Midseason Review: Offensive Line

by Peter Bean on Oct 11, 2007 7:27 PM CDT in Texas Longhorns Football

Onward with the reviews and the conclusion of the offense. (Clearly, the defensive reviews will be post-Iowa State.)

Statistics

Overview
First, a note on the above stats. They're meant to be snapshot looks and you shouldn't read too much into them. They prove nothing and serve instead as cursory glances at a few statistics (at least in part) related to the unit's overall performance.

Though statistics can certainly help you get a general idea about how an offensive line is performing, you won't get a good view of how they're performing unless you watch tapes of the games. It's hard, even, to evaluate the group (and individuals therein) from a live view of the game. There's too much happening, too quickly, to see everything you need to.

I've had the (dis)pleasure of rewatching all of Texas' games this year, and it's always in the second watching that you notice which linemen are doing what. (It's even more difficult when you're just not much of an expert on line play, as I assuredly am not.)

As a whole, the unit is decidedly average. They definitely aren't bad, but they're not very good, either. Individually, the only player who's played pretty consistently well has been right guard Cedric Dockery. He's steady and is Texas' only lineman who run blocks as you hope your right guard would. He pulls reasonably well, pass protects adequately, and doesn't make many mistakes.

At left tackle, Tony Hills has been solid enough, but he's a far cry from the first round NFL Draft choice that some preseason publications thought he might be. Hills still isn't as good a run blocker as you'd like him to be. Again, though - he's definitely not a problem.

The rest of the line? A problem. Most notably, center Dallas Griffin has been a brutal, occasionally fatal, weakness all season long. He's a coach and media favorite because he's a 4.0 double-major, but on the football field, he's just overmatched. He requires help constantly, which disrupts even the most modest of blocking schemes. It's problematic that we're asking guys like Charlie Tanner to help him, too. Because Tanner's struggled mightily himself.

Chris Hall deserves credit for playing seventeen different positions this season, but he's not playing any of them very well, so let's temper the praise. You know where Chris Hall would be a great player to have? On a team with five healthy studs in front of him on the depth chart. As a rotating reserve, he could be great to spell starters. As is, we're asking too much from him, and it's hurt both the line play overall, and - I'd guess - him individually.

I had high hopes that Adam Ulatoski was ready to take a big step forward this year, but was saddened to learn that 'ulatoski' is Serbian for 'procelain.' Sad, but true. The big fella can't stay healthy, and when he's been out there, he's been beat far too many times. The gap between potential and performance remains vast.

As for the younger crew - we'll touch on that in the next section.

Adjustments
Unlike the previous midseason reviews, it won't do to simply note how imperative it is that young players be given live, on-the-job training. You can't just toss true freshmen into the mix, let them fail, and be glad that they're developing. You need some modicum of stability on the line, while the youngest ones need time and training development to get to a point where they can be useful contributors. Throwing in a bunch of newbies to be destroyed inevitably will frustrate everything you want to do on offense. Colt and Chiles would get killed. The running backs won't have anywhere to run. Receivers may as well not run their routes.

No, linemen must be developed. And a healthy portion of that development has nothing to do with live game training.

Still, some changes are in order. First and foremost, it's time to sit Dallas Griffin and begin the grooming of Buck Burnette for 2008. Most importantly, it'd be tough for Burnette to be a downgrade over Griffin, so there's no immediate penalty for getting him in there to work and learn. Further, he'd likely outperform Griffin, which makes it a win-win.

As for the rest of the youngsters, Michael Huey is already earning more and more playing time, and should continue to get solid work at guard this season. There's no need to overuse him, but continuing to use him generously is good in the short- and long-term. Believing Tanner will work out at guard just looks like wishcasting. As for Kyle Hix and Tray Allen - the redshirts are gone, so it'd be stupid not to use them more as the season goes on. We don't need any baptisms by fire here, but a steady increase in play over the remainder of the season is in order. In all likelihood, Tray Allen is going to be starting at left tackle for the Longhorns next season. It might be a good idea to start getting him as ready as possible for that role.

--PB--

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Brief anecdote about Ulatoski

I was walking to class in the Sanchez building a couple weeks ago and I saw him coming down the hallway, recognizable by the large brace on his elbow. Right as he walked past me, he nearly tripped. Over himself. Walking down the middle of a hallway (which are generally free of obstructions or elevation changes or steps or anything else which probably is an enemy of his). Ladies and gentleman, our starting offensive lineman.

No more Dallas Griffin. Sorry buddy, but it's a good thing you're smart cuz you ain't no football player.

I wonder about the way that we waste our redshirts on freshman. Was it really that necessary for Tray Allen to play? If it was, like PB says, he needs to play more. Same for John Chiles. Why waste a year of eligibility for these guys?

