In Reply to: Bolch says UCLA’s rushing/GM is posted by SehornBlew on October 22, 2024 at 13:48:48
The reasons our Running game sucks start with the OL not having been quite right after the late staff/scheme changes, and the new OL having been injured and not starting the same guys multiple games in a row until recently.
But that's not all. A lot is on the Coaches and Play Design/Play Calling.
1. Play Design - 99% of our handoffs are RPO-style handoffs, involving a LONG lag at the handoff mesh point. With our OL issues, that long delay prevents the RBs from gaining any momentum forward to hit a hole hard, AND it requires a shaky OL to hold their blocks longer and leads to far more penetration than you can have a good running game with. And even in the Penn St game, Martin never kept the ball on the RPO handoffs. We have seen Garbers keep it a couple of times successfully, but not enough to warrant the lag it introduces with the current OL. Maybe down the road when we have a better OL.
2. Play Calling (run/pass balance) - in most games, Bieniemy is calling 3-4 passes (or more) for every run. Half of our rushing yards and a good number of the attempts, are actually called passes where Garbers or Martin scramble. There is no way for a young, shaky offensive line to get into a Bruin Brawn, dominate the trenches when they call running plays so infrequently.
2a. Play-Calling (where to attack) - we don't call running plays to get Jones outside, everything is between the tackles - we have no pitch plays in the offense that I can see, and one way to take advantage of B1G DL's with our quickness is to do that. We don't. That's on Bieniemy too.
However, with the OL's ability to stay healthy recently, starting the same group the past 3 games, we have seen a slight uptick, but the RPO lag is costing us a LOT of yards.