Due to extreme boredom at work as well as my curiosity for how Denard matched up with other dual-threat QB’s last year, I decided to compare him with RGIII, KSU’s Collin Klein, Taylor Martinez, & Braxton Miller. None of my statistics are groundbreaking, I am not the Mathlete, but I do find the stats interesting and some a bit suprising.

Denard Robinson

In out of conference games (OOC) Denard was atrocious throwing the ball, with nearly 1-1 TD/INT ratio and less than 48% completion. However, he was very effective running the ball at almost 7 YPC. In conference games, his passing stats improved quite a bit but rushing took a dip, except for RUSH/TD which actually increased. His statistics for home games compared to conference games are very similar to one another, as are away and neutral compared to OOC games.

Personally, I felt like Denard looked much better later in the season than his numbers indicate, and aside from his ATT’s/INT the last 7 games his numbers actually decreased in proficiency.

RGIII

If it seemed like RGIII was putting up video game numbers to open last season, well he wasn’t because you can’t put up numbers like that in video games. He started with amazing proficiency and I got all too well known #DIV/O! error message for his OOC ATT/INT & TD/INT because he didn’t throw any picks until conference play. Although his stats weren’t as gaudy in conference, I’m sure any QB in the nation would have accepted that level of play as he was still extremely effective.

What I find most amazing is that over the first 6 games, he averaged only one pick per 91 passing attempts. From there his stats plummeted to a dismal INT every 55 throws.

/s, obviously.

I’m not analyzing any more of his stats because they are all incredible and I guess that’s why he won that Heisman thing I keep hearing about.

Collin Klein

Klein’s stats are very comparable to Denard’s, much more than I realized, and top to bottom seem very pedestrian until you notice that he rushed for 27 TD’s last season. His conference rushing numbers were outstanding as he averaged a TD about every 10 rushes. His passing numbers were solid but not spectacular, as there were no glaring weaknesses in his game and he was very consistent across the board whether home, away, in or OOC.

Interestingly, while Klein averaged a pass/game more than Denard, Denard was much more volatile, passing for more TD’s but also throwing more INT’s than Klein did TD’s. Overall Klein will not ‘wow’ you with his skill, but he is a good QB for what KSU is running and will keep them in games without losing it in bad decisions.

Taylor Martinez

Taylor Martinez began 2011 rushing the ball with great proficiency, scoring 9 TD’s in 6 games (once nearly every rushes) and averaging close to 6 YPC. His passing was an entirely different story as he had a 1:1 TD/INT ratio and completed less than 55% of his throws.

The second half of the season was a complete flip-flop for Martinez as his rushing YDS/GM fell from 97 to 41, YDS/RUSH down to 3.3, and he did not find the endzone on the gound. His passing numbers however were much better as his completion % increased to 57.9%, TD/INT ratio increased to 3.5:1, and he threw a pick every 80 passes rather than every 22 passes during the former part of the season.

While his numbers were not outstanding later in the season, Martinez improved greatly passing the ball as the season progressed. Some of the credit for this improved most definitely has to go to Rex Burkhead as he carried the rushing load for the team later in the season while Martinez focused on passing.

Braxton Miller**

And cue the talks of multiple Heisman’s coming from Columbus (coincidentally the same city I sit in as I type this). Actually, Braxton had quite a successful freshman campaign, with numbers very comparable to Denard’s. While Denard was more effective running, Miller actually had a better TD/INT ratio (we all know why from The Game) than did DR, albeit with a smaller sample size as OSU threw much less than Michigan.

Braxton improved substantially as he gained more experience towards the end of the season, seemingly in every category besides rushing. Overall, a solid but not spectacular season for Braxton and even though I hate to admit it, he will likely be a pain the ass for the conference for the next few years.

(All of the numbers for my statistics came from cfbstats.com)

(*OOC STATS INCLUDE BOWL GAMES)

(**MILLER DID NOT PLAY IN 2ND GAME OF SEASON)

Programming note: Next week will be pretty busy with thanksgiving break and all, so I'm gonna go ahead and put up all my OSU stuff this week.  The Nebraska game wrap might be a week late too, especially if we don't win.  

