Very vanilla, but still not good, Valentine was terrible on the rare occasion he actually got to the 2nd level.
The only back that looked like they have real potential is Woods.
I agree wholeheartedly with the vanilla scone part, but isn't that kind of the point? Vanilla vs. D1aa should be rolling them for 5ypc+ with a retard running straight to the whole and falling over. I don't think this is necessarily all a o-line issue, but they certainly end up looking like much better pass blockers even when considering the enormous disparity in talent between the two skill positions. I think we should all prepare ourselves to look like the Philly Eagles when Westbrook goes down. This is going to be a goofy amount of passing. The fact that Freems has figured out the Beasley bowl is a major positive. He's the only I would trust inside the 5 or to pick up a 3rd/4th and short at this point.
Our base running game is very vanilla anyway, consisting of inside/outside zone with an occasional trap. And I think for the most part the offensive line is solid, I just don't know if Valentine or Dold are very good zone backs. Those guys have to be good at reading blocks, quick decision makers, and able to burst when the opportunity presents itself and I really don't see that. And it hurts that those guys aren't going to break 20+ yard gains b/c at the end of the day that's often what gets good backs to 4-5 YPC. When "breaking it" is only going to get you to a 15 yard gain its not good for your YPC or your running game in general.
I do have to give Prince/Brock credit for implimenting some QB run game. No reason any college QB shouldn't use it b/c it puts so much pressure on the defense. And no doubt Freeman can handle it, even if its 5-10 attempts per game. With our RB situation, we're going to need it. We don't have to run the ball at a 5 YPC clip and get 150+ per game to be a 7-8 win team this year, but we will need to average between 3-4 YPC and get around 80 to 100. You have to at least have enough to force the defense to keep even numbers in the box.
I would say our entire run game. We should really do more RB draws to get lanes for these backs. And probably more traps/counters. Give them angles to work with.
I'm including reverses and the newly added QB run game as "secondary" parts of our run game, but our base is the zone stuff and some traps with occasional counters. Really if you run zone well you don't need a lot of other stuff, but whether it be on our offensive line or our backs (and I lean toward the backs being the problem) we are not running zone even as well as we did last year. We run reverses enough that they are a pretty key part of our running game. I am a bit surprised that we don't run any RB draws, but its never been part of Prince's run game and it wasn't something Snyder did either.
Angles may help these guys, but from what I've seen neither has enough burst or speed to be more than a servicable back-up at this level. Dold could develop into more of course, but he's got a way to go. I respect Valentine and what he's been able to accomplish, but there is a reason he didn't draw any BCS offers either out of HS or JUCO. Great kid to have as a back-up, but IMO he's basically another player like Terry Petrie from the last couple of years, but in his case the guys that should be ahead of him either didn't make it, haven't developed, or aren't playing b/c of poor decisions they made off the field.
