Fee Fi Foe Film is back for another season with its most twisted concoction yet: full film breakdown of UNLV against Bryant. That's UNLV, a Mountain West program that has appeared in two bowl games in your author's lifetime (and just one in the past two decades), against Bryant, an FCS program that went 4-7 last season. The game was not on regular television but instead on Mountain West Network streaming. It was played in 65,000 seat Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas and only 20,347 showed up for it. Why are you reading this? Because you're a SICK person. 

 

The Film: UNLV has played one game this season. It is against Bryant. Normally I don't do FCS games but the constraints are forcing us, it's week one. This is the only opponent. Also, because UNLV has a new coach and a totally different offensive scheme, I can't go back to last season and do a game. I did not want to have to do this game but here we are. One of the unfortunate consequences of having to do this game is the video quality, as you will see. The few highlight reel clips that made it into professional highlights will be embedded from YouTube. The rest I was left scrounging for from methods I don't typically enjoy, so my apologies on the video quality in my clips being rather rough... not even the Russians wanted to provide a usable torrent of UNLV/Bryant. 

The personnel: Return of The Chart. [click for big]

UNLV returns a starting QB in Doug Brumfield, who was pretty good for a Group of 5 starter last season. I was disappointed by him in this game so he didn't get the star, but his caliber of play was commendable in 2022. Brumfield was the difference between catastrophe and competency for the entire UNLV team in the final season of Marcus Arroyo's regime, a lefty with solid passing ability and some sizzle on the ground too. He's the best non-con QB Michigan will play this season. 

RB is where things get interesting. Most of this piece will be centered around UNLV's GoGo Offense under new OC Brennan Marion so I have many more details to share, but the funky look of this chart reflects this scheme. The GoGo's base scheme has two RBs on the field so UNLV has no shortage of RB names, none of whom have differentiated themselves and they rotated heavily against Bryant. Donavyn Lester and Jai'Den Thomas are listed as the starters in the chart but Courtney Reese was also used heavily and Vincent Davis Jr. had a long TD run against Bryant. I expect all to play at least a dozen snaps against Michigan. Of that group, Thomas was the one I liked the most and he gets the lone star. 

UNLV running its GoGo does not use TEs heavily, so they were omitted from the starting lineup in the chart, as that reflects the base set. When they put a TE on the field, Kaleo Ballungay and Shelton Zion III were used equally heavily and I was not impressed whatsoever by either. Christian Earls is the third TE you may see. Instead of tight ends, UNLV prefers to go with two outside WRs and a slot. The two outside WRs were pretty stable against Bryant, Senika McKie and Ricky White. Yes, that Ricky White. Both players are fine but I did not feel they earned star status. Landon Rogers is the other outside WR who will mix in, while the slot is held down by an ex-JUCO Jacob De Jesus. At 5'7", 175, De Jesus is not a big boy but he's a nifty player and wowed as a particularly effective punt/kick returner. Timothy Conerly is the second-string slot. 

The offensive line did not impress me against Bryant and my baseline expectation is it will probably be a bloodbath against Michigan on Saturday. The right side of the line returns from last season, RG Amani Trigg-Wright and RT Tiger Shanks, the latter of whom put up a subpar showing against a bad opponent. C Jack Hasz is a transfer from Buffalo and seemed okay, besides two false starts (on the center!!). LT was slated to be Jalen St. John, but he did not play against Bryant and instead Anton Ambuehl got the start, a player who did not appear ready for that task. Finally Alani Makihele is the LG, but rotated out some with true freshman Ethan Boyd, who was woeful. 

As a general statement about the personnel, this team has no talent at all on offense. It's the scheme that's fun. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: GoGoGoGoGoGo]

 

Spread, pro-style, or hybrid: UNLV's offensive scheme is easily classified as a spread, the GoGo offense being a marriage of sorts between spread passing concepts and triple option concepts. Almost completely shotgun: 

Formation	Run	PA	Pass	Total
Shotgun	35	13	14	95%
Under Center	2	1	--	5%

Play distribution by down reveals an offense that was intent on Establishing The Run, but it's hard for me to know if that will remain the case moving forward when UNLV plays better teams (and is presumably losing in those games), as opposed to a bad FCS opponent they were blowing out early in the game: 

Down	Run	Pass
1st	19	9
2nd	13	9
3rd	6	10
4th	-	-

Meh.

Base set: A lot going on here, but the trademark feature of the GoGo Offense is two RBs in the backfield, both aligned to the same side of the QB: 

I charted two RBs on 35 of 66 plays, a clip of 53%, so that qualifies as the base set. The distribution of plays in 20 personnel (no TEs) vs. 21 