Indiana offensive line coach Darren Hiller uses two aphorisms when discussing the existence and significance of the offensive line within an offense.
First, the sheer number of offensive linemen on the field on any given offensive snap leaves Hiller and his room responsible for 45.5 percent of the bodies on the field. Second, he likens the offensive line to the motor of a metaphorical vehicle – the offense as a whole representing the vehicle.
“You can have a nice paint job and nice wheels and nice rims and tires, but if you don’t have a good motor, that car isn’t going to go from point A to point B,” Hiller said via teleconference Wednesday.
With that emphasis being placed on the offensive line in general, and the barring of team-related activities, combined with the national social distancing guidelines, keeping Indiana’s offensive linemen separated individually, the offensive line becomes one of the most vulnerable positions to the effects of canceling spring camps nationwide. That’s left Hiller and his players frustrated and searching for avenues of progression before football can resume.
“When you wake up in the morning and brush your teeth and look at yourself in the mirror, are you getting out and doing the best that you can do from a preparation standpoint?” Hiller said. “So when we do get back, are we going to be able to hit the ground running, or are we going to be playing catch-up and trying to get back, from a fundamental standpoint?”
That’s the challenge Hiller and defensive graduate assistant Danny Friend have posed to their offensive linemen while they’re away, and it’s become one of the most important challenges of Indiana’s offseason.
The offensive line was already a place of concern for the Hoosiers exiting 2019, as Coy Cronk transferred to Iowa and interior linemen Simon Stepaniak and Hunter Littlejohn graduated from the program. It’s not atypical for most teams to replace a number of offensive linemen each offseason, but would Stanford transfer Dylan Powell provide enough interior stability for Harry Crider to return to center, and could Mackenzie Nworah work as well in a long-term role as he did in the short-term in 2019? Would Caleb Jones and Matt Bedford log as impressive seasons in 2020 without Crider and Stepaniak next to them?
Spring ball would have gone a long way toward discovering answers to those questions and plugging any potential gaps, but instead, the Hoosiers have four practices of film to study, of which they’ve already exhausted, and now, finding vocal leadership has become an abstract concept over Zoom calls. Hiller said Wednesday that he might not know who the vocal leaders will be when football returns.
“That’s one of those things where spring ball and having those guys here in the building in Bloomington would have probably come to fruition,” Hiller said. “That will be a little bit of a missing piece in the O-line room. We know who the leaders are from a work perspective, but as far as the vocal guy, I would say there are going to be some questions in that regard.”
Those are perennial questions that would have been asked until the opening kickoff against Wisconsin in September, but even the simple aspects of grooming an offensive line unit have become challenging for Hiller and his room.
Hiller said his players have certain grids of footwork that they use for each the running game and the passing game, and many schematic questions can be answered using those grids, as long as each lineman is practicing the footwork rigorously. The problem Indiana linemen are running into is that, for a position that relies heavily on communication and chemistry of five players as one unit, they’re struggling to get the communication experience that the 11 canceled spring practices would have offered.
Hiller’s first instinct was to tell them to grab friends to stand in place and create a line-of-scrimmage setting, but social distancing guidelines have prevented that so he wasn’t able to suggest that idea. Now, he’s asking them to get creative.
“I’m just telling them that they’re Peyton Manning calling an audible at the line of scrimmage in their stance,” Hiller said. “Just imagining a play is called and then make the communication to the guy next to you or the guys on both sides of you and just having an imagination. Kind of play a game of football by yourself in an imaginary role. That’s hard. It’s just frustrating for these guys.”
For a position that has four new faces this spring and three more set to arrive in June, and a room left with many questions left to answer, imaginary football will likely not create the development once hoped for during spring and fall camps, but it’s all Hiller and his room have at this point. And it’s all that any offensive line across the country has too.
“Everybody’s been dealt the same hand, so we just have to continue to work and be as prepared as possible for when we do get the opportunity to come back.”
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