re: The OL STILL can’t bust a grape

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We aren’t committed to the run. That’s the reality. And that’s ok when you’ve got stud QBs.

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Yep. This is what modern football is. You run the ball often enough, and hopefully effectively enough, to slow the pass rush down. Running is objectively less efficient than passing if you have a good QB and Bryce is more than good.

It only irks me when it's like 1st and goal from the 2 and we're lining up in shotgun with 3 WRs.

There were also a few busts in pass blocking.

The OL is clearly the worst unit on the team.

The perk of lining up with 3 WRs at the goal line is it opens the run up a bit more and spreads the defense out some. I like shotgun at the goal line

You won't see a defense like that very often scheme wise either they talked about it over and over on the TV broadcast.

Very unconventional the way they line up blitz shoot gaps and stunt, indeed it might have been a huge benefit for us to have seen that because teams are going to do things like that to pressure our QB all year long.

Mag, you can't ask TE to take on a edge LB.

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this had been said every year after the first game

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Absolutely. Even the 2012 squad was criticized after game one. These guys are gonna look better next week at Texas.

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Asking ANY tight end to block an edge rusher one on one is bad practice.

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They did it a fair amount though, especially on the left side with Ouzt/Steen. And it was mostly successful, several times Ouzt locked up the DE, allowing Steen to double with the LG.

#9 beat him twice on the right side with a spin move, once for the sack and the other was what flushed Bryce for his huge run.

But yeah, Ouzts was blocking a lot of #9, #11, #0 last night on his own...

I'll agree the offensive line play wasn't at the level we wanted but there's a few reasons for that.

1) New coach, new scheme. That was their first live action in a new system and it looked to me like we zone blocked less and there were definitely some blown assignments but that will clean itself up with time. I will say I saw a lot less of backs getting met in the backfield before they took a couple of steps. Guys weren't getting blown up and pushed back in the backfield like last year.

2) Utah State's defensive philosophy: They play a very disruptive style with lots of stunts up front and it showed. Quite often, they had several guys from the back 7 walked up and 1 or 2 were coming and the others were dropping back into coverage but you didn't know who was doing what until the snap. It even confused Bryce a couple of times and he called the wrong blocking scheme and got pressured for it. Add in the linemen stunts and our guys didn't know who to block.

Overall, I think the effort was better and the scheme was better but the guys haven't quite put it all together yet and need more time to gel but I'm encouraged by what I saw. It was ugly at times, but it was more mental mistakes than getting their asses whipped which happened way too often last year.

I'm not sure where either of y'all got that I was in favor or against it, I'm just talking about that it took place.