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Inside the Play: Notre Dame

The Situation
Thanks to a pair of fumbles giving the Irish offense short fields, Michigan trails Notre Dame 14-0. Now, a particularly questionable pass interference call on Donovan Warren has resulted in an Irish 1st and 10 on Michigan’s 48 yard line. Michigan’s defense needs a big stop to prevent the Wolverines from being blown out early.

The Personnel and Formation
The Irish line up with only one wide receiver (Golden Tate). They have two tight ends on the right side of the line, and a weak offset I-formation backfield. This is a clear running formation. To counter, Michigan comes out in their base 4-3. Morgan Trent is the corner lined up over Tate, and Donovan Warren is on the other side. Stevie Brown is 8 yards off the line of scrimmage at free safety, and Brandon Harrison is 15 yards deep as the strong safety.

The Play
Jimmy Clausen gives a play-action fake to Robert Hughes on a counter. Notre Dame leaves 9 men in pass protection, which leaves only one receiver running the route. Golden Tate runs a slant-and-go pattern, cutting in before going straight up the field. Clausen heaves the ball towards Tate, who has 2-3 yards on both Morgan Trent and Brandon Harrison. Tate reels in the ball on the 5 yard line, and waltzes into the endzone untouched.

Why it Worked
The blame for this touchdown does not fall on Stevie Brown. Repeat: Stevie Brown is not culpable. He wasn’t exactly stellar the rest of the day, but don’t rag on the kid for this touchdown. Our good friend GSimmons (a high school DC who runs Shafer’s 3-4 Okie package as his base defense and also knows much more about football than I ever will) lets us know that it appears Michigan is running a read-2 defense, which is a form of cover-2-like-substance. Morgan Trent sees Tate head inside, leading him to believe that Tate will not be a deep vertical threat. Because of this error in judgment, Trent does not cover a deep half, which allows Tate to get behind the defenders. By the time Trent and Harrison realize their error, Tate has enough space to make an easy touchdown grab. Charlie Weis’s decided schematic advantage (which apparently is not yakety saks after all) held true this once, as this was a perfect play call against this type of defense.

Now you know what it was like Inside the Play.

Posted under Analysis

Inside the Play: Miami

The format of this feature is a work-in-progress. If you have any suggestions, let me know. The video quality problem from last week should be resolved..

For this week’s Inside the Play, we’re going to look at something that should be familiar to regular readers of this blog by now: the zone read option.

However, we’ll take a look this time at a specific instance of Michigan having success on this play against Miami.
The Situation

It’s 1st and 10 for the Wolverines, and they have the ball dead-center on their own 30 yard line. With a 10-point lead in the middle of the first quarter, another touchdown could start to open the floodgates.

The Personnel and Formation
Steven Threet is the quarterback, with Michael Shaw joining him in the backfield, to his right. Junior Hemingway and Carson Butler are wide left and slot left, respectively. Darryl Stonum and Martavious Odoms are wide right and slot right, respectively.

Miami is in a base 4-3, with the outside linebackers shaded slightly outside. Neither is as wide as the slot players. The two safeties are both high, indicating a straight cover-2 zone.

The Play

At the snap, Threet and Shaw reach the mesh point, and Threet makes the give. Shaw runs through a cavernous gaping hole between the center and left guard, and his speed gets him to the second level quickly. The receivers to the playside run of their defenders downfield, then stalk block them. On the weakside, Odoms fakes a bubble screen route and Stonum works downfield to block. By the time he is finally tackled by the playside corner and a linebacker, Shaw has picked up 30 yards.

Why it Happened Like it Did
The key to this play was exceptional blocking by the offensive line(!), and good awareness by Carson Butler(!!). The weakside DE looks to be flowing down the line of scrimmage, but he hasn’t quite committed, so threet hands off. Ortmann and Molk own the playside DE and DT, leaving McAvoy available to take out the playside linebacker. On the backside of the play, Schilling manages to seal the DT (no easy task from his position) and Dave Moosman wrecks the MLB.

Another thing that made this play successful was the succesful running by Threet when he kept the ball on zone-reads. The danger of the QB picking up yardage if he doesn’t hand off the ball gave the backside DE just enough pause to allow Shaw to escape the backfield.

Now you know what it was like Inside the Play.

Posted under Analysis

Inside the Play: Utah

The format of this feature is a work-in-progress. If you have any suggestions, let me know. Also, the video quality is really poor for some reason. It should be better in future weeks.

The Situation
It’s the first quarter, and Michigan’s offense has already looked kinda bad. A Utah pass interference penalty has given the Wolverines the ball inside Utah’s 10 yard line, and a Sam McGuffie rush sets up a second and goal from the 8. A touchdown here could help Michigan set the tone early in this game.

The Personnel and Formation
Michigan comes out in the shotgun with two tailbacks and three wide receivers. Nick Sheridan is flanked by Brandon Minor on his right and Michael Shaw on his left. Greg Mathews is split wide left. Darryl Stonum is split wide right, with Martavious Odoms in the slot to that side.

Utah lines up in a 4-3 defense. To the strong side, the corner is head-up over Martavious Odoms, with the safety deep, but aligned with Stonum. Mathews has a man head-up over him, showing press technique.

The Play

At the snap, Sheridan fakes to Minor, who cross in front of him to the left, and then fakes again (slightly less convincingly) to Shaw, who goes in the opposite direction. After the fakes, Sheridan rolls out to the right. He hits Michael Shaw at the seven yard line, and Shaw races to the corner for a touchdown.
Why it Happened Like it Did

Utah was playing man coverage on this play, keeping one safety in a deep zone, and one linebacker spying Sheridan (Cover-1 Spy). The Utah linebackers bit on the fake to Minor, freezing them long enough for Shaw to beat his man to the outside, and for Sheridan to have enough time to roll out and make the pass. With Odoms and Stonum running crossing routes, Shaw was given a clear path to the endzone.

Now you know what it was like Inside the Play.

Posted under Analysis

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