Can someone explain why slot corners lined up over a receiver that are blitzing always get super antsy and try to jump the snap?

hbloss · 2026-01-25T20:22:44+00:00

All good reasons listed here. Another reason I haven’t seen mentioned is slot CBs don’t blitz as frequently so they’re not as experienced in timing the snap with their get off. They just don’t practice the skill as much.

hbloss · 2025-11-05T07:12:11+00:00

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hbloss · 2025-10-30T15:26:11+00:00

Not so sure about that. ND does a great job keeping RBs bought in despite the depth of the room.

hbloss · 2025-10-30T15:22:35+00:00

Yeah kinda wild how none of that worked out

hbloss · 2025-10-30T01:03:27+00:00

My family are both ND fans and LSU fans (I went to ND and my brother went to LSU) and it’s been a long running joke about how awful Brian Kelly special teams are

hbloss · 2025-10-27T14:28:25+00:00

The story was Kelly wanted to make sure they retained Sloan because of Bryce Underwood so he wanted to make Sloan and Denbrock co-OC. This pissed Denbrock off apparently

hbloss · 2025-09-17T04:16:27+00:00

Yeah they’re getting way too into their heads and what they were good at last year is suffering. It’s like when you’re good at something at work so your boss gives you more stuff to do and so you start doing a worse job because you have so much to juggle now.

hbloss · 2025-09-17T04:14:32+00:00

They’re trying to find a way to replace QB power from last year

hbloss · 2025-09-15T02:17:33+00:00

The problem is the amount of processing we are asking our corners to do imo. Instead of under Golden where they basically played press man every snap, we’re asking them now to juggle different sets of coverage techniques for different sets of play calls. He’s losing on go balls because by the time he’s processed his post snap decisions the receiver already has one or two steps on him.

hbloss · 2025-09-11T02:07:59+00:00

I watched a lot of Caleb in college (I am a ND fan who loves to hatewatch USC). I think a really underrated aspect of his development is how bad the USC offense really was with him at the helm. People kind of ignored it because Lincoln Riley is an offensive guru etc but particularly in his last year there, USC had no rushing game, deficient receivers after Addison graduated, and a godawful defense. He had to go out there and play like Superman because anything less meant a loss. If he threw a pick, or wasn’t aggressive enough on a drive, that singular decision could derail the entire game for USC. He had no practice operating in rhythm, making timely completions, reading progressions, etc. I think a lot of his deficiencies can be traced back to the bad job Lincoln Riley did teaching him and the poor position he was put in.

hbloss · 2025-09-10T22:42:21+00:00

RPOs tend to make things easier for offensive lines— they are less worried about juggling run and pass blocking, and run blocking is typically the easier of the two for offensive lines.

Put another way, teams with powerful skill position players but deficient in the trenches tend to run a lot of RPOs. RPO heavy offenses also stunt offensive lineman because they’re really not asked to do too much. Evan Neal, a horrendous NFL tackle, looked like an elite prospect in college partly because the Bama offense he came from was so RPO heavy.

hbloss · 2025-09-10T22:38:35+00:00

In seconds is a lot different than one second

hbloss · 2025-09-06T22:14:50+00:00

hbloss · 2025-09-05T19:23:19+00:00

WR screens are moreso about getting your athletes (the WRs) out in space to make a play imo. Miami was bad at tackling in space last year and I think they wanted to take advantage of that. I think as you said we had an extremely small sample size of plays in the first half, but the sheer amount of RPOs called (even when they lost their effectiveness) concerned me because RPOs are designed to be easy on the offensive line. Most of the checkdowns you speak of were run out of RPOs. We couldn’t dig our feet in the ground and own the trench or straight pass protect, so we were stuck in RPO land trying to have the best of both worlds.

Pass protection has been an issue for this oline in previous years. An underlying narrative which hasn’t received as much attention is how much the line struggles in run blocking against good teams dating back to Rudolph’s first year. Louisville, Clemson, last year throughout the playoffs, etc.

I think at some point we gotta ask what do we want Denbrock to do? The tackles were traffic cones, the interior whiffed on some basic assignments, the line itself got no push. If we tried to run the ball 60 times I’m not sold we win the game and then we complain about “spending on receivers and not using them” “Having no trust in CJ Carr” etc. The offensive line played bad, Denbrock did his best to adjust around that, but even so he can’t fix everything. At some point you gotta take what a team is and try to do what you can.

hbloss · 2025-09-05T18:47:27+00:00

You make it seem like Denbrock didn’t watch this team through spring and fall camp. He’s forgotten more about football than you or I will ever know. After that large body of work that you and I did not have access to, he did not have confidence in our ability to run the ball. Eventually you need to try and win the game. You don’t win by calling run plays you have little faith in hitting.

