zone read counter

Michigan's quarterback-centric running game has been a shell of itself this year. Our understanding is Shea injured his oblique on the first play from scrimmage against MTSU, and has since been loathe to keep the ball on reads. Since Michigan spent all offseason transitioning to an extremely read offense, this was a bad development.

I wrote a few weeks back how Army used this to their advantage by having the backside LB option the backside, flying outside when he read a mesh point to force a keep read against a crashing DE and slanting DL.

Shea compounded the issue by letting the backside LB off the hook when he didn't fly far enough outside. With Patterson not able to keep, Michigan shelved the zone read stuff, ably demonstrating (as much as the awful camera angle allows anyways) why a zone read is important if you're going to leave a guy unblocked:

That brings us to this week, when the flerp doodly poop experts themselves came to Ann Arbor. For most of the afternoon, Michigan ran from the shotgun without bothering to read anybody while Rutgers Rutgered. When you run from the shotgun without a zone read you don't get much—there's a lot of ground to cover from a stopped position after the handoff. As such Michigan's ground game met safeties after three yards and ground out another two because Rutgers for most of the day. In other words, we got to see just about zero of Michigan's real offense as long as the starters were in.

But Shea wasn't the only quarterback who played Saturday. Up 38-0 with 1:32 remaining, Michigan put in Joe Milton, and flipped the quarterback keeps back to the On position. It was our first chance since literally the season's first snap to see what the Gattis offense is trying to do. And it was actually kind of interesting. Wanna see?

[After THE JUMP: R-E-S-P-E-C-T, s-o-r-t-a]

I like Fitzgerald Toussaint. Think the kid has a bright future if his various limbs stay functional. Enjoy his running style. Get emails from time to time declaring "I don't know what you see in this kid." Sit and ponder these emails. Shake fist. Decide to write post about it. Fitzgerald. Toussaint.

So here's a reason I like Fitzgerald Toussaint: I think his vision and his shake are plus pitches, to borrow from another sport. Here's an example. It's first and ten on the SDSU 16 late in the fourth quarter with Michigan driving to clinch the game. On the next play Vincent Smith will jackrabbit his way into the endzone, but to set that up Michigan's going to Toussaint.

The setup:

If this looks familiar, it should. This was one of the staple formations of the Rodriguez years. Here's Tate running it in the 2009 ND game:

Rodriguez would often send the TE backside to block the otherwise unblocked EMLOS as a counter to scrape exchanges. TE kicks out the guy coming down the line; WLB flies out to contain Robinson on the zone read, and viola:

[one of many examples that have been DMCAed by Thought Equity Motion.]

Michigan did this on the previous play. It was the first time they'd run it all game and it worked like a charm, opening up a huge lane for Toussaint to hit. He did so for eleven yards. When Michigan goes back to the well a second time things will be different.

SDSU's 3-3-5 was less dynamic than advertised. Instead of blitzing like mad from everywhere to mimic different fronts, it was mostly content to line up as very small 3-4s and 4-3s and run twist stunts from them. On this play they actually line up in the stack, which was rare.

On the snap the TE pulls backside as the mesh approaches.

Robinson sees the OLB headed upfield at him and hands off:

The problem is Koger is kicking out the QB contain guy:

This is very similar to problems Michigan had running this play against Illinois last year. When the scraper is hugging the backs of the OL TEs often miss him and head to the obvious guy on the outside. Once your pulling TE whacks the contain guy you've given up the advantage gained by optioning him off and are back to—horror—regular old 3.9 YPC running. When this happened against the Illini, Michigan gained a yard.

Since Huyge has released downfield there is an unblocked EMLOS tasked with the tailback on a play that usually tries to go backside. (This is a zone, but it is a zone with an idea of where it's going to end up.) Omameh is actually doing a good job on his guy since the play design nominally expects the ball to go behind him. Unfortunately, that means there's nowhere to go further playside. There is no room.

So Toussaint makes some. In the above frame you can see he's evaluated his situation and is about to take a critical step. This is what he does with it:

That's weird. It's easier to see on the video, but Toussaint takes this jab step outside and then bursts back upfield.

This little jab step… what is it? He slows for a half-beat and sticks that leg out as if he's going to veer outside, then shifts direction and heads away from the scraper. Is it just instinct, or is it a deliberate attempt to set up his block? Does Toussaint even know? This happened in a blink. This may be one of those things even the person doing it can't explain.

The result is most apparent on the guy Omameh is blocking:

In frame one the NT has already committed his momentum to the other side of Omameh's block because of the jab step; in frame two he's kindly GTFOed, giving Toussaint a lane as Schofield and Molk donkey a linebacker who blitzed into them. Toussaint set this up with the step, which convinced the NT he needed to fight to the other side of Omameh without slowing him down enough for the unblocked scraper to catch him.

Result: Toussaint runs up his OL's backs for nine yards.

Video

Watch it twice. Watch the step, and then focus on Omameh and the guy he's blocking. See that yank that suddenly repositions the defender? That's the NT moving himself to where he thinks he needs to be.

Interesting Stuff

Will this be consistent from Toussaint? This is a play SDSU RPSed that Toussaint made into nine yards almost by himself with that jab step. Is that a fair representation of his vision and his ability to make split-second decisions that get him lanes other guys don't, or was it getting lucky? I don't know, but I do know that the last couple weeks I've had occasion to use "lovely" more than once to describe a Toussaint run. Early returns are "not lucky."

Back to the well. Yeah, this wrinkle was a Rodriguez staple. It worked like you draw it up the first time. This time it worked like you don't draw it up; Smith would come in and run it a third time for a touchdown, but he'd have to weave his way through defenders to do so. I'm not sure whether running it three times in a row was a good idea—it worked but clearly SDSU adjusted to it. Against better run defenses this might end up going splat. To be fair, the third one was a second and one from the seven.

Coaching points with coach Rod. In the Illinois game Michigan adjusted to the Illinois adjustment by the end of the game, coaching that pulling TE to ID the scraper hiding behind the line and blocking him into the endzone for a touchdown. It'll be interesting to see whether Michigan makes that adjustment if necessary in future games.

Further wrinkles. So there was this, which was brought out right at the end of the game, and the speed option you've heard and read so much about, a speed option that seemed to use outside zone "basketball on grass" blocking. That's an encouraging echo of the Rodriguez ground game, when most games of import saw new features being deployed.