One little thing
What a win! No question and exciting game and a great victory for our Wolverines. I saw one thing that really bothered me. In fact I've seen this consistently in the college game the past few years but it was the first time I've seen Michigan do it this year.
Just after recovering a Wisconsin fumble with slightly less than 11 minutes to go in the 1st half, Michigan ran an option play to their left. Threet fumbled the ball, Wisco recovered, but it was overturned as the guy was out of bounds. That's not what bothered me. If you look pre-snap, you'll notice that Michigan has twins right, but both WR's are on the LOS. That means that the "slot" guy is basically a tackle as he's not allowed to go out for a pass.
It seems like a simple thing. If you're running left, it doesn't really matter who's eligible right. Except, IT DOES. Some teams consistently align themselves like this to give the receivers a slightly better angle on the block. But, an asute and alert defender will recognize this and disregard the covered slot man as a receiving threat. This is can be especially damaging when a team is consistenly covering "slot" guys with LBs. The extra step or two they can cheat to the inside can make a huge difference in run support. In the past three years, I've seen this type of alignment maybe 20 times from college teams and on 19 or the 20 plays, they've run the ball. Most offenses, especially the spread option, work when the defense isn't sure what's coming. This was one time when a defender paying attention would know what's coming. I really hope we don't see this alignment again. Maybe it was just a careless mistake.
September 29th, 2008 at 5:06 PM ^
September 29th, 2008 at 5:07 PM ^
September 29th, 2008 at 5:19 PM ^
September 29th, 2008 at 7:59 PM ^
September 29th, 2008 at 10:44 PM ^
September 30th, 2008 at 1:09 PM ^
September 30th, 2008 at 3:09 PM ^
if one of the outside guys moves off the line, it's an illegal formation, since there are 2 backs and no TE.
in the fiesta bowl, wvu lined up in some unbalanced formations and then would run to the weak side, they caught oklahoma cheating on it for one of the big devine runs i think.
October 1st, 2008 at 11:59 AM ^
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