Last week we took the time to preview the Oregon offensive line against the LSU defensive line because that would be the key to the game in Dallas. This week, and I swear this won’t be every week, the answer to the game is again in the trenches. However, unlike the contest from last Saturday this isn’t an exercise in schemes and winning the battle of overall line play.
Mississippi State is not Oregon, they don’t rely on the directional blocking and working to get lateral. While they are a spread team, their beauty is in their power and drive to move bodies. They get on top of defenders and they pound defensive linemen and linebackers into submission. They are as close to a traditional offensive line as a spread can be from a physicality and road-grading mentality standpoint.
Enter the Auburn Tigers. They struggled mightily with Utah State, and while everyone wants to point out the obvious in terms of yardage given up and the way they made the freshman quarterback Chuckie Keeton look like everyone’s All-American, the reason they gave up 227 yards on the ground to the Aggies was quite simple:
They Can’t Get Off Blocks!
As an old coach explained it to me, the basis of defensive football is simple: Unless someone is unblocked, a guy on that unit is going to have to defeat a block and make a tackle. Football is 11 on 11 every play. Quarterbacks don’t block. Safeties in the back end don’t get blocked. What you end up with in the box is a six-on-seven battle where someone either gets a run-through lane or gets walled off from the play and the play-side defenders have to get off a block and make a play.
For Auburn, this did not happen in the season opener. Utah State didn’t so much push Auburn around and move bodies as occupied space and kept the Tigers’ defenders from being free to tackle the Aggies’ ball carriers.
Against Mississippi State, just being “occupied” is not an option for guys like Nosa Eguae, Kenneth Carter, Angelo Blackson, Dee Ford and Corey Lemonier. That “occupation” turns into being blown off the ball, moved down the field, and it makes the jobs of Daren Bates, Jonathan Evans and Jake Holland that much more difficult as the wash gets too thick to cut through.
The concept of shedding blocks is one of football’s basic principles, but the practice of shedding blocks is something players struggle with at every level – like Othello, the Pressman game, a minute to learn and a lifetime to master. Practices like extending the arms, gaining separation, mirroring the back, throwing blockers, spinning, ripping or slapping through arms and swimming out of blocks can be taught. But to use them effectively takes experience and talent.
In Auburn’s first outing, the defensive line was stuck like velcro to the Utah State blockers. No amount of spinning, ripping or other moves worked to free them from the push. Thus, running lanes were created, and while Evans and Holland had good days in terms of number of tackles, the overall picture was Tigers’ defenders dragging down Aggies backs four and five yards down field.
For this defensive line to be successful against Mississippi State, an offensive line that features just one player, Addison Lawrence, below 300 lbs., the Bulldogs are going to have be polished. Physically, the Tigers are quite capable of getting the job done and holding Vick Ballard under wraps. Experience and using technique will be the issue here. Their players must stick to what they’ve been taught and not get swallowed up by the Bulldogs’ massive road graders to stop Mississippi State from piling another massive rushing effort on the way to elevating its SEC West standing.
