Wildcat coaches will continue to play different line combinations in their quest to find their best five players.
Link: Expect shuffling to continue on NU's offensive line
Link: Expect shuffling to continue on NU's offensive line
The big feature on NU's offensive line
- Thread starter lou v
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Nice to read about the accountability the Leadership Council put on the OL. Hope the results follow.
I am a proud Pollyanna and optimist. But the fact that we are still shuffling the offensive line two weeks before the season gives me serious heebie-jeebies.
that's just about how I feel about this. I hope Cush knows what he's doing but this doesn't exactly make me feel optimistic about our OL this year.
the old "if you have 2 QBs then you have no QB" could be applied here...
I guess this is why I am much more optimistic about NU basketball than football this season.
I agree. Couldn't they have done all this experimentation in the spring? I'm no OL expert, but it sure seems like if a player is learning and practicing the plays at two or three positions, he will play all of them less well than if he had gone through fall camp getting reps at one position. But that is just a layman's reaction.
Me too. The OL has been our primary weakness for a while. That, and the WRs. Thank goodness Austin Carr had the season he had last year. The passing game could have been pretty ugly without it.
“I’m not sure you have to do that,” said Cushing with a smile. “I know that’s against conventional wisdom. Luckily I work for a head coach that’s embraced that idea. Let’s just play them all, put them in a spot and play the best five.”
I also am no offensive line expert either, but conventional wisdom is conventional wisdom for a reason. It has worked for most people in most situations. The idea that a coach whose unit's consistency and standards have been below par, is going to come up with a new approach to offensive line coaching seems "unlikely", to be charitable.
Good article Lou. But it has taken a bit of the air out of my high hopes for this season.
No kidding. I'm hoping that our paranoid coach is actually spreading misinformation. That the starting five actually know who they are but they want to give the second string some reps to be prepared for substitution.
I feel like the older guys like Hance and North should have taken this bull by the horns last January when they were called out. I'm beginning to expect a drop off in our offensive production instead of an increase.
What's with all this "competition" and "play the best five" malarkey"? We should just choose who we play based upon their star ratings. Or better yet, let's just have them take a genetic test and choose the offensive line based on the results. It's like people think that players can get better through hard work and proving themselves or something.
I'm not sure... how much do they weigh? Let's check with an unnamed source and find out.What's with all this "competition" and "play the best five" malarkey"? We should just choose who we play based upon their star ratings. Or better yet, let's just have them take a genetic test and choose the offensive line based on the results. It's like people think that players can get better through hard work and proving themselves or something.
That's probably just as good of an idea as having Cushing coach them.What's with all this "competition" and "play the best five" malarkey"? We should just choose who we play based upon their star ratings. Or better yet, let's just have them take a genetic test and choose the offensive line based on the results. It's like people think that players can get better through hard work and proving themselves or something.
That offensive line did help the team score 54 at Michigan State and sprung Justin Jackson for 224 yards at the Pinstripe Bowl. (And, oh yeah, 38 at Iowa, where Michigan scored just 14) Do I think they need to be better? Absolutely. They were horrible against ISU, I get that, but after Butler was mixed in, things got better. What's wrong with having competition in camp? I know the o-line has to play as a unit and that takes time, but we do have three games and a bye before the big test in Madison.
Let's see what emerges post-Kenosha. The plus to the mix and match approach is that a bunch of guys will be ready to go should an injury occur. Also, naming a starting five early on could cause some complacency amongst the unit. Hopefully the competition is being ratcheted up in Kenosha and a clear cut five will emerge.
Has not history (especially recent history) proven the phallacy in this reasoning? If something as foundational as the O-Line is not as organized as it should be, then we can lose to anyone.
This article is disturbing. A few weaks from the season and we are still trying to figure out who our best 5 ol are. Im immune to all the supposed gains and conditioning since its the same thing we heard prior to illinois st dominating these guys.
Thorson better wear a brace. Getting sacked 40 times isnt enough for fitz to improve upon his weakest link.
Thorson better wear a brace. Getting sacked 40 times isnt enough for fitz to improve upon his weakest link.
Wow, just wow.
This may explain why our OL has been an utter train wreck. Does Cushing have any clue what he is doing? Has it not occurred to Fitz that a coach's unit consistency and standards has been below par is linked to him doing things differently from what has been time tested and proven? Whatever our guy has been doing the last few years, it hasn't been working. The idea is genius if the results say it is. It's trash if the results say it is. Based soley on the results, I think we can say it's clearly been trash.
Jeez, put a bullet in the corpse and end the suffering.
If Cushing is doing something completely different this season from the past few seasons, wouldn't that be a good thing? This stuff about rotating guys around is new from what i can recall......
You'd almost have a great point in that Cushing probably should be like George Costanza and do the opposite of whatever he did before, because whatever he was doing before was getting the worst results you could get. Be Mr. Opposite.
However, unfortunately, I do recall us moving different players around for the last few years. Ian Park from Center to Guard, guys from the left side to the right side. From Tackle to the interior. This is madness!
Cushing probably needs to do the OPPOSITE this, you know do what everyone else is doing to get the results that are at least on par to what everyone else is doing. Hell, if we had just an average OL, I'd be happy. My standards are so low, I'm kicking myself, but that's what we have fallen to with our OL.
Sheesh, it's been 9 years???? Hard to believe - in his 9 years running the OL, how many NFL linemen has he recruited and developed? How many OL's have not been embarrassing? Man, Kain must have not just unionized the players, but we must have a labor union in our coaching staff or something.
And yes, for those who must ask, it's Cushing bashing season and it will continue to be open season until the OL resembles something that isn't completely putrid and embarrassing to the program. And doesn't hold the rest of the team back. When that humble milestone is reached, I'll back off. You don't see me bitching about MacPherson anymore do you? Or our receivers coach?
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Well, FWIW, last season North started all 13 games at Center. Hance started all 13 games at LT. Olson started 12 of 13 games at RT. Doles started 12 of 13 games at RG, and one at RT when Olson was hurt. The only rotation they made was for Butler to replace Mahoney after the Iowa game at LG. So at least in a crummy 2016, the OL was pretty much intact.
Cushing is doing a Costanza this season.Do the opposite! I like the analogy.
Why then did the Leadership Council call them out, and Fitz admit as much publicly?
Yes it would. JJTBC was in the top 3 in the nation in yards after contact. The yardage prior to contact was putrid.
I have a different read on the situation. Last year, we had very few offensive linemen ready to play besides the starters. The cupboard was almost bare. This year there are a lot more players available and ready to play at the B1G level thanks to the strength program and players graduating out of their RS freshman year.
Cushing now has a ton of other options with Trey Klock, Jared Thomas, Jason Goosen, Gunnar Vogel, Rashawn Slater and several others ready to go.
It may seem to be late in the game to be conducting experiments, but I suspect that all these players have their primary position down. What we're seeing is them learning other positions so that Cushing's backup plans have added flexibility.
This year, if a player is injured or under-performing, Cushing's options aren't as limited as they were last year. Instead of 1 or 2 backup tackles and guards (who likely weren't ready), he has 5 or 6 viable options at each position.
I suspect that our offensive line will closely resemble last year's, except for the addition of Jared Thomas at the beginning of the season. But everyone is going to be on a short leash and I won't be surprised if we see several in-game substitutions. By the end of the year, I think we'll have at least one or fresh faces on the first team offensive line who supplanted the more experienced starters from last year.
Go 'Cats!
I have the same opinion as you. My post was in response to ECat who said the NU OL was in a state of flux in prior years. It definitely wasn't in 2016.
