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(An Offensively Mediocre) Offensive Line

From literally days before the game vs ball state, from dmoney.

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Some young names who have looked good in practice and on tape: OL Frankie Tinilau, DB Dylan Day, LB Popo Aguirre and OT Samson Okunlola.



Where do yall keep getting this narrative that Samson isn’t progressing like they wanted? He’s coming off a bad knee injury, let him keep working and building more confidence
 
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brock said:
From literally days before the game vs ball state, from dmoney.

“
Some young names who have looked good in practice and on tape: OL Frankie Tinilau, DB Dylan Day, LB Popo Aguirre and OT Samson Okunlola.



Where do yall keep getting this narrative that Samson isn’t progressing like they wanted? He’s coming off a bad knee injury, let him keep working and building more confidence
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Well in this case, its from 1-degree of freedom from the coaching staff, but sure, he could have had a good week. I believe my 'data' here is a few weeks old thats it.
 
brock said:
Our run blocking was average last year too
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We did very little to help ourselves last year, running mostly out of condensed formations from GT onward. That was partly because we lost all confidence in TVD, and partly because Mario and Mini-Mario felt we could impose our will on the ground despite drawing in extra defenders.

This season we've seen the opposite, so far. Through 3 games, the confidence in the QB is self-evident, and rightly so; he is hyper accurate on short throws, moves safeties with eyes and a lot more disciplined about his progressions (still needs to improve a little here).

As a result, we aren't condensing as much and inviting 8 or 9 defenders into the box; however, our opponents have thus far said "**** it, we're playing run anyway," conceding they don't have an answer for Cam, and they aren't going to let us run right over them by tilting their defenses towards the pass either.

UF probably felt their back 7 could handle the pass, but the other two knew that was a wasted effort, so they kept numbers in the run game, and that slowed down the running game early on.

I'd like to see us open up the run concepts some and get to the edges when teams play us that way, but for some reason we are reluctant to do it. I get not using DM and MF in that way because that isn't their game, but Lyle, CJ, Allen, can all do work wide of the tackles, especially with our OL splits and WR spacing.

USF will be interesting because they are a better opponent than our first 3 and do have some tools to use against us, but they have to help their back 7. Dildoe missed a ton of throws for Alabama that Cam hits in his sleep. They were decent against the Alabama run game for most of the night without having to sell out much.
 
brock said:
Our run blocking was average last year too
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strongly disagree with that. Our run blocking was the best I've seen in quite awhile. We beat Clemson and Virginia with no QB with our running game taking over both games. Against FSU we only had a running game until they figured out that we had no QB and loaded up the box. We did all that without a true primary running back. The Hurricanes last year averaged 5.1 a carry which was 3rd in the ACC. In the 2nd half against Clemson, Chaney and co wore that front 7 down. In OT all we did was hand the ball to the running backs. When have we ever run the ball on Clemson? They did it last season in the 2nd half after a slow first half. I'll never forget that game, cause we beat Clemson after a decade of them kicking our a$$
 
Luis Cristobal deserves recognition for continuing to play ahead of scholarship players twice his size. One thing seems certain: we're very lucky to have him and he's 8th in this week's OL power rankings:

  1. Rivers
  2. Cooper
  3. Mauigoa
  4. Crapenter
  5. McCoy
  6. Rodriguez
  7. Bell
  8. Cristobal
  9. Okunlola
  10. Kinsler
  11. Francavilla
  12. Tinilau
  13. Tripp
  14. Plazz
  15. Minaya
 
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Bender said:
You know what... I am in a really good mood today, so I will be as patient and non-insulting as possible.


Unless you are capable of showing tape, this statement has no merit. Bell was flagged once for a hands to the face where both players engaged in that and one guy complained.


The same principle applies here (and also not what I saw at all).


Ball State has not allowed a 200+ yard rusher in two years of play. That includes playing Kentucky and Georgia. I am not sure what the problem is, we have established the run.


Cool. Have fun. Ball States first half strategy was to stop the run at all costs and play 1vs1 on the back end. We led by 31 at the half.

You, on your own thinking, just explained perfectly why there was no run game in the first half. Its almost as if playing football is a numbers game and numeric advantages MATTER. And guess wtf happened once Ball State came out of half time? Assigned more people to defend the pass, we ran the ball three times and went for 6, 29 and 8. Like...

View attachment 303378

There are eight guys in the box and a ninth (!) moving down. We have seven people blocking. If Ward checks out and goes to a man-beater outside (which he procedded to do afterwards), its easy yardage.

View attachment 303379

And here is the Chris Johnson TD. I have marked every player with eyes in the backfield. I am not sure what people want. Dude had a 40 yard TD untouched because the defense was overly focused on the run. We killed them with the screen game throughout the entire game.

