Trying a new series on the blog this year, kinda like picture pages but more focused on base concepts in Michigan's offense and defense, and how the skill level and talent of our players and our opponents' interact with that. If you're like "yeah, that's Picture Pages" well, yeah, sometimes, except usually PP is about showing you something specific while I'm really trying to show how all of these mad football skillz we talk about in recruiting translate into plays with a big outcome on the game. Since I'm still pretty new at this stuff I strongly appreciate criticism and comments. Anyway this week's play:
A very slow-developing play-action where Gardner is either very lazily getting into his drop or else doing a very good acting job of a lazy quarterback who handed it off already and is just going through the motions. Because Michigan was up 38-6 and Central's front seven were getting so pwned the safeties were being forced to sell out against the run, a play-action deep pass was so set up you can hear the announcers literally wondering aloud at the snap when it would come. Or should have been. Was it? On the fourth play of the drive (following a waggle, an Iso and a zone stretch), it comes.
[After the Jump]
What Were We Thinking?
It's a flood, another Cover 2 beater. As you can see these are long-developing routes that eventually put both the corner and safety to that side in a bad position with multiple receivers to either side of their zones. The key to letting those routes develop is to sell the play action: make the safeties and linebackers stay too far in to cover the run, get the line to set up in their gaps so they can be sealed away for a long time.
Much about this play is selling the play-action with Gardner's acting, zone blocking, and having the receivers run slant-n-go routes that initially look to the cornerbacks covering them like they're trying to block the edge. Giveaways that it's PA are Miller and Schofield don't release downfield, and everybody is trying to block a guy lined up to the wrong side of him. Because CMU defensive end is bad, had this been a run it still would have gotten yardage since Funchess and Lewan scooped that poor DE and had the corner.
The best thing would be to get those safeties biting hard on the run so that the receivers are running right by them. If you're lucky the corners will try to fend off the receivers'"blocks" and also get run by, or if they're playing Cover 2, they'll sit in their zones covering nobody until it's too late. If you don't sell the fake you have two receivers running long and double-covered. A Gardner scramble might work if we catch them in a blitz but if the LBs are sitting back in their zones they're in position to hold that down.
Let the play go long enough and eventually one of the three receivers in the route will come open in between the zone.
What Were They Thinking?
CMU was running a simple one-gap system, i.e. every front-seven defender has a gap he's responsible for plugging (because of math, "one-gap" nearly always means one guy gets two gaps; in this case it's the SAM). The safeties are responsible for cleaning up anyone who loses his gap.
The corners read the tight ends and then break with the receivers when they see the TEs aren't going to the flat. The safeties are also looking at the tight ends, and both move over toward the run a bit after the snap while they diagnose. When the receivers enter their zones they go with them. What is this? It's Rolex:
This is my made-up example play from the link. Purple means a read. If the inside receiver (the TEs) go to the flat the safety and corner will play cover 2; if he goes vertical or does something else they play cover 4 to that side.
i.e. Enos is using the same thing MSU does. In this case the defensive backs all read that the TEs aren't going downfield or into the flat and leave them for the linebackers to deal with. The two receivers in the pattern are now double-covered, and it's up to the linebackers to deal with Toussaint in the flat or a tight end disengaging. That is a good matchup for them.
How It Went Down
The safeties came up a little at the run, and the defenders all correctly read play-action. Nobody was fooled for more than a second but that was long enough to make everybody take a step playside and put the defensive line where the OL could handle them until a linebacker abandoned his zone.
Chesson made things worse by taking his route way too deep. Since the defense was in a read-quarters and both TEs are effectively blockers that means both receivers are running into double coverage, and Chesson's route is dragging two more defenders precariously close to where Reynold's route is supposed to be:
Reynolds might have a shot here of breaking away from those defensive backs (where pure speed helps you) but he doesn't have that kind of speed. Meanwhile the MLB (correctly) decides it's not a run and nobody's coming near his zone, and blitzes past the offensive line's grand performance. Once he's through there's no more pocket. Timer starts.
However the quarters read now means Toussaint is going to be open in epic space in the flat unless the WLB reads it right. He doesn't; that WILL is bailing deep thinking Chesson is going to be running through the top of his zone and doesn't realize until he's turned that the receiver ran the wrong route. As Gardner releases it Toussaint's in-route is coming open for a nice dumpoff. But Gardner's already releasing it.
And Michigan beats it anyway when Devin puts the ball deep enough that only one of those defenders is fighting with Reynolds when the ball arrives, and Reynolds makes a tough catch with a cornerback closing on him:
The yard of separation Reynolds earned with his speed was eaten up a little by Gardner putting the ball a yard short—that's dead-on in terms of this distance—but it did mean the corner had to use those crucial milliseconds to catch up rather than spend them adjusting to the ball. Reynolds gives us a textbook adjustment and hauls it in to put Michigan in punch-in territory.
Who Won at RPS?
Draw. CMU has the right coverage to defeat the pass that eventually came but was also just a second away from Toussaint coming wide open in the flat, and then they're dealing with hoppity Fitz in the open field. Leave Fitzgerald Toussaint open in space: gonna have a bad day. Meanwhile I can't plus Borges because at this point the play-action wasn't very set up; if they ran this during the freshman RB drive Reynolds might have been all alone.
Who Won at Football Skills?
To the Bad:
- Chesson's route adds two DBs to area pass is going (-2)
- CMU linebacker figures out his zone is useless and blows by the blocking, meaning pressure is coming before Gardner can check down to the open guy. (-2)
To the Good:
- Gardner puts it right where it needs to be (+2)
- CMU corner is a little behind Reynolds, can't look for ball. (+1)
- CMU safety bit a little too hard on run, couldn't recover (+2)
- Reynolds catches it with a guy on his hip. (+2)
Ultimately Irrelevant:
- WILL gets too deep of a drop, giving Toussaint more room inside the sideline to be open.
I should mention a linebacker getting too deep in his zone on 1st and 10 is something NFL guys do all the time on flood because it's the least damaging result, and an NFL DE might even be able to detach and affect that play once he sees he's not needed it he backfield.
If this ball is short it's an arm punt. By stepping into his throw and putting it long, however, Gardner has changed that math to "probably incomplete" with a slight chance of his receiver making a play. Reynolds's speed couldn't break him away a la Manningham (he did have about a yard of separation), but it's enough to get big separation from the safety, and his concentration is good enough to bring in the catch. Gardner plus former walk-on wide receiver FTW.