As mentioned earlier, San Diego State ran the ball a ton during Saturday’s scrimmage. I would say it consisted of 70-percent runs, 25-percent play-action passes and 5-percent drop back passes.
This meant SDSU’s pass protection wasn’t under too much pressure to pick up blitzes. Still, while the sample size was small, I thought the OL did a much better job as a unit during those moments where it was a clear passing down and the defense brought six man pressures with blitzes.
I can’t help but mention the weakest link of the line, though. The left guard spot may very well be the weakest spot on the entire offense, and maybe even the entire depth chart.
With Nick Gerhard at center, Keith Ismael and Daishawn Dixon have been taking the majority of reps at LG and they struggled again on Saturday.
Whoever lined up at LG was often the reason for a failed offensive play, whether it be a blown up run resulting in a tackle for loss or an untouched defender coming in on a blitz for a quick sack.
If in doubt, look at the LG spot.
That said, the right guard spot is a completely different story. Antonio Rosales is the most comfortable lineman picking up blitzes, stunts and twists and he’s the nastiest hitter on the OL.
During the final play of the scrimmage, Rosales sprung open the hole for a Juwan Washington 10-yard score by perfectly leading the power play. He pulled around and completely leveled Parker Baldwin in the hole, knocking him out of the way for Washington to scamper through the hole and into the end zone. It was the cleanest block of the day and it brought Baldwin down to his knees.
The blocking as a whole was a work of beauty on that play, making it a nice way to end practice.
Along with Rosales' block, Keith Ismael made a nice chip block on the nose tackle before down blocking Ron Smith, FB Isaac Lessard took out Ronley Lakalaka with the lead block, and Parker Houston took out Israel Cabrera on the second level to complete the running lane.
Jeff Clay was the only defender left unblocked but he had no chance of reacting to Washington running behind the Rosales/Baldwin collision.
If the OL performed like that on a consistent basis SDSU would be in for another big year. But that wasn’t the case throughout the scrimmage, especially with the play at left guard.
I would not be surprised in a a possibility where OL coach Mike Schmidt takes drastic measures at some point, such as 1) starting Dominic Gudino as a true freshman so Nick Gerhard can move to LG or 2) starting C Derrick Achayo, a very inconsistent snapper but decent blocker, and moves Gerhard over to LG.
After the scrimmage, option no. 2 seems like something I feel the staff should strongly consider when they review the depth chart following spring camp.
That said, I completely understand the idea behind starting Ismael. He’s very talented for a freshman and having Ismael/Tyler Roemer paired up for the next four years on the left side would be a great thing for the OL. I just think that he’ll need to establish himself as a confident, consistent blocker during the final few practices if that has any chances of happening.
Moving on...
-The QBs struggled during the few times they were called on to pass the ball. Pretty much all of their completions were on check downs or timing routes to the running backs or tight ends for gains shorter than 10 yards. The few downfield opportunities they had were basically wasted, which was a surprise considering those came at a premium and you’d expect the QBs to really hone in on their targets.
-The QBs really need to work on their accuracy on deeper throws along the sideline. When you run playaction as often as SDSU will, you need to stretch the defense occasionally but both QBs were way off target.
On go routes, for example, they need to get comfortable placing the ball between the sideline and the outside shoulder of the receiver, rather than throwing the ball out of bounds where it’s uncatchable, or throwing it short and toward the middle of the field where the WR basically has to leave his single coverage matchup and all of a sudden run himself into double coverage just to have a chance at the ball.
The best instance of this was when Neil Boudreau threw a deep jump ball to Fred Trevillion that Dwayne Parchment was able to chase down to assist Ron Smith in coverage because of where it was thrown. (Parchment actually could have picked it off had he turned around instead of running straight toward Trevillion - that’s how off target Boudreau’s throw was).
Another occurrence was on a two-point conversion try, where Ryan Agnew through a fade pass way too high and WELL out of bounds. Mikah Holder had no chance of reaching it despite creating tremendous separation for such a small area to work with. It was a wasted rep and in this case a loss of two points.
