I am no offensive line coach or anything, but as I understand it and what I see is that the outside zone scheme is dependent on all the lineman, and tight ends to do their jobs in synchronous harmony. If any of the lineman miss their blocks, or get beat, the chain breaks, there is penetration in the gap and the running back will probably lose yards or at the very least it busts the play. That is the downside to the scheme. However, the upside is that if it is performed well, and there is a shifty back, it is very very hard to counter as a defense and there is the capability of the big play, because everyone is blocked and there are multiple lanes for the running back to choose from. The reason is that if the defensive lineman are weaker and/or slower than the offensive lineman, they have to either slant pre-snap or post-snap to the gaps, essentially guessing at which way the play is going to go. But when they do this and they guess wrong, or, the back cuts it backside and the weakside tight end and receiver execute blocks, the running back will take it to the house. However, when the defensive line is bigger and stronger than the offensive lineman, especially the interior, they dont have to slant and wait to read the play post snap and shed their blocker when they have the running back approaches the hole. We have really struggled with the big and fast nose tackle, in either the 3-4 or 4-3, like the Miss St. guys or Sagapolu from Wisconsin. They just own our guys and disrupt the play before it gets going, and because they are reading the play post snap, the counter action doesn't work because they will just flow to the backside. Watch our film games from this past year, there are so many of our lineman that stand there with no one to block, which means there is a free rusher somewhere.
So what we have been doing more than anything is the inside zone, which to me doesn't have as much upside because there aren't as many holes to choose from, however, it looks to take advantage of big lineman who aren't very fast. A big guy can pin a guy in one place easier than trying to engage a block and move him horizontally. The running game here wont be as potent as the outside zone, but if you dont have the horses to execute the outside zone then you just cant do it. But this can get you some decent plays, but you hope that someone on defenses misses their assignment.
And if you cant do that, then just block straight forward, one on one, move your guy one way and your adjacent lineman moves his guy the other way, bang a fullback in the hole to clear out the linebacker and hope to squirt the back through. However, this has the least amount of success rate because there is only one hole that will be available and you arent accounting for the weakside backers or safeties. I see you use this only if you have one great tackle and one great guard, and the rest of your line are scrubs, you have no choice.
So to end all of this, I feel we have to get way way way better at center and guards, and like really quickly. But overall, it seems our offensive line play has really diminished here lately and that is not good for our running game. Also, for our run game, I don't think our great tight ends were such great blockers, so they wont be a big loss here.