I really wish we had one more good, experienced o-lineman. I think it would make a big difference in our ability to run the football. Football is inherently a physical game (obviously), and so sometimes you need to just line up and ram it down the throat of the other team. That's football. Witness the 2006 OU game. Our o-line was blowing their d-line five yards off the ball on quarterback sneaks! Talk about physical domination. We can't do that this year. Against anyone really. Kind of a problem. It even hamstrings the calls that Greg Davis can make and you can't find anyone who thinks that is a positive.

Please refer to the Rose Bowl as Vince Young Field at the Rose Bowl -- he owns that place

by ghostoftheplaymaker4 on Oct 12, 2007 12:04 AM CDT reply actions

Nice anecdote

I do understand how Allen has been handled though. They really needed to burn that shirt in order to have some more back-up if Hall or Hills were to o down now. I think the reason you haven't seen more of him is what PB alluded to above—he's not good enough yet to not be a liability with the first team. (No knock on him; most lineman just aren't big enough or have the fundamentals down well enough after a year.) And given our inability to put the game away against anybody but Rice, there havent been many opportunities to put him out there with the second team.

The big killer, in my opinion, was losing Webb to grades. If he was here, he'd either be starting at LT, and Ulatoski would be subbing in, and we'd have someone decently experienced to plug in next year. But now, we're going to lose Hills and be pretty much at square one at one tackle.

by kiev482 on Oct 12, 2007 1:16 AM CDT up reply actions

zone blockers and beta blockers

Overall I agree with PB's assessment. I think it's easier to evaluate the line's pass blocking than its run blocking, since Texas uses so many zone blocking schemes (that we BONers seem to dislike so much).

On pass plays, there is a rusher in someone's face immediately, especially the tackles, so no "decisions" are necessary there. The guards and centers have to decide who to pick up and who to help, and confusion about this can make a lineman look lost (standing around with no one to hit while your QB gets flattened) or beaten (he releases off one man to block another). Sometimes he is just plain beaten. I haven't reviewed all the games, but for the ones I have (TCU, UCF, OU) I think the line is doing pretty well at getting a body on people (I think K State was an exception to this that I'll talk about below), but our problem is just sheer physical strength. Almost every DL gets a solid "push" up the middle even when they don't beat the Texas linemen. This is what is causing the biggest problem because Colt can't step up in the pocket and throw off his front foot. Most of the interceptions and bad balls he's thrown have resulted from him throwing off his back foot. He just doesn't have the strength in his forearm and wrist to zip it 30-40 yards off his back foot. In any case, and this is why freshmen linemen generally are redshirted. UT's interior line simply needs to get stronger, particularly in the lower body, so when they smack the rusher, they don't get pushed back 3 yards. That's not going to happen this year, which means we will have to keep a back or TE in to help out the line on pass plays. That's the only way we're going to keep Colt from needing beta blockers (a heart drug) to stand in the pocket and throw (bet you wondered how I was going to bring up beta blockers).

As for run blocking, I think UT is fine at the point of attack, although we don't get much "push" up the field, but our problem has been in identifying which defenders to block. Zone blocking works by initially double-teaming the DL and then the guard or center switches off the DL to attck the LB. Getting this switch done has been a particular problem when defenses run blitz, and particularly when we run to the right (despite Cedric Dockery doing a good job). One thing that it's important to do in run blocking is that the guard and tackle literally are supposed to touch hips until the guard leaves to attack the LB, and one thing I noticed about Hall is that he tends to drift away from Dockery when engaged with the DE (perhaps because isn't yet strong enough), which allows the DE to penetrate into the backfield. The line seems better to me when they block on more attacking run plays like counters and traps where Hills or Dockery can come down the line and "clean up" unblocked defenders. This was what precipitated JC's TD runs in the fourth quarter of TCU and UCF.

The only game where we seem to have been "overmatched" (an overused term) was KState. Interestingly, KState ran a base 3-4 not a 4-3. As almost everyone knows, that means a nose tackle lines up more or less across from the center. With Dallas Griffin being our weakest and least athletic lineman, that meant that KState was getting penetration on almost every play. If you have to double-team the nose tackle on every play against a 3-4, as an offense you are in trouble. The result: 4 interceptions and one concussion. Given that center on most teams is not the most athletic lineman, I wonder why more college teams don't play the 3-4. Maybe it's this supposed paucity of good linebackers.

Anyway, I would give the line a grade of C, meaning just good enough to get on the field and run plays and certainly not the B+ to A- as fans we were used to in 2004-2006.

by burnt in ny on Oct 12, 2007 6:46 AM CDT reply actions