Imagine beating down an opponent for 750 yards, setting records in the process and then people ***** about a run game that went for 200+ yards. Un****ingbelievable.
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I couldn't have said it any better. Ball St was clearly selling out to stop the run in the 1st half.

I also wish people would quit *****ing about Bell, Okunlola and Kinsler. One was in Juco last year and the other 2 are redshirt freshmen one of which is coming off of a severe injury that took his whole redshirt year to rehab from. All three are getting valuable and crucial live reps in real games that will help tremendously in their development. Development; you know that thing that most Offensive Linemen usually have to do for 2-3 years before they're ready to start at the P4 level freaks like Cooper and Mauigoa notwithstanding.
 
FrancisSawyer said:
I couldn't have said it any better. Ball St was clearly selling out to stop the run in the 1st half.

I also wish people would quit *****ing about Bell, Okunlola and Kinsler. One was in Juco last year and the other 2 are redshirt freshmen one of which is coming off of a severe injury that took his whole redshirt year to rehab from. All three are getting valuable and crucial live reps in real games that will help tremendously in their development. Development; you know that thing that most Offensive Linemen usually have to do for 2-3 years before they're ready to start at the P4 level freaks like Cooper and Mauigoa notwithstanding.
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Facts
 
FrancisSawyer said:
I couldn't have said it any better. Ball St was clearly selling out to stop the run in the 1st half.

I also wish people would quit *****ing about Bell, Okunlola and Kinsler. One was in Juco last year and the other 2 are redshirt freshmen one of which is coming off of a severe injury that took his whole redshirt year to rehab from. All three are getting valuable and crucial live reps in real games that will help tremendously in their development. Development; you know that thing that most Offensive Linemen usually have to do for 2-3 years before they're ready to start at the P4 level freaks like Cooper and Mauigoa notwithstanding.
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This is generally true, I guess we have been spoiled with Francis, and the other freshman r/s frosh starters we have had over the years.
 
Cylo said:
Btw I've always been of the opinion that losing Cohen and Lee would be a stepback for the O line. I was hoping Lee would return for another year. Losing those 2 have hurt our run blocking
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I think Cohen is bigger loss, behind all the commotion of running and OLine play.. Carpenter is actually playing well and gets out on those screens just like Lee..
 
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I’ll say it again. We have backups getting numerous reps against FBS competition and it’s not due to injury necessarily. That’s a good thing.

Two starters will be back this week. Things are and will be fine.
 
jps2344 said:
I’ll say it again. We have backups getting numerous reps against FBS competition and it’s not due to injury necessarily. That’s a good thing.

Two starters will be back this week. Things are and will be fine.
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I have no idea why anyone would want to risk injuring quality starters.
 
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skyman said:
I think Cohen is bigger loss, behind all the commotion of running and OLine play.. Carpenter is actually playing well and gets out on those screens just like Lee..
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If you go by PFF ratings Matt Lee scores pretty high on run blocking and Carpenter was more known for his pass blocking. But thats PFF, the thing what makes Matt Lee great is he is able to pull. I like Carpenter but he's noo Matt Lee
 
Cylo said:
If you go by PFF ratings Matt Lee scores pretty high on run blocking and Carpenter was more known for his pass blocking. But thats PFF, the thing what makes Matt Lee great is he is able to pull. I like Carpenter but he's noo Matt Lee
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Carpenter hasn’t been a down grade at all to Lee though (who was a great player for Miami )
 
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Walsh5 said:
I can only speak to what I know and that's the high school league Samson came from because I played in it. He played at Thayer Academy which is in the ISL. It's known more for hockey and sending smart Asians to Harvard. Massachusetts football just aint it. Massachusetts private school football REALLY aint it. I'm talking 190 lb noseguards in the ISL. The mental leap from Mass private school small ball to D-1, let alone Miami is just giant. Also, it's night and day in terms of the types of guys he's interacting with. Nothing against him as a person or an athlete. He's a legit physical specimen. But I always thought it was going to be a huge adjustment for him culturally and mentally coming from Thayer Academy.
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The kids on um campus aa students i promise you are similar to thayer academy.

Now the team is different but school wise its basically a northeast safe haven university
 
gogeta4 said:
The kids on um campus aa students i promise you are similar to thayer academy.

Now the team is different but school wise its basically a northeast safe haven university
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Definitely. I feel you on that having gone to UM. He probably fits in better with the average student than he does the guys on the football team, which I heard was a big issue with TVD. But I'm glad we have Samson because he's a genuine freak.

What I can speak to more specifically is the level of football we played up there. No BS, Middle schools in Miami run more complex schemes than we did. Thayer plays 8 games a year. Mentally it's a huge jump with # of plays, level of competition, pre-snap reads, and dealing with twists/stunts and all that. I'm sure Samson will figure it out. He seems like a smart guy. But it's gonna take the reps that he didn't have in high school to get there.
 
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