines in the nation. They have confidence and trust in those guys.

If you want to do a really good cutup, a good idea that I've had for one is going into Kentucky's SEC play, and go through every single offensive play against teams like LSU, Georgia, and Mississippi State, and compare the amount of time that their QB has before he's under any type of pressure, and compare that to how much time Towles had before he had a guy in his face or close to touching him. Do every single play, and then break down the averages, don't just pick out the once or twice where our line does a halfway decent job, because that's just not being thorough or truthful.

As the anonymous SEC coach said about our team in Athlon magazine a couple months ago:

“They have some nice-looking skill guys, but you still have to get it done up front in this league to win big.”

Translation: Patrick Towles is SEC caliber, Boom Williams is SEC caliber, AJ Stamps is SEC Caliber, Josh Forrest is SEC caliber, for the most part UK's skill players are SEC caliber..but our line is not SEC caliber (not last year anyways) and because of that it makes our skill players look bad, and prevents us from winning big.

There's a reason he said that..he didn't just pull it out of a hat..if a random SEC coach notices that kind of thing, I'd take his word for it..It doesn't matter how good your skill players if you don't have a good line...a bad line nullifies skill players, it just does..Kentucky's had some of the best skill players in the history of the SEC..we're rarely every short on skill players..what we're almost ALWAY short on are guys in the trenches..they're hard to recruit, there aren't many of them, you need a lot of depth, and they're even harder to develop

Now I think our offensive line will improve quite a bit this year..but trying to defend the play of last year's offensive line (especially in SEC play) is just very, very hard to do, and it's just not really fair honestly..it's not fair to point out the few times they did their job and jump all over Towles for not having full and complete trust in their blocking

Does Towles need to improve? Absolutely, he's nowhere near where he can be, but the difference in the amount of improvement he needs and the amount of improvement our line needs is just night and day..it just is, there's no way around it. QB isn't the position keeping us from being a really good team

 

[TBCat]

I know there are always times you can point to the 1 or 2 times out of 10 that the line did their job blocking, and the QB didn't step up in the pocket or trust his blocking..but let's be honest, when the line ISN'T doing their job the majority of the time (which they weren't in SEC play last year, let's just be real) you can't just expect a first year QB playing in the SEC to fully trust the line when 80 or 90% of the time they're NOT doing their job..that's just not realistic..maybe in a perfect world we could expect a QB to be under constant pressure yet have full trust and not get antsy in the pocket, but come on..it would be hard for Tom Brady to do that..much less a first year underclassmen starter in the SEC...

The QB position is hard enough without having to worry about getting sacked..trying to defend our offensive line last year is going to be an exercise in futility..sure you can point out the few times they did their job and Towles didn't fully trust their blocking and calmly step up in the pocket, but you're just not being realistic (or fair) when you're doing that, I'm sorry

You can't just have the line not doing their job 80% of the time, and then expect that the 20% of the time when they actually do a decent job you can't just jump all over the QB and expect him to trust his line and calmly step up in the pocket..I'm telling you it's just not realistic..it would be hard for an experienced, talented QB to trust a line like that, much less a first year starter playing in the toughest conference in America against NFL defensive linemen and linebackers

If we want to get down to it, Towles actually did a heck of a job to be as confident and play as well as he did behind our line..I know he didn't play perfect or consistent, but he's not perfect..you can't expect him to trust an offensive line that only blocks well on 20% of the plays

Tell me, if you're driving down the road and you know that 5 days out of the week you're going to be in a car wreck and two days you won't be, how well do you think you're going to drive? Someone could point out those 2 days of the week that you didn't get in a wreck and say "man, what happened? You didn't even get in a wreck today, but you were still nervous and looking over your shoulder while you were driving!" That's exactly the same thing that's happening on the football field.

You're not a robot, and neither is Patrick Towles..he doesn't want to have his neck broken anymore than the next guy. It's not a coincidence that most of the time the best QB's in the nation are playing behind some of the best lines in the nation. They have confidence and trust in those guys.

If you want to do a really good cutup, a good idea that I've had for one is going into Kentucky's SEC play, and go through every single offensive play against teams like LSU, Georgia, and Mississippi State, and compare the amount of time that their QB has before he's under any type of pressure, and compare that to how much time Towles had before he had a guy in his face or close to touching him. Do every single play, and then break down the averages, don't just pick out the once or twice where our line does a halfway decent job, because that's just not being thorough or truthful.

As the anonymous SEC coach said about our team in Athlon magazine a couple months ago:

“They have some nice-looking skill guys, but you still have to get it done up front in this league to win big.”

Translation: Patrick Towles is SEC caliber, Boom Williams is SEC caliber, AJ Stamps is SEC Caliber, Josh Forrest is SEC caliber, for the most part UK's skill players are SEC caliber..but our line is not SEC caliber (not last year anyways) and because of that it makes our skill players look bad, and prevents us from winning big.

There's a reason he said that..he didn't just pull it out of a hat..if a random SEC coach notices that kind of thing, I'd take his word for it..It doesn't matter how good your skill players if you don't have a good line...a bad line nullifies skill players, it just does..Kentucky's had some of the best skill players in the history of the SEC..we're rarely every short on skill players..what we're almost ALWAY short on are guys in the trenches..they're hard to recruit, there aren't many of them, you need a lot of depth, and they're even harder to develop

Now I think our offensive line will improve quite a bit this year..but trying to defend the play of last year's offensive line (especially in SEC play) is just very, very hard to do, and it's just not really fair honestly..it's not fair to point out the few times they did their job and jump all over Towles for not having full and complete trust in their blocking

Does Towles need to improve? Absolutely, he's nowhere near where he can be, but the difference in the amount of improvement he needs and the amount of improvement our line needs is just night and day..it just is, there's no way around it. QB isn't the position keeping us from being a really good team

No question our line was the weakest part of the team but they actually were decent in pass protection. The problem was run blocking. We couldn't reliably pick up a 1st running the ball even if we started trying it on 2nd and inches. Even against the bad teams we were bad at running the ball. With a couple of player exceptions we actually pass blocked reasonably well enough to win games.

