The Jackal wrote: ↑Mon Oct 15, 2018 9:20 pm
Another guy that might cause trouble is Taylor Hodge.
Just an observation from Saturday. During the time when you would expect Wofford to be passing more (3rd down late) Furman went a lot faster on defense.
On this play, the front four was Seabrook, Reid, Hodge, and Hope. Perryman stays in the middle and McKoy and Willis flare outside against the double twins look and drop back some.
I think Seabrook is credited with a sack here, but seems clearly a designed QB draw. Hodge isn’t a guy who gets his name called much, but Wofford tries cutting him and can’t block him. Wofford’s RG is listed at 6’4 305 and Hodge at 5’9 255. Physics alone might suggest it is tough for an OL to cut block a screaming bullet 7 inches shorter than he is.
You might see this alignment a good bit against Samford. Fast off the ball and almost forces OL in 1 v 1 matchups.
That 6’ 4” 305 Wofford OLman has at least 2x the athleticism & agility of 4/5’s of Sanford’s OL.
But...Samford & Wofford, typically, go about PassPro with almost completely opposite approaches. Wofford wants you to think it’s a run on almost every pass play, so their OL typically take a step or a half-step forward and keep their hats low cuz LB’s are taught to read OLmen hats to distinguish between pass & run. Wofford tends to have more of a man-scheme to their PassPro with pass-offs & switches to manage blitz pick-up. All this plays into the super-quick / great ball-getoff guys like Hope & Hodge.
Samford, on the other hand, knows that you know that they know that they know they are gonna pass, so they don’t care about stepping slightly forward or keeping their hats low. They raise up to their full (too) tall selves and begin retreating as fast as they can at the snap of the ball. Defeat steps, I call them, but I’m old-school. They become, essentially, a retreating wall of beef. I would say wall of fat, but I’ve found some people are offended by that characterization. They want to delay contact with any DLmen as long as possible, while maintaining a protective shell around their QB. So, moves & leverage of DLmen are less effective. You can beat their OT’s to their spot if you have AMAZING ball-getoff and Hope may have that. I would imagine we will see if he does. They also are primarily zone scheme, so all of your twisting & looping at the LOS doesn’t matter because they want to and will let you just do that ...and they’ll make contact with you ‘later’ when you catch up to them and enter their zone..and you show your hands & contact them. They want to counter your hands, not allow you to counter theirs. Meanwhile, while all this is going on, Hodges just threw the ball 22.5 yards sideways to McKnight in the slot. Did you have him covered from the inside out with your walked LB? Did your inched-up Safety beat the block of the Split Receiver and help the CB tackle #6 to the ground? Did they all 3 maintain proper leverage to keep him from water-bugging himself thru for a big gain? Good. 2 yard gain. Line up and do it again. Double-loops (over 2 gaps...or more, even) & delayed blitzes can get to #8 if the DL can ‘draw fire’ from one or more of their fa...I mean, Beefy Boys and get him to turn to open up a hole in the wall. But, if their quick game is getting yards, that ball won’t be there by the time that loopy or delayed blitz gets to him. Pass rushing Sanford is more about finesse & ‘catching’ them wrong than it is showing off your 1-on-1 camp moves.
