Decoding Langsdorf: Nebraska’s Offensive Line And The Guard-Center-Guard Theory

The Husker offensive line will look to control the defensive interior

One more day and we can finally put a moratorium on discussing the 2016 season. I, for one, will be downright gleeful to do so, as I’ve watched and rewatched more “film” of games like Indiana, Purdue, Wisconsin, and Iowa than anyone ever should.

On the physical plane of existence, it is a natural law that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Because football exists on this mortal coil of physical existence, this axiom also proves salient in both offensive and defensive football theories. In football, the shortest route to the endzone, and away from the endzone, are the two gaps on either side of the center, the A gaps.

I typically shudder to use metaphors of war and combat to describe football, but in an allegorical sense the A gaps are football’s Battle of Somme; an ongoing and ever-contentious struggle to move the line of scrimmage even just one yard in either direction. From an offensive perspective, the A gaps are of utmost importance, with coordinators having a severe aversion to inside penetration unless a specific playcall is designed to expose a defense’s inside penetration. From a defensive coordinator’s perspective, whose ultimate and ulcer-inducing job is to defend as many potential formations and concepts by alignment first and foremost, the A gaps are the quickest way to destroy an offense’s hopes and dreams, while defending your own unit’s hopes and dreams.