Did you watch the game?
I was not overly impressed with Denbrock all season long. He certainly had some inspired moments during the year,, but our offensive success was pretty much leaning on our ability to run the ball, and last night we were reduced to Riley Leonard the entire second half.
Really, I thought he was awesome. Like a borderline genius coaching job. He schemed to our strengths, he made the deliberate decision, it would appear, to deemphasize a more aggressive passing attack, on account of RL's relative passing prowess, and still kill opponents with the dink and dunk stuff and the occasional more downfield shot, and it seemed to work brilliantly. And he made the most out of RL, and I think MF wants to be more of a run first team anyway.
Everything changes when your defense gives up 4 straight long scoring drives. The gameplan changes as the circumstances do. The first drive was a masterpiece. The next one was undone by back to back penalties and then the next one a botched snap. Now it's 21-7 and halftime. Start the 2nd half, blink and it's 28-7. Can't repeat the opening drive as the clock doesn't allow it. The inability of the defense to get stops changed the whole dynamic of the offense going forward. They fought hard to come back best they could but the clock was not going to allow many opportunities to grind it out. Playing catch up is extremely difficult when it's not the strength of your team. Playing from ahead was their strong suit all year because the defense was stellar. They were not last night. It was the worst case scenario for ND.
The offense did nothing after each of the first four scoring drives. What was preventing us from running love and price in the first three quarters?Why did the base offense turn into the five yard swing pass? We're not a West Coast offense team.
The penalties sabotaged the first one. The third was a mess too. Run them where ? OSU adjusted and dominated the line of scrimmage.
Drive 2 was a mistake in itself. When it got to second and 27, the correct play is simple. You throw it twice, with plays that draw pass interference and an automatic first down. Especially against a defense like Ohio State which is very grabby.
Wrong on the first one, on the 1st down play Collins was open across the middle for at least a 6 yard gain possibly more, but Leonard overthrew him. That's a high percentage pass he should make.
It was going to gain more than 6 yards because the defender was trailing by at least a yard and a half. You can tell RL was upset about not hitting that pass. Also RL scrambling led to the holding penalty that drive. He had an extra second to see if something would come open.
