On this week’s Check the Tape with North Central head coach Brad Spencer, we break down what looks like a very simple touchdown for Luke Lehnen, DeAngelo Hardy‘s ability to somehow evade an entire defense of defenders, and Will Kettelkamp shows off his strength on a tremendous effort to get to the opposing quarterback for a sack.
The Cardinals have successfully run a simple-looking play resulting in a quarterback rushing touchdown on numerous occasions. It may look easy, but it requires the correct decision from the QB, in this case Lehnen, and a convincing sell by the offensive line and running back.
“Yeah Luke did a great job here,” Spencer said. “We were actually joking in film on Sunday night that this is a play that has carried over year after year. Broc Rutter used to do this as well. Luke’s a little bit more of a runner than Broc was, but I think our offensive line and crew of running backs force the defense to focus on them especially inside the five-yard-line. Luke did his job, made an easy pull, and got in the end zone.”
Lehnen threw three touchdown passes in the win over WashU, all of them to DeAngelo Hardy. The second of them began with a pass that didn’t look particularly threatening, but somehow Hardy outran seemingly the entire Bears defense and found his way to the end zone.
“Yeah, D-lo’s an incredible football player,” said Spencer. “Luke did a good job delivering the football, he got a couple great blocks including from Terrence Hill, and then he’s able to get out and outrun everybody like he does a lot of the time.”
On defense, the Cardinals recorded their third consecutive shutout which included five sacks. Will Kettelkamp’s stood out, as the undersized defensive end drove the offensive tackle with whom he was matched up straight backward while not losing sight of where the quarterback was in order to finish off the play.
“Will’s done a great job this year, he’s taken a lot of reps,” Spencer said. “Right there he did a great job of doing what he’s supposed to do: being in the right lane, wrecking the tackle, and then working back to the quarterback to get a big sack for us late in the game to close out that series.”
