Our offensive identity is lost

[BiZon22]

The 2021 team finishes the season with a per game rushing average of 280.6 and a per rush average of 6.2 (only the 2018 and 2019 teams were better since the run began and barely). I'd say they found their identity quite well.

Stats don’t agree but it sure did look ugly at times getting all those yards. Worked out in the end though, so I’ll hold off on complaining for awhile lol

[ndsubison1]

Finally started to see the offensive line dominate the point of attack, thought we had lost that last couple seasons.

[tony]

So at the end of the regular season these are where NDSU sits in FCS national ranks in the major offensive stat categories:

Points per game: 35.3 (13th) 34.1 (14th)
Yards per game: 431.9 (20th) 431.5 (19th)
Yards per play: 7.14 (3rd) 7.07 (2nd)
Rush yards per game: 271.8 (3rd) 280.6 (2nd)
Yards per carry: 6.35 (1st) 6.21 (1st)
Pass yards per game: 160.1 (108th) 150.9 (11th)
Yards per pass attempt: 9.08 (4th) 8.81 (2nd)
Team passing efficiency: 161.35 (5th) 156.07 (6th)
3rd down conversion %: 45.7% (9th) 47.2 (5th)
Redzone score %: 80.4% (60th) 83.6 (42nd)
Redzone TD %: 65.2% (39th) ? (?)
Average time of possession: 31:19 (31st) 32:17 (18th)

Update Professor Chaos's work from the end of the regular season with the final numbers with the playoffs included (updates in red/green.)

It looks to me like NDSU's offensive identity is "Built for the playoffs." And the teams with the super genius offenses ran into winter weather or good defenses and got their wheels knocked off. I bet every other team in the playoff saw their per game offensive stats go down in the playoffs.

[HerdBot]

Update Herdbot's work from the end of the regular season with the final numbers with the playoffs included (updates in red/green.)

It looks to me like NDSU's offensive identity is "Built for the playoffs." And the teams with the super genius offenses ran into winter weather or good defenses and got their wheels knocked off. I bet every other team in the playoff saw their per game stats go down in the playoffs.

We went back to our old school offense later in the year and that's when we became an unstoppable force.

QB under center, fullback, short passing game and playaction. Starting with Youngstown, we set the D1 record for rushing yards in a game and kind of stuck with it. Then the read option stuff started to work as a chage up. Less is more

We are totally built for the playoffs.

[GreenfieldBison]

There was also some dynamism on the OL over the course of the regular season. This was addressed a bit in the postgame on 1660 Saturday. They moved Volson and others around a bit but it was not working as they would have liked. Seems that after moving back to previous positions then the OL really started to click.

Did this coincide temporally with change at QB and/or change in offensive scheme? I don't know.

[89MTBISON]

There was also some dynamism on the OL over the course of the regular season. This was addressed a bit in the postgame on 1660 Saturday. They moved Volson and others around a bit but it was not working as they would have liked. Seems that after moving back to previous positions then the OL really started to click.

Did this coincide temporally with change at QB and/or change in offensive scheme? I don't know.

We got healthy, the MVFC is a grind.

[tony]

We went back to our old school offense later in the year and that's when we became an unstoppable force.

QB under center, fullback, short passing game and playaction. Starting with Youngstown, we set the D1 record for rushing yards in a game and kind of stuck with it. Then the read option stuff started to work as a chage up. Less is more

We are totally built for the playoffs.

Roehl put in some really clever, but not complicated, wrinkles too... like Watson in the backfield - Montana State treated him like a RB from a coverage standpoint and had a LB try to pick him up (stole this from Twitter)

[THEsocalledfan]

Roehl put in some really clever, but not complicated, wrinkles too... like Watson in the backfield - Montana State treated him like a RB from a coverage standpoint and had a LB try to pick him up (stole this from Twitter)

I think Ross said something like, "I'm not sure what Montana St was trying to do here." LOL

[Professor Chaos]

There was also some dynamism on the OL over the course of the regular season. This was addressed a bit in the postgame on 1660 Saturday. They moved Volson and others around a bit but it was not working as they would have liked. Seems that after moving back to previous positions then the OL really started to click.

Did this coincide temporally with change at QB and/or change in offensive scheme? I don't know.

I also thought I heard something about simplifying the blocking schemes after the SDSU game to try to get the o-line to think less and maul more.

[OrygunBison]

There was also some dynamism on the OL over the course of the regular season. This was addressed a bit in the postgame on 1660 Saturday. They moved Volson and others around a bit but it was not working as they would have liked. Seems that after moving back to previous positions then the OL really started to click.

Losing our OL coach so close to a weird spring season, playing that season, and getting all out of schedule with player development wreaked havok on the OL more than any other position group. Had we not the absolute DUDES on the roster that we did, this could have been worse for longer.