Old Scouting Report is Old

There are just way too many red and white teams in this league now.  

I had watched this game when it happened and had written up some notes and was planning to post it after the MSU game, but then I spent the week cursing at inanimate objects and hoping MSU's random bands of roving thugs would target Gholston.  

There's been a lot of personnel changes since then so I've thrown out the old notes and started from scratch.  

Both teams were coming off loses, Nebraska had just been blown out by Wisconsin thanks to a handful of Martinez interceptions and OSU had been blitzed to death by sparty. You can see the effect of both those games on some of the early playcalling in this one.

OSU on offense

No Dan Herron, and Shugarts hadn't gotten hurt yet.  The offense was all about Hall and Stonebrunner and Miller's legs until he got hurt. 

Miller is a scrambler

Like I said in the QB comparisons, Miller is more of a natural scrambler rather than an option runner. 

On this play, the left side of the Nebraska D-line is going to stunt  to get pressure on third down.

There's a missed holding call, but whatever.  The DT gets around and tries an outside speedrush against Shugarts

This is a mistake against Miller.  You want to keep him in front of you and don't open up big lanes like this.  As soon as he feels the end rushers go past him, his first instinct is to scramble upfield. If you rush under control, he'll scramble laterally and can be coralled for a sack.

MSU had a lot of success the previous week by  timing the snap and sending blitzers up the A gap. Nebraska tried it early, but didn't really get there because their timing wasn't as good.  After this play they didn't really blitz much until Bauserman was in the game. 

This is a 6 man blitz with one of the linebackers dropping into coverage.

There's a little bit of a twist going on with the right DE, but this was a called QB lead draw all the way. The blitzer gets blocked by the RB and Miller jabs his back foot and is off into the secondary. 

Without any LBs on that side and the secondary playing man coverage, this turned into a big run for MIller.

This play shows just how quickly Miller will bail on a play.  It's just a flare to hall at the top of the screen, but the Nebraska rusher gets a good bull rush.  

When the defender jumps, Braxton decides he's seen enough and pulls down the ball.

Instead of looking for another target, he tucks the ball and runs. 

Hyde's TD

Hyde got a lot of carries in the early part of the season when both Hall and Herron were doing their NCAA penance. That's dropped off considerably since Herron came back.  He's got good straight line speed, especially for being a larger back, but his vision isn't very good.  He's like Stephen Hopkins but with more speed. He still gets some duty on kickoffs, but mostly as the lead blocker for Hall.

You can see OSU's commitment to zone blocking on this play.  It looks like a lead play because of the FB, but Hyde's route on the handoff indicates that he's free to pick whatever hole opens up.  At the snap, all the motion is to the left.  The Nebraska D-Line responds by moving with the slanting linemen. Miller does a reverse pivot. 

But Hyde's aiming poing is not following Boren, the FB, instead he's aiming for the center of the line and bending back against the grain.  For some reason, nebraska has a DB playing backside contain, and the Will linebacker has been fooled by Boren's path. 

That DB doesn't understand "run fits" so he wasn't flowing the the D-Line and there's a huge gap between him and the DE that Hyde thanks him very much for.  The weakside LB has over run the play and can't get back to make an arm tackle.  Once Hyde gets past those two, he's pretty much untouched all the way to the endzone.

Throwback to Stonebrunner

With Corey Brown out and no one sure what Devier Posey will do, the RB's and Stonebrunner will be the focus of the passing game. This throwback screen should look familiar to Michigan fans, with the exception of the TE getting the ball instead of Vincent Smith. 

Miller is going to roll out to the right while the O-line shows pass blocking. 

Stonebrunner does an excellent job of selling the block and the OLB is completely caught flatfooted.

Stonebrunner comes off of contact and opens up for the pass, it's the center that gets the OLB and the other interior linemen are heading downfield

The blocking is setup well and Stonebrunner has enough speed for an easy 30+ yard TD

Nebraska on offense

Nebraska does a lot of different things on offense.  They have the spread/zone read stuff, the power running game, and also the veer option offense.  Burkehead will even get back in the shotgun to run some wildcat, probably because he's better at READING on the zone read plays than Martinez. 

