inside zone

The On Noticement [Bryan Fuller]

TAILGATE NOTE: We've been putting out conflicting information on the tailgate with the Sklars this Saturday at Venue. Here's where I finally get it right:

  • It starts at 12:30 PM (not 11AM).
  • Venue will have food and drinks and parking for purchase. They have parking for $50 until it fills up.
  • The Sklars are performing live at the Ann Arbor Comedy Showcase that night and Friday. You should go.
  • Anyone can come to the tailgate, but if you aren't seeing the Sklars live this weekend you have to give us a hot take in the hot take voice.

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This game wasn't terribly interesting from an X's and O's standpoint. ECU was going to run blitz every play while Michigan was content to defeat it with play-action every other play. Without their HC and OC, Michigan kept mostly to their power run game, sprinkling in some zone late to deal with the opponent's decision to focus everything on stopping interior runs. What stood out the most—to you and me and everyone who watched this game—was JJ McCarthy's performance.

To a degree, you could argue his job was relatively simple this week. With the pirate linebackers and most of their safeties committed to the run, the few guys left in coverage were mostly hung out to dry.

There's no subtlety to this. We've been playing for almost a quarter, and when McCarthy turns around ECU has nine guys playing the run and JJ has two dudes heading into all the space.

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[After THE JUMP: Advantage: McCarthy.]

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FORMATION NOTES. It was a manball outing, with 31 one-or-zero WR snaps. There were 23 two-WR snaps and 15 three-WR snaps, many of those on obvious passing downs. When not forced into WRs Michigan had an extreme preference for tight ends and fullbacks.

IU kept their safeties increasingly close to the LOS as the day progressed for obvious reasons. They did one weird thing with this gap in the line:

vlcsnap-2017-10-17-00h52m50s372

Their front was multiple, as they like to say, bouncing between even, under, over, and even some 3-4 stuff. They also had a few plays with a five-man line when they were trying to slow down Michigan's heavy sets. Here's Indiana in an under front with the FLAG OF DOOM waving:

vlcsnap-2017-10-16-18h54m48s454

SUBSTITUTION NOTES. Thin rotation. O'Korn went the whole way at QB. OL was the new usual with Bushell-Beatty playing the whole way at RT. Hill and Poggi split FB snaps; no Mason. TE was mostly Gentry and McKeon, with a healthy number of Wheatley and Bunting snaps. Eubanks didn't play.

RB was mostly Higdon with Evans and Isaac making cameos; Walker got two snaps and one carry. WR was DPJ, Crawford, Perry, and some Ways. DPJ seemed to get more snaps this week.

[After THE JUMP: a unicorn!]

[Dr. Sap]

[This is a work-in-progress glossary of football concepts we tend to talk about in these pages. Previously:

Offensive concepts: Run-pass options (RPOs), High-low passing routes, Covered/Ineligible receivers, Blocking: Reach, Kickout, Wham

Defensive concepts: Keeping Contain/Lane Integrity, Force Player, Hybrid Space Player, One-Gap Fronts, Scrape Exchange. Coverages: Tampa 2, Pattern-Matching, Quarters and how MSU runs it

Special Teams: Spread punt vs NFL-style]

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Depending who you ask there are either two or three or sixteen thousand different blocking schemes offenses use to puncture run lanes into a defense. If we cut out a few exceptions, and a lot of variants, you can boil them down to two basic philosophic schools: Zone and Gap.

(And man, and hybrid, and zone can be split between outside/inside but shut up).

Harbaugh, as you might have heard, is one of if not the ur gap coach in football, as is his top lieutenant Tim Drevno. New tackles/tight ends coach Greg Frey, as we’ve mentioned twice this week, is not just in the zone camp but is one of the chief practitioners of its outside zone wing.

What’s the difference, and why does it matter? I’ll show.

HOW GAP BLOCKING WORKS

“When badly outnumbered he managed, by swift marching and maneuvering, to throw the mass of his army against portion of the enemy's, thus being stronger at the decisive point.” –description of Napoleon battle tactic

This is the football’s fastball: I’m coming towards the plate so fast and so hard that by the time you know where it’s going you can’t catch up. To use a war metaphor, gap philosophy is about picking a spot in your opponent’s defenses, puncturing a hole, and sending as much material into it as possible as quickly as possible before the defenders can match it.

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The above formation is unbalanced, which did its job in getting the defense to leave a cornerback and safety to a side with zero receiving threats (Mags is ineligible by number). The fullback has a kickout block on the SAM linebacker. Kalis pulls, Asiasi picks off a linebacker, and Deveon Smith gets a 300-pound escort through the gap between Wheatley and the back of Khalid Hill. That gap is the gap they planned to attack, and the most likely one to become available.

That it won’t always be available is what makes gap blocking go from very simple to highly complicated. The great power teams know how to adjust on the fly to defenders diving into the important gap, for example on this play if the SAM is coming inside hard Hill might arc outside on the fly, seal the SAM inside, and hope Smith and Kalis adjust to earn a big run. Or what if that Mike linebacker blitzes the gap inside of Wheatley? Or the whole dang defensive line slants playside? In general the OL will do their best to not let that happen and adjust (e.g. Asiasi might have to assist Wheatley, or the puller might kick out an unblocked end discovered at the point of attack).

I think you get the gist. Gap blocking has everybody working to widen the chosen gap and get bodies attacking that gap as soon as possible. Emphasis is on overpowering—as you see here this play works mostly because Ty Wheatley Jr. latched onto the playside defensive end, and rode him downfield.

[Hit THE JUMP for Zone]