Quote Originally Posted by CelticCat View Post
We did struggle initially with UIW, who I thought had 2 stud players on defense, but our MO is similar to NDSU in that we just keep pounding and pounding and eventually wear teams down. Those 2 yard carries turned into 8 yard carries in the 4th quarter. But as I've said earlier in this thread, that isn't going to happen against NDSU. We are going to have to find other ways to move the ball than just pound our ball carriers against your stacked box all day long. And I honestly have no idea what that could be.
Wearing teams down hasn't really been our MO for a couple years. In the past we could line up and both teams plus a majority of the stadium knew what NDSU was going to run. It was a legit ground and pound offense. That has changed. Mess has opened up the playbook and it continues to grow every week. Folks may be able to predict a type of play (play action to the TE, outside run, zone read, etc) but the way in which those plays are executed are much more sophisticated. Also, wearing teams down comes less from our physicality and more from making teams defend sideline to sideline. Based on the lack of success with our run game between the tackles, my guess is we do it strictly to keep teams honest.