Who will be the best pass-rusher we face during the regular season?

[dystopiamembrane]

Adam Rittenberg: Sutton Smith, Northern Illinois

“Surprised? You shouldn’t be if you caught any of Smith’s games last season. A natural rush end, he lived in opposing backfields with 14 sacks and 29.5 tackles for loss. The defensive line projects to be a strength again, and although NIU went through a coordinator change, it promoted from within with Jeff Knowles. Smith could be even more disruptive as a fourth-year junior.”

Link

[Puget Ute]

He also mostly played against MAC offensive lines, although he had 6 tackles and 2 sacks against Nebraska, and 3 tackles and 1 sack against SDSU.

 

The best pass rusher our O line will be e this year is likely to Bradley Anae, every day in practice. Over the final 4-5 games of the season last year he graded out as a top-10 D lineman in the nation.

[noneyadb]

With edge rushers like Anae, Dimick, Fitts, Pita T, and Orchard why has the o-line been sooo bad in passing downs?

[Puget Ute]

It seems our biggest problem was keeping the linemen from going too far downfield on RPO.  The O line played great when Troy Williams was QB, but had a harder time when Tyler Huntley played.

[KiYi-Ute]

Agreed, I think unfamiliarity with Coach Taylor’s system (from both the QB and the O-Line) led to the RPO decision taking too long which resulted in a large number of ineligible receiver downfield penalties.

Hopefully everyone involved having more experience will cut down on the penalties. The O Line seemed to be able to run block very effectively when they knew it was a run play from the get-go.

As far as pass-blocking goes, I think they did a pretty good job. We took a lot of sacks when we didn’t need to because either Huntley or Williams would tuck it and leave a perfectly solid pocket too quickly.