Interior o-line still a work in progress
Overall, the offensive line did pretty well today, but outside of Joe Gaziano, this Northwestern defensive line isn’t exactly one to be worried about.
Moreover, I’m judging all of this off of one play, and I haven’t had a chance to rewatch the film to do a better evaluation, but that one play summed up what is wrong with our interior offensive line.
When doing stunts, communication and wherewithal are just not there.
After getting an interception early in the first, the Iowa football team had a chance to make a statement, but on third down, Gaziano ran a stunt. Alaric Jackson took the defensive tackle, and Landen Paulsen decided to double-team the tackle with Jackson leaving an easy lane for Gaziano to go right at Nate Stanley.
Should Stanley have thrown the ball away? Absolutely. But should he have even been put in that situation? No.
This is Iowa’s biggest weakness at this point, and given Kirk and Brian’s offensive line background, I would expect this to be cleaned up. At least now, the playcalling is keeping one or two guys in the backfield to ensure Stanley has a clean pocket, but this offense could be so much better if we didn’t have to worry about plays like that happening on a consistent basis.