Red Zone this week

I clicked on this, saying to myself, "this is going to be a bad post."

I was not prepared for... this, however.

in broad strokes there are two ways to rack up defensive stats against rushing attacks. one is hyperaggressive LBs and the other is Monster Beef up front.

In the case of Rutgers only two players listed as DL are among their top-12 tacklers. One is 250 lbs and the other 290 lbs.

in this way they are like the opposite of MSU who is built to clog you up in the RZ.

I noticed they are last in the Big Ten in % of TD's allowed in the red zone: most of them rushing TD's.

If that's the case, I would expect more red zone success, but I doubt we change up our approach much (at least in terms of putting new wrinkles on film). We should be able to pave Rutgers and Nebraska, and although Illinois's defense will likely be tough (similar to Iowa's), I just have a hard time seeing their offense doing much damage. In other words, I feel like we can beat all three teams with the same approach we've been taking, even if red zone issues persist.

The key will be what they have gameplanned for OSU. The coaches definitely schemed up wrinkles last year, and I hope they're doing so again, because I have a hard time seeing FGs cutting it, especially if we can't get after Stroud with organic pass rush...

We have 7 more games to work on the RZ offense.

Don't need to be "hopeful" against Rutger.

There won't be a lot of Red Zone success this week, because we'll be running through it and passing over it more than operating out of it.

If anything, I hope the team can get some mojo back... and carry that mojo forward.

But I'm not thinking Rutgers is going to present the same challenge to overcoming redzone stumbles as Illinois may and OSU certainly will.

It's a glorified scrimmage.

Their defense is #34 on F+ which is much worse than the #13 on static stats, but still pretty good for Rutgers (#89 overall).

It seems as if there are two issues the offense is perceived to have.

The first, as you point out - is RZ efficiency.   Can they be more effective at TD's than relying on Jake Moody for a FG.

The second is - the passing game.  This seems to apply to both the RZ and "longer field" game.

The next two games seem to be ideally situated in the schedule.   Michigan will be a solid favorite, and will likely use what has worked - the ground game - to build a foundation and lead.   Now, what we see from the passing game after that will be interesting.

Ball security will be of paramount focus to any Harbaugh coached team.  And, there is a balance of "game speed" to gain confidence in certain things (like deeper routes) while not "showing" too much, too early which would allow future opponents to analyze and prepare for everything the O can do.

So, what's going to happen?   Well, lol, I'm not on the staff - but, I would expect to see a bit more of the depth of the O over the next two or three games.

I hope we don't see Blake Corum at all in the 2nd half.

I hope Anthony can get some reps too so we can see what he can do. 

I just heard a Sparty say on the radio that it was a 14 to 7 game.

Apparently our field goals no longer count. Must always go for it on 4th down in the red zone now.

We are going to run all over rutgers including TDs, as noted in the MSU game, we dont have the big dominating WR to go to in the redzone , so we try to run the ball or go to a TE or throw it short. MSU and other Big ten teams are built to stop the run first making it difficult to just power it in . We will be fine until Ohio State probably where we will be faced with finding another way to score in the redzone.

We can solve our redzone problems whenever we want. All we have to do is throw the ball once in a while, maybe even past the line of scrimmage, into the endzone, or occasionally on first and second down.

I'm hoping for lots of passing in the Rutgers game, including in the red zone.

Give the passing game some in-game reps when we have the chance.

So that it is ready if we need it.