The revisionist history grows stronger as the week wears on. This "dominant" offensive line got it's collective shit pushed in for almost 3 quarters by one of the smaller D-lines we'll face against Power 5 opponents. We scored 17 points in 5 trips to the red zone. One time after starting at what, the 4 and not scoring a TD? 383 total yards against a PAC 12 defense.
Kudos to Nix and the O for gutting it out in the 4th. Kudos to Sal Canola for getting his 2019 quota of catches in one game. 2! (Take a blow, Sal. You earned it.) This game was 100% on the D. They were the ones that figured it out. They were the ones that kept giving the ball to the offense time and time again. And yes, the line finally started winning some of the battles up front in the 4th against a line that had one starter over 275 lbs. (293) They were the ones that only let Oregon score once in their last 11 possessions. That was your ball game.
The O-line was anything but dominant. No better than last year. I'll agree on a couple of things. #1. We have a QB who seems to want the ball and not be intimidated by the moment. He might turn out to be pretty damn good. B. We have 2 games against inferior opponents where we have a chance to get our offensive shit together. And we'd better, because if we take that offense into College Station, it's going to be ugly.
I was working off my cloudy memory and perception. Let's see what the numbers say (taken from
http://www.cfbstats.com/2019/team/37/rushing/offense/situational.html ):
We finished with 4.8 ypr, earning 13 of our 22 first downs on the ground.
By quarter here are the rushing stats:
Q1 - 8 carries for 55 yards, 6.9 ypr
Q2 - 9 carries for 15 yards, 1.7 ypr
Q3 - 14 carries for 83 yards, 5.9 ypr
Q4 - 12 carries for 53 yards, 4.4 ypr
What does it all mean? Hell if I know! I'm surprised to see our 1st Q production was so good. Outside a miserable 2nd Q, that is pretty dominant run blocking based on a ypr analysis.