Comparing Iowa and South Carolina: RBs

Shonn was named best back in the country last night. Just a cheery G’DAY! to you.

Now, as to the scheme:

In the zone blocking scheme there are not “holes” that are “filled”, per se. What happens is that the linemen play hip-to-hip, shoulders square and pop whoever is in front of them — and maintain contact. There is a double team typically at the point of attack, but — this is the hard part — the linemen must coordinate and sense which of the two will release and go pancake a linebacker. This decision is made after first contact is made. It’s one reason why Iowa typically takes three-four years to build a lineman, and why continuity in personnel is critical. It’s easier to throw a freshman into a man-blocking scheme.

In the zone rush, the RB gets into the heels of his linemen and looks for a seam. If your backside athletes over-pursue, it gets extremely ugly extremely fast — because Shonn and Jewel will work against the grain a whole lot better than that I-AA Wing-Bone QB who cutback so well against your D.

If you have seen the Broncos or Packers (the Packers OC is our ex-OL coach) play offense, you’ve seen what we try to do. Zone push, one cut, and 235 lbs of ex-furniture mover is running down a very steep hill. This is usually when he puts a DB into the hospital.

BTW, check out the Wisconsin highlights. He also jukes and spins, before or after concussing the safety. We think he’s the best back who’s ever played for the school.

You’re mistaken about our playcalling, in all likelihood. Sure, the first play will be zone inside rush left (it is 70% of the time). But if your guys go 8 or 9 in the box, we will be going over the top so fast your neck will hurt. We’ll run these off play-action, and we want to get our QB on rollouts because he relaxes then and remembers not to fumble the ball or throw it to the wrong color jersey.

We have not run a gadget play all season. Not one. We used to bitch about it, then we beat PSU and crushed Minnesota like a grape. Seems like, maybe, the coaches are in the right jobs after all.

You will have to stop Shonn with 7 in the box to win this game — assuming, of course, our autistic, idiot savant OC can remember who we’re playing and doesn’t have in-game fugal flashbacks to the jNU game.

Advantage Doak Walker winner :P I remember before the season, the hue and cry about lack of running backs in Iowa City…and the lamentation of Paki O’Meara. Who woulda’ thunk that this would have become the signature for this year’s Iowa squad.

I was less worried about RB than our wide outs…I still feel we don’t have wideouts that can separate. But, now it is moot. Our running game freaks out DC’s and they panic by trying to stack the line (usually). when our wideouts can go one on one we usually expose the weakest CB or go underneath to our TE. One thing I hope KOK does this game is send Greene out of the backfield for dump offs…he is often so open it is stunning. Then he can ramble for YAC. That is the one wrinkle i would not be surprised to see. The reports that Grenne cannot catch or block are, to me, vastly overstated.