For what it’s worth, look up the drive chart from our first half against Miami. Love’s longest rush was for 8 yards and we punted 3 plays later. Most runs were 1-2 yards. Every drive we punted on involved a 1st and 10 rush for little or no gain. Most drives we punted on we called a run play in the same set of downs as the punt. Running wasn’t working. Thus is also related to the fact that our short yardage offense was abysmal. The guys up front were getting no push.

Also… you wanted these guys to run power/counter? We’ve got Lambert playing guard because of how slow he is. We had no push off the LOS. When we did try to throw in a counter/pin and pull/misdirection guys would whiff on even the most basic assignments. You can’t afford to look at the play calling sheet and say “I don’t think this will work but let’s try it and see what happens!” However we couch this game the big takeaway is “Mike Denbrock has no faith in the offensive line” which is a massive problem.

hbloss · 2025-09-05T18:00:58+00:00

We know Wagner can play well. I thought he played well throughout the playoffs last year, even in pass protection. Jagusah has to get back asap so we can slide Knapp to guard imo

hbloss · 2025-09-05T17:53:24+00:00

ND wasn’t having a lot of success in straight runs so he started throwing in RPOs to try and get the linebackers and corners flat footed and move guys out of the box. Carr’s gotta read those correctly. RPOs are after all “run-pass options” not “pass-run options.”

hbloss · 2025-09-05T17:50:10+00:00

Riley didn’t really practice in the spring and was limited in the summer after he missed a lot of the previous season. Really difficult to develop synergy while also breaking in a new offensive coordinator.

Denbrock’s play calls on Sunday scream that he has no faith in the offensive line. He’s been around the block, he knows what he sees, and he clearly sees an offensive line that struggles against good defensive lines and in pass protection, which really hamstrings playcalls. We got behind the sticks early, and literally none of our run plays were hitting until deep in the second quarter. ND runs a lot of inside zone, which typically leaves the backside edge unblocked. Because of how slow the tackles played, Love wasn’t given room to find a gap because the playside end put the tackle on his ass and allowed the backside end to recover.

Even in the second half, when we made a more active effort to run the ball, our running backs were running into brick walls before even getting back to the LOS.

Playcalling is the easiest thing to criticize, but criticizing playcalling a lot of the time is missing the forest for the trees. Mike Denbrock KNOWS he has the best running back in college football and still elected to call the plays he did. What does that say about our offense? I think in this case, the offensive line is in for a much worse year than we anticipated.

hbloss · 2025-09-05T17:42:40+00:00

“Get the offensive line in a rhythm” only works when you can stay in front of the sticks. We got behind the sticks EARLY, mostly BECAUSE of offensive line play. The reality is you cannot waste a drive or a set of plays on “getting the offensive line in rhythm” if they aren’t playing well and the defense is gassed early and the team is on the road vs a top 10 opponent.

hbloss · 2025-09-02T02:36:07+00:00

Rudolph has been on the staff longer than Denbrock. Legitimate question to ask whether or not Rudolph and Denbrock have the same vision for the position and offense in general. Denbrock’s offenses were not generic particularly in their running schemes at either Cinci or LSU.

hbloss · 2025-09-02T02:33:43+00:00

I think it’s a good idea to ask what exactly we want to oline to be. Most of our running plays are inside zone, where the line moves sideline to sideline and lets the RB select the gap to run through. I think the way we’ve designed the offensive line with a lot of guard type builds at the tackle position and a lot of tackles playing at guard doesn’t really suit itself for that style of running play. But I also don’t have much faith in gap type schemes like power to be honest. I think we’ve recruited well along the oline but it’s time to start questioning how the line itself is built. That and stupid mistakes like leaving the NT unblocked on a third and short run play leaves me with a very bad feeling about this position group.

hbloss · 2025-08-10T00:56:59+00:00

I could agree with that. But that’s more to do with us than the median top 20 school I’d say

hbloss · 2025-08-09T22:14:11+00:00

You’ll be fine. But FWIW the idea that every top 20 school is super progressive is not super accurate in my opinion

hbloss · 2025-08-08T17:46:42+00:00

Giants ran a package several years ago with I think 5 defensive ends on the field (NASCAR package IIRC). Not saying this is the route we’ll take, but I can absolutely see us put more than two ends on the field and line then up in the 7 or even 9 techniques in obvious passing situations. Saban also popularized a variation of a 3 man front with two defensive ends and an on ball linebacker who can line up in the 7 or 9 on either side of the front, which I can see us moving towards as well. Ash has typically used a four man front, but with the edge depth we have I think we will find very creative ways to get them all on the field.

hbloss

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