I just remember the ball being centered all over the place and the line not being able to pass block OR run block consistantly. I know we can't have a Stoutland every year but as bad as Milroe was at trad QB-ing, he was asked to make something out of nothing every third play. If Seth was somehow able to center the ball effectively to TS and the line could block better, well, I sure didn't see it in the SF game.
Our problems were legion.
Our problems centered on Nilroe and radiated from there.
The SF game isn't a good gauge for anything related to the OL since a big chunk of them were either sitting out in protest or pouting/protesting about their paycheck getting benched. Even some in the media are starting to talk about it now so the real story is starting to see the light of day. SM wasn't part of the LANK crowd, which is why you saw him, and only him, celebrating with TS so much when TS put the entire team on his shoulders and pulled out the win.
In 23 we also know that as the season went on they had to take more and more responsibility away from Nilroe and put it on SM so far as calling protections and making adjustments because Nilroe was not capable of it. that's far from optimal because once the center is set, it's very hard for him to see all of the potential movement at the edges and second level of the defense.
The reason Nilroe had to make something from nothing every third play was because of his own deficiencies. We had the same issue this year and it's the reason that close to half our drives in games that mattered were 3 and outs. As we are seeing from the senior bowl, Nilroe is greatly deficient in the short and intermediate game, especially if any degree of timing or synchronization is required. He's just not been capable at all in that area. That means things will be very inconsistent, just like he is. that's not on the OL or any other position group for that matter.
On SM, he had no consistent issues in the 2 years of snapping to BY and no issues this year at OSU, becoming the best OC in the country. There was one season that was an exception and other exceptional things were happening, like him having to try to keep eyes on all levels of the defense to make adjustments, and Nilroe not paying attention to that and executing the cadence when adjustments were in process. Magically when SM got away from the crud, all the snap issues went away as well.