This meant SDSU’s pass protection wasn’t under too much pressure to pick up blitzes. Still, while the sample size was small, I thought the OL did a much better job as a unit during those moments where it was a clear passing down and the defense brought six man pressures with blitzes.
I can’t help but mention the weakest link of the line, though. The left guard spot may very well be the weakest spot on the entire offense, and maybe even the entire depth chart.
With Nick Gerhard at center, Keith Ismael and Daishawn Dixon have been taking the majority of reps at LG and they struggled again on Saturday.
Whoever lined up at LG was often the reason for a failed offensive play, whether it be a blown up run resulting in a tackle for loss or an untouched defender coming in on a blitz for a quick sack.
If in doubt, look at the LG spot.
That said, the right guard spot is a completely different story. Antonio Rosales is the most comfortable lineman picking up blitzes, stunts and twists and he’s the nastiest hitter on the OL.
During the final play of the scrimmage, Rosales sprung open the hole for a Juwan Washington 10-yard score by perfectly leading the power play. He pulled around and completely leveled Parker Baldwin in the hole, knocking him out of the way for Washington to scamper through the hole and into the end zone. It was the cleanest block of the day and it brought Baldwin down to his knees.
The blocking as a whole was a work of beauty on that play, making it a nice way to end practice.
Along with Rosales' block, Keith Ismael made a nice chip block on the nose tackle before down blocking Ron Smith, FB Isaac Lessard took out Ronley Lakalaka with the lead block, and Parker Houston took out Israel Cabrera on the second level to complete the running lane.
Jeff Clay was the only defender left unblocked but he had no chance of reacting to Washington running behind the Rosales/Baldwin collision.
If the OL performed like that on a consistent basis SDSU would be in for another big year. But that wasn’t the case throughout the scrimmage, especially with the play at left guard.
I would not be surprised in a a possibility where OL coach Mike Schmidt takes drastic measures at some point, such as 1) starting Dominic Gudino as a true freshman so Nick Gerhard can move to LG or 2) starting C Derrick Achayo, a very inconsistent snapper but decent blocker, and moves Gerhard over to LG.
After the scrimmage, option no. 2 seems like something I feel the staff should strongly consider when they review the depth chart following spring camp.
That said, I completely understand the idea behind starting Ismael. He’s very talented for a freshman and having Ismael/Tyler Roemer paired up for the next four years on the left side would be a great thing for the OL. I just think that he’ll need to establish himself as a confident, consistent blocker during the final few practices if that has any chances of happening.
Moving on...
-The QBs struggled during the few times they were called on to pass the ball. Pretty much all of their completions were on check downs or timing routes to the running backs or tight ends for gains shorter than 10 yards. The few downfield opportunities they had were basically wasted, which was a surprise considering those came at a premium and you’d expect the QBs to really hone in on their targets.
-The QBs really need to work on their accuracy on deeper throws along the sideline. When you run playaction as often as SDSU will, you need to stretch the defense occasionally but both QBs were way off target.
On go routes, for example, they need to get comfortable placing the ball between the sideline and the outside shoulder of the receiver, rather than throwing the ball out of bounds where it’s uncatchable, or throwing it short and toward the middle of the field where the WR basically has to leave his single coverage matchup and all of a sudden run himself into double coverage just to have a chance at the ball.
The best instance of this was when Neil Boudreau threw a deep jump ball to Fred Trevillion that Dwayne Parchment was able to chase down to assist Ron Smith in coverage because of where it was thrown. (Parchment actually could have picked it off had he turned around instead of running straight toward Trevillion - that’s how off target Boudreau’s throw was).
Another occurrence was on a two-point conversion try, where Ryan Agnew through a fade pass way too high and WELL out of bounds. Mikah Holder had no chance of reaching it despite creating tremendous separation for such a small area to work with. It was a wasted rep and in this case a loss of two points.
