The Football Brainiacs

Image from Soonersports.com

We’ve received a number of emails from people asking us how we felt Derek Farniok played this last Saturday against Oklahoma State.  I admit, that most of the time when I watch a game I try to watch it as a fan, so I can just enjoy it.  I’ll check the line, but I don’t really examine things until I go back and re-watch the game.  In reading some of the comments around the web about how bad Derek played, I had to stop and question myself and say how did I miss that?

In breaking down the tape, I can count 10 bad plays that Derek had.  We ran 73 plays Saturday, so for a Sophomore in his first start, I can’t say the guy played too bad.  In my educated opinion Derek played pretty well.  I’ll admit, when Derek didn’t look good on those plays I mentioned, he looked pretty bad.  But I chalk a lot of that up to inexperience and acquaintance with the speed of the game. Derek took some bad angles on some blocks, and needs to study some film, and let me speak from experience here…There is no better teacher than to see yourself in action.  I remember Coach Scheible pointing out things we did or didn’t do in film, and man, you learn so much through watching your mistakes.  Let me also point out that I thought Derek played very hard, and hustled the entire game.  We ran behind him a couple of times in short yardage, and came out fine.  I did notice that Bronson Irwin missed some twists that made Derek look bad.  I’ll outline it further in this week’s Trench Warfare posts, but for now I’ll just say that instead of passing the twist off to Derek, Bronson went outside with the player, and got in the way of him.  When Derek then tried to fight back inside, there’s no way he could have made the block.  It made him look bad, since he was the one chasing the defender, but Bronson as a senior has to be the veteran there and recognize that twist.

Also there was a play in the fourth quarter when Derek’s pulling, and it looks like he missed a guy, but if Sterling Shepard locks the guy up on his down block, we’re out on the edge with a convoy and Derek out front. There were also quite a few times that we didn’t use our numbers advantage, and Derek, in hustling out to help out the player running the ball, looked like he had missed a block, when in fact it was the player who outnumbered us and by design was unblocked that made the play.  Again that’s a liability in our offensive scheme that we must get adjusted between now and the bowl game as well as in the offseason.

 I’d like to see Derek adjust his stance a little.  He bends over at the waist too much instead of sinking his hips and bending at the knees.  It’s causing him to be slow out of his stance, and at 6’9″, he has to focus on getting lower and playing with good pad level.  He really needs to concentrate on getting his head across, especially on play away, but I tell ya if we run off tackle or a counter behind him, he can get movement on the players he’s blocking.  If we run right behind him and force that defender playing over him to have to deal with him, he’s a force.  Now on the combo blocking he had trouble and it’s something that he has to get game repetitions doing. I wish we had another game between now and Bama for him to get more experience, but if he does his homework in the film room, he can get better quickly.

If I’m Coach Bedenbaugh I move Daryl Williams over to the left tackle spot to deal with the other team’s pass rush specialist, and let Derek play right.  Traditionally the right side Tackles are road graders and that is who Derek is.  You can tell the kid is a fighter and a worker.  He’s still young and has two more offseasons in the program.  Derek’s strengths are blocking straight ahead, being physical and playing to the whistle.  As he refines his technique, gets a little bit better in his footwork and uses his hands more, he’ll be a good one for us.  When he struggles it’s because he loses his technique.  As he gets to the bottom of the well, he has to punch and use those long arms he has.  He drops his hands, and lets people get in on him, when he shouldn’t.  Again that’s something that can be taught.  I will tell you this, when the chips were down, on that last drive, Derek looked better than he did all day.  He strung together eight good plays that really showed me that the kid can rise to the occasion.  When he has the responsibility of being a starter, and his team needs him, the kid has guts.

It’s so hard to explain to people that haven’t played in college how much you can grow. But all of you reading this know that if you’ve ever worked at something you can really transform yourself. You can become something you never imagined. When you’re playing in HS you’re never forced to realize your potential. When I played in college, I was completely different physically on my way out the program than I was coming in. As I’ve said for a while now OL development takes time and you have to the right eyes to notice whether what you need from a kid is there and it just needs time and experience to come out or if it’s just not there. And there is a fine line. I’ve defended Derek Farniok and Kyle Marrs because I see something there and I know what kind of coaching they’re getting and I know what raw tools they have. Derek got better throughout this one game. He’s going to get even better in the next game and better in the one after that and eventually folks that are criticizing the kid will be singing his praises as well.

I’ll have more on Derek as I do the Trench Warfare breakdowns but I wanted to get y’all some initial impressions.