Checking in on Inside The Red Raiders and I saw this article on some news that I figured would come but wasn’t sure which domino would fall first. Ty Buchanan has been moved to backup Caleb Rogers and put some pressure on him for the starting role. This does make some sense, as I said earlier in the season, Rogers struggles mightily against speed rushers and Buchanan is a more athletic tackle who may be better suited to these types of situations.

Rogers has been a good RT for us through the years, but it seems he’s potentially a bit overmatched at left so it’s good to see they are making changes. To have a better look at the issues I went through all the sacks after finding some full game tape on YouTube and assessed each one to see where the breakdown is happening.

Analysis (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZgvA1D-Y\_w&t=558s)

9:06 - Q1 12:37 2&11: Initial set is strong, gives himself a buffer and sets to assess. It’s a simple inside shoulder rush and rip. Initial contact is good, matches the move but stops his feet. Rather than using the hard outside foot plant to re position his inside foot and wall off the player, gets a minimal inside step and must cross over with his outside foot, allowing the defender to pivot around his narrow base. Outside hand also never finds the hip, meaning he never has control of the defender’s body.

This play isn’t helped by Weston Wright whiffing his block as well, meaning there was no escape path for Smith

31:27 - Q2 14:43 1&10: Again, initial set up is good, obviously trying to encourage an outside rush with a slight slow play of the drop and keeping a tight alignment with Wright. A lovely fake acceleration into a mini throw means that he speeds up to match the apparent outside rush, then gets caught leaning into the defender without full connection of the hands and without the feet following into the block. It’s a lovely move, sets him up perfectly for it. Wright nearly gets there in time, if Rogers had been able to shift with the defender, then they would have stonewalled him.

32:00 - Q2 14:10 2&11: Wooft this…this is ugly. Just a straight up bull rush from an outside backer who is coming with bile and hatred like any good blitzer should. Never gets his feet set, never lowers his hips, and explodes into the contact and gets run over. This starts Smith falling and the defender uses his momentum to finish the job.

1:11:23 - Q3 12:16 3&4: The biggest issue here is the lean and the hand placement. Because he is trying to strike under to get the plate he must lean down, which perfectly coincides with a lunge from the defender for the back of his outside shoulder. That outside arm should be punching straight for the shoulder (watch Mills at right tackle execute this) to control that outer half of the defender’s body.

You can see in his footwork some trepidation about being beat inside as it has happened a couple of times, which is perfect for the defender who now knows he has him set up to go outside at will. Tech had adjusted to this as you can see Wright quickly progressing to guarding him B gap, meaning Rogers could sell out more on the outside move.

1:40:37 - Q3 0:10 2&12: Plus, Rogers stopped the sack. Negative, he held like I’m holding onto my hairline.

This play starts well, he doesn’t get sold on the fake inside move, readjusts and gets into a solid position. However, he cannot get his inside hand placed on the defenders inside hip and his outside arm is pretty much over the face cage. If you watch on .25 speed, when it gets to 1:40:40 he is in a place where, if he can extend his outside arm on the inside shoulder, he creates room for his inside hand to find the inside hip and he wins the block. His base is solid and could run him to the same point he ends up, just without the flag. But he can’t get that extension meaning he can’t get the inside hip and both arms end up enveloping the defender.

Go to 2:10:04 for a time where he executes this technique much better. Yes the outside arm is still high on the defenders chest but refs are much more willing to let that go if you have hip control with the other hand.

2:00:12 - Q4 8:27 2&5: Another bull rush and this time he gets the footwork right, he hops back to get both feet planted in the ground. However, he never reloads when he does it, he doesn’t sink his hips and snap back to stall the defender’s momentum. Therefore, he’s just being driven back by the lower, quicker player. Wright doesn’t really help here either, he gives a wee push to the defender but doesn’t explode through him to knock him off balance.

Conclusion

In all, a rough day. He got set up for the inside move early and always had that in the back of his mind for the rest of the game. I’m excited to see what Buchanan can do if he gets a shot. He has a good pedigree to him and is a young player with athleticism. I predict Rogers has a medium leash v OK State, give up a couple of sacks early and his day could be over sharpish but otherwise there’s a good chance he plays the whole game, and a competition maybe opens proper over the bye week.