Martinez

After taking a lot heat for the interceptions against Wisconsin, you got the feeling that he started out the game a little gunshy against TSIO.

That's his passing chart with about 4 minutes to go in the first half.  Nothing deep or risky, and a double digit deficit to show for his 100% completion percentage.  So Nebraska gets the ball realizing they've got to pass deep to soften up the defense.

This is Martinez trying to throw a deep ball.  

And this is the result.  That receiver is kinda open.  I mean, yes, he's got 4 guys around him, but none within a 5 yard radius.  Nebraska fans understand our pain when it comes to armpunts.

Where Martinez is realy dangerous is when he gets to accelerate straight ahead. This is a midline option keeper even though it looks like an outside zone read.  You can tell by the pulling guard who goes off tackle.  I think the sideline tells Martinez before the play whether or not to keep the ball on most plays.  That would explain a lot of his "bad reads" and it makes sense that Bo Pelini would be a control freak (see below).

Burkehead's fake holds the contain man.  The pulling lineman takes out the LB and the rest of the O-line is getting a good push up the middle. 

This is the kind of run that Martinez loves.  He's not the kind of guy that will cut back across the entire field, but he's very good at reading the blocks in front of him and making quick cuts without losing any speed.  

Inverted T series

The way you design an offense is that you have a series of plays that work together or are out of the same formation.  Sometimes during the game you have to scrap a series if the first couple plays don't work.  But if the first play works for a big gainer, you can expect the defense to adjust and that opens up the companion plays. 

Nebraska stumbled across such an opportunity in the middle of the 3rd quarter with this Inverted T formation.  Some people call this a Diamond, but with the QB in the shotgun it looks more like a "T" to me.  But the stumpy part is away from the LOS so I call it inverted. Here's what the standard T form looks like. 

This is just a power sweep option.  The odd thing is that Burkehead has a longer ways to go to get to his block, but he's a fast guy, so it's not a problem.  The neat thing about this formation is that you can envision all kinds of counters and double option plays where the person in #2's position can pitch it to Burkehead or handoff to the the other HB coming back on the counter.  

OSU is overreacting the motion and the whole right side of the defense is flowing.  Ironically, the backside of the defense isn't reacting enough and the result is a gaping hole down the middle of the field. 

I don't the think DE ever actually saw the ball because he keeps running with #2 even after Martinez zooms past him. 

Against a normal QB, the safety and LB should have been able to stop this for a large gainer, but because they reacted slowly and because Martinez is already up to full speed, he blows by them like they're standing still. 

From the endzone shot you can see just how wide open that running lane was. 

A little later, they come back to the same formation, but this time the give is called.  It doesn't work as well because the ball is on the hash and they're running into the sideline.  But the point is to see how the defense has adjusted.  The weakside linebacker is way closer to the play this time and #7 Howard is up in bump and run to take on the blocking in case there's a counter or reverse coming.  

The DE is completely befuddled by this play.  He's nowhere near the mesh point so he can't help on a Martinez keep.  He's pointing out Burkehead to .....uh.... And he's not quick enough to get #2. 

Again the backside has been completely sealed off, and Martinez woulda had plenty of room for a big gain if not enough for a TD like before.  But I'm getting more convinced that he's not actually allowed to "read" the play. As it is, this play gets about 10 yards which coulda been a lot more if they hadn't run into the sideline. 

A little later comes the payoff.  They've got bump and run on the short side and they give them the same backfield motion. 

But if the LB's and Safeties had been reading the O-line better, they'd have seen this was a pass. 

Martinez drops a couple steps to give his receiver time to get open.

And the safeties are both dead.  It's interesting that they run the same route with both WR, this shows a kind of lack of sophistication in the passing game.  And it's only a 2 man route. But both WR had gotten a step on the DB's and this play get's Nebraska back within one TD.

