Hawkeyes Gamefilm: Offensive Line vs Minnesota

[JonDMiller]

The Iowa offensive line continues to dominate its opponents each week. HawkeyeGameFilm takes a look at their performances against Minnesota

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[Winterhawk]

I like these reviews, and they are generally very good.

For this weeks o-line review the left side was dominant as noted, and on the whole the group did very well. Donnal obviously hasn't played a ton of guard and while he did well enough, you need to note that the competition was neither very strong or good. Donnal has a lot of improvement needed in his footwork and to a lesser extent pad level. These issues are to be expected as it is very different on the edge as opposed to the inside, but his reach blocking footwork lacked in that he didn't get necessary depth on is drop steps. He has more of false step at this point and it showed up a few times in the game. Something that can be fixed with reps - and I'm not trying to be hard on the kid - but it will get exploited against better d-lines (mich st.) if not cleaned up.

 

[hawkeyegamefilm]

but it will get exploited against better d-lines (mich st.) if not cleaned up.

Dead on. Those little mistakes you can get away with against a Minnesota level defense. I felt like MN's DL was actually fairly decent, probably middle of the B1G type unit. Michigan State's DL will definitely be a couple of notches better than MN's was, but what scares me more is MSU's linebackers. A lot of those big gainers Iowa was getting against MN was partly poor play from the linebackers and MSU simply is great at the LB spots. All 3 guys are aggressive and make reads very quickly. Not to mention they get protected pretty well by the 4 guys up front which makes them a tough defense to run the ball against. The only real substantial rushing yards they have given up is to OSU QB Braxton Miller. Iowa's OL will need to play their best game in East Lansing to be able to move it consistently on the ground. A great game-plan designed to take advantage of an aggressive defense wouldn't hurt either.

 

[NCHawker]

I'm reminded of Iowa's game plan against Illinois in Champagn when Nick Bell was tailback. The Oline coach grinned before the game and said that they had a good game plan against the studs that Illinois had. Hawks ran wild that day.

[video=youtube;jyo1jJH1nD4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyo1jJH1nD4&playnext=1&list=PLABE78431FF76A745&feature=results_video[/video]

 

[AreWeThereYet]

Tobin doesn't get near the respect he deserves from Hawkeye fans.

 

[Winterhawk]

but what scares me more is MSU's linebackers. A lot of those big gainers Iowa was getting against MN was partly poor play from the linebackers and MSU simply is great at the LB spots.

Good point gamefilm. Backside linebacker was late on several reads - and the reaction time of MN was slow all together. On the plus side, I thought it was one of the better uses of formation I've seen at Iowa in the last 3-4 years - at least in the run game. This is a combination of coaching and quarterbacking (which if done correctly should be coaching as well), and it was evident we were well prepared to play off their alignment and the way they were stacking linebackers behind their tackles. Unfortunately, the same could not be said of using the formation in the second half when we were largely unable to take advantage of 10 man boxes and obvious double corner blitzes. The passing game just isn't there yet.

Thanks again, the reviews are really quality and it's good to get real football in between the sniping.