The point being made in the video is accurate enough. People seem to want to insulate Towles from any and all criticism but there were countless situations where he made things tough on the players around him. Everyone wants to blame our WRs for dropped balls and line for pass pro but Towles created situations that made those guys look bad. Line looked bad because Towles didn't understand where he had protection. WRs looked bad because he didn't understand where the defender was or the timing of the route. You lead a WR into a 250lb LB and I promise you from that point on he will develop a case of alligator arms.

Towles isn't alone in his need for improvement but we need people to stop trying to shield him from legit criticism by trying to blame his teammates. My biggest issue with Towles was not the situation posted above. I believe that is easily coachable. The problem I have is that he has almost no feel for the short passing game. Deep throws were he can sit back and hop around and pat the ball 4 or 5 times before throwing he does fine. Short throws you can't do that. Short throws you have a window to get rid of the ball. Miss it and the play is blown up or picked off. Towles didn't seem to feel any sense of timing on those routes. Some of his 2 step drops turned into 4 or 5 steps. There has to be some sense of urgency on the timing of the play.

 

[adolph rollingover]

Appreciate the well thought out responses above. My intent is not to criticize anyone, but to bring to light common areas where the criticism of the OL was misplaced.

Further, the intent of this discussion is not to convince the OL as a whole was a superior product, but one that is completely serviceable and capable of producing. Thanks for your input.

 

[Caveman Catfan]

It is a good point to make. While Stoops admits the line play and depth has not been where he wants it, fans often exaggerate the line's role in our troubles last year, but rarely give it credit for our successes. Our skill players were very young last year in age and experience. That kind of team needs a deep and superior line to have consistent success.

I think Towles, his WRs, and his RBs will be more adept and more capable of maximizing their skills this year by having a better understanding and actual experience. The line benefits from that. I also think the depth on the line is as good at this moment as we have seen under Stoops. This is good news.

 

[BlueRaider22]

Good post OP. Always enjoy your breakdowns.

 

[adolph rollingover]

Here is a near sack but the QB was able to elude the unblocked linebacker and create a positive play. Can't say for certain what the protection call is here but appears to BOB. Meaning the CGT take 3 to one side and GT take 2 to the other and the running back checks for Mike blitz,. If no blitz, he can release. In this clip the running back does not check Mike, who comes free through A gap to flush Pat.

 

[CATFANFOLIFE87]

Justin rewatched every game last year and had a breakdown of the position groups once the season was over. He gave the Oline a C+ and argued that they actually took more grief than what was deserved. Our guys were actually pretty solid run blocking but had trouble holding pass blocks long enough for Towles to find an open receiver. Some of that was that Towles wasn't seeing the field very well or panicked and took off running when he could've stepped up into the pocket. Our line has a lot of room for improvement but I'm with Adolph on this one. It's not like they failed on 8 out of 10 plays the way jnewc2 claims

 

[jauk11]

IMO the OL will play better this year, which will make Towles look better

IMO the QB will play better this year, which will make the OL look better.

 

[C1180]

Honestly who takes most of the rants by JNEW seriously. I like Adolph saw numerous instances last season where Towles got antsy and bailed out when if he had just stepped up into the pocket he could have gotten off a pass. OTs are taught to funnel the rusher out and around the pocket and if you bail you often run right into a defender.

The truth is the QB, OL, and WR all were complicit in the break downs of the passing game last year. The OL had some break downs but WRs running the wrong routes, WR having difficulty breaking press coverage off the LOS, and the QB abandoning the pocket too quickly contributed to making the OL look worse than it actually was. I might also add that the inexperienced RBs were not doing a great job of picking up blitzers.

If the QBs, WRs, and RBs do a better job this season. You are going to be amazed at the improvement in the OL.

 

[adolph rollingover]

Here is a clip where the Offensive line would be criticized for poor pass bloking. However, this is a read/pass option play. The QB is reading the outside linebacker. If he comes to run fit, the QB is going to pull and throw to the slot receiver.
In this clip, the linebacker comes to run fit and the QB pulls. As he begins to square, the reciever never looks. He has to see the linebacker disappear and then look to the QB. As can be seen, if he looks, he will be open for an easy throw and catch. Instead, it is 2nd and 10.

 

[CatDaddy4daWin]

Great clips and helps explain alot of the breakdowns. We were really young in a lot of spots last year and it is evident when seeing plays like this. We shore these up and things are looking a lot brighter.

 

[Anjiejo]

Great clips and helps explain alot of the breakdowns. We were really young in a lot of spots last year and it is evident when seeing plays like this. We shore these up and things are looking a lot brighter.

Agree: UK played a lot of young guy's... Not to say the oline doesn't need big improvement,but they didn't play as bad as some make it out to be...

There is room for improvement all across the board on the off side of the ball... Off the top of my head there were 4 freshman oline that played a lot of minutes..3 freshman WR and a SO. played big minutes..And 1 freshman and a transfer played a lot at RB.... Along with a first year starter at QB.
This is why i expect big improvement out of the off.this year!!
P.S. Add montgomery and badet and the QB/WR/RB should make HUGE strides this year... I expect the Oline to play good but not great.. Good enought to win 6-7 games..