Burkehead

He's not the fastest guy, but he's a solid football player.  Martinez is probably more dangerous, but you've got to stop Burkehead first to slow down this offense. 

This is an inside zone that should look pretty familiar to michigan fans.  the H-back is coming across to either block the DE or go out in a pass route.  There's also some bubblesceen motion with the slot receiver. 

The DE is crashing hard and the H-back completely misses him.  Martinez either missed the read, or it was a give all the way called by the sideline. .

If Martinez had kept it, there was a lot of open space once he cleared the DE. The lead blocker would have taken out the safety, 54 is taking to strong of an angle, and the other DB is too concerned with the bubble to have stopped Taylor.  Instead #94 gets the TFL on Burkehead since #93 had gotten good penetration and Burkehead had to stop his feet.

On the game tying TD, Burkehead showed a nice jumpcut. (If you're not sure what a jumpcut is, here's a nice example of Miller doing one.) He gets the ball on the flare after Martinez scrambles around a bit to avoid the pressure. 

The DB had him lined up for a big hit, except he jumps out of the way. 

And with the big blitz called, the rest of the secondary is in tight man coverage and Burkehead has no one between him and the endzone. 

Derpidy-derp-derp

So it was raining off and on during that game, which led to some amusing moments and a lot of slipping. 

Martinez's throwing motion is even uglier when he's falling down. 

Both sides were having trouble with it. 

And Miller turned his ankle as he slipped on a cut. 

Then Bauserman came in and promptly did this. 

At least on that previous picture he was under pressure.  On this one he's got no one to blame but himself. 

That ball is JUUUUUSSST a bit overthrown. 

Ok, maybe a bit more. But if you're wondering about the genesis of the the Bauserman Passing Chart, it was probably this play. 

ETC:

• Bo Pelini has anger issues. 

"Not such a great passer, but dangerous running the ball"

To the casual fan, it's easy to think that these three QB's have a lot in common, but the fact of the matter is that they are very different in their styles.  They have different strengths and weaknesses that have as much to do with their football IQ and personality as their athletic ability

Taylor Martinez

Taylor is the only one of the three to enjoy a redshirt season and the only one who hasn't had a change of head coaches. Because of that, he has slightly less playing time than Denard, but more time in the same system.  

Running Style:

Taylor likes to run.  He's got great acceleration and gets up to full speed in a hurry.  He runs with urgency.  He's not afraid of contact and will get north and south to maximize yards.  He will try to run through small creases. 

Favorite move:

Shoulder shake. He likes to keep both hands on the ball as he's running and so his shoulders are naturally moving back and forth.  He doesn't have elite change of direction but is quite shifty and has quick feet.

Most Dangerous Running Play:

Veer Option.  He has a good sense of when to hold and when to pitch.  He will hold the ball and suck in the defender before pitching late.  He is good with the fake pitch to open up running lanes for himself. 

Honarable Mention: Midline option keeper. 

Weakness:

He keeps the ball too much on zone read plays.  Against Penn State, he misread several zone read options like he had already decided to keep the ball. 

Passing Style:

He has a bit of a sidearm motion.  He likes to zip the ball in on a frozen rope.  Doesn't show much touch.  Not a great scrambler, he doesn't have the strongest arm and can't get much velocity on the ball when his feet aren't set.  He's very inaccurate on deep balls, especially deep sideline routes.

Most Dangerous Passing Play:

Intermediate in's and crossing routes.  He's not very good at hitting receivers on the fly so he likes to have a nearly stationary target to throw at.  Because of his low trajectory, he needs clear passing lanes and a direct line of sight to the receiver.  

How to defend:

Attack Martinez with a free rusher.  Assume he's going to keep the ball on 60% or more of the option plays, and force early pitches by commiting to hitting the QB.  (Like Jake Ryan did on Sheelhaassseeee last week). 

On passing downs, try to get underneath zone coverage in the passing lanes.  Try to make him throw over a linebacker.  And the coverage should flow to the rollout side.

