I agree with this. We’ve said all year that our OL was the potential weak link in this team. They’ve developed well as a unit, and given the injuries, they’ve delivered good results. But thought they played poorly last night, overall. Running game was anemic if not for Young’s 98 yard TD. Leonard was under pressure a lot, thus a ton of short dump off throws. We had two long drives that resulted in eating up a ton of click, and only had three points to show for it. Leonard had his flaws, and we were fortunate so many off target passes were caught, but his mobility makes our OL stat sheet look better than it is.
It was a solid win in SOME WAYS and in others, UNDERWHELMING. While the D played fundamentally sound, agressive ball till those final two drives, the O never established anything other than a MAKESHIFT DINK AND DUNK RHYTHM. Reminded me of an 80's Stanford team.
Too many stuffed and/or negative yardage running plays. Love had that one run, and Price had one that went for about 20 yards. AND, aside from a couple of Leonard scrambles, THAT WAS IT. What it looked like to me was that ND's OL was simply having a tougher time of it than IN A LONG TIME.
As you point out, this caused Leonard to spend much of the night improvising and hurrying -- mostly dump-off -- throws. To me, it was reminiscent of the offense in the season's early going.
What this bodes for Georgia, I've no idea, but I doubt that their DL isn't personnel-wise AT LEAST as good as Indiana's. I mean it's Georgia, right? They will have fast, strong bodies out there.
I don't see an easy time of it for ND if the OL doesn't bring its A-game. Especially if ND's banged up D-line is less than 100%, and Georgia is able to move on it and put up points.
