USF o-line seeks goal-line improvements

Posted Sep 10, 2011 by Adam Adkins

Updated Sep 10, 2011 at 10:47 AM

One of the areas where USF’s offense struggled in a season-opening victory at Notre Dame was in goal-line situations, and that fact was not lost on the Bulls big men up front, who termed the performance unacceptable.

Before junior quarterback B.J. Daniels threw a 1-yard touchdown pass to junior tight end Evan Landi to cap an 80-yard drive in the fourth quarter, the USF offense had four snaps from the 2-yard line or closer and five snaps from the 5-yard line or closer and had failed to punch it into the end zone.

“That hurt us, as far as the o-line’s pride,” redshirt freshman right tackle Quinterrius Eatmon said. “It really hurt our pride.”

“As an offensive lineman, we’ve taken that very personally,” senior left guard Jeremiah Warren added. “We can’t come up with zero when we get that close. Anything inside the 20 when we come up with zero we take that very personally. We feel like the coaches should put it on us. That’s something we’re working towards, still moving towards, keeping up the hard work, keeping focused.”

The offensive line features three new starters this year - junior left tackle Mark Popek, junior right guard Danous Estenor and Eatmon - while senior Chaz Hine is in a new position, sliding over from right guard to center this year. Warren said the group is still coming together, but refused to use that as an excuse.

“We’re still gelling, we’re still a new o-line, but we’re better than that. We’re better,” Warren said. “I think this is just another way for us to become even closer. We all have to have that mindset that when we’re on the goal line, we can’t fail. This is on us. We have to move forward. We can’t afford to stop.”

Daniels knows the offense needs to improve in goal-line situations going forward.

“Down there in the red zone, I tell the offensive line all the time it’s about attitude. Down there, it’s man on man and you’ve got to try and overpower your man and try and get the ball in the end zone,” Daniels said. “It’s tight down there, it’s tough, but that’s something where it’s just a mentality thing. I think that’s something that we can definitely pick up and improve on and I think that’s really going to help us end our drives the right way.”