Braxton Miller

Braxton played in a shotgun passing spread offense in Highschool.  He's a true freshman pressed into duty because Terrelle Pryor is stupid and never met a handout he wouldn't take, and also because Joe Bauserman just sucks.

So, he's been learning a lot this season about things that worked in H.S. but don't work as well in college. He is also without any experienced receivers until Posey gets back this week, so we'll have to see how much that affects his game.   

Running Style:

He's like a gazelle.  He runs away from danger.  He has exceptional speed. He likes to improvise and runs on his instincts.  He will not force himself to go where the play is designed to go.  Very dangerous once he breaks contain.

He runs around like he thinks other people can't catch him, but this is only sometimes true at the college level. 

Favorite move:

The reverse cut and the jump cut.  He will go backwards to make people miss and has enough acceleration and speed to make it pay off enough times that his coaches let him keep doing it.  He has elite change of direction, great balance, and will duck under tacklers who go too high.  

Most Dangerous Running Play:

QB lead draw. He does not like to run through tight spaces and traffic.  On the draw play, if the DE's rush past him, his instinct is to head upfield.  He's very dangerous in space. If it's 3rd and long, there's a high probability that the lead draw has been called. 

Honarable Mention:  Scramble

Weakness:

Inexperience.  He does not read blocking very well.  He will cut back against the grain even when there are decent holes in front of him.  Even if a guy is blocked, his instinct is to run away from traffic.  

He doesn't read the zone option or the pitch option very well. 

Passing Style:

Not as bad as advertised.  He doesn't throw a tight spiral, so the ball will flutter on him.  This causes inaccuracy, especially on deep routes.  But he has better touch and a better throwing motion than Martinez.  His low completion percentage is due more to the lack of talent at WR, and his inexperience rather than his arm.  

Most Dangerous Passing Play:

Wheel route to the RB's.  Boom Herron and Jordan Hall are the biggest threats when Miller isn't running.  All eyes will be interested to see what kind of impact Devier Posey will make this week (and then we'll wonder about how much money he made for the game). 

Honarable mention: Throwback screen and short routes to Stonebrunner

How to defend:

Corral him on the pass rush and play coverage.  (May I suggest man-free).  This is not the game for speed rushes around the outside.  I'd blitz him up the middle and have the the DE's stay home (like what MSU did).  He will cut back into free pursuing defenders if you give him the chance.  The pass rush needs to be under control so that you make him move laterally without losing contain. 

Denard Robinson

Anyone reading this blog probably already knows everything they need to about Dilithium, but just to complete the comparison. here goes...

Running Style:

Patience with great vision.  Denard is a team player and he relies on his blockers to open up running lanes for him.  He has elite speed and elite change of direction.  He has been a little more tentative in traffic this year, but is a determined runner on the goal line and is able to avoid the really big hits.  

He is better at reading the zone read than the other two guys.  

He is not a great improvisor and will not cut back all the way across the field by giving up yards.  He usually makes a few cuts and then heads to the sideline or upfield. 

Favorite move:

Being fast.  Denard doesn't do a lot of shake and bake, instead he just changes direction quicker than the defenders are able to. 

Most Dangerous Running Play:

QB power lead.  With the defense spread out, if the two running backs are good blockers he's a threat to go all the way on any play where every defender is accounted for.  

Honarable Mention:  Inverted zone read.  

Weakness:

He does not have a good feel for when to pitch and when to keep of veer or triple option plays.  He tends to get injured often over the course of the season. 

Passing Style:

He has a very strong arm but struggles with footwork.  He is very accurate when his feet are set.  But he has trouble with his deep accurace when on the rollout.  When he scrambles, he's looking to pass.  This has evolved a lot and is almost a 180 from his freshman year.  He's very good on seams and jump balls.   

Most Dangerous Passing Play:

QB dive pull-up. (a.k.a. the "QB, OH NOES!")  Has excellent touch throwing while running forward in a fluid motion.  

Honarable mention: The throwback screen

How to defend:

I've heard over & over about when a reporter asked Denard if Taylor Martinez is as fast as him, but I can't find any video of it. Does anyone have any linkage of said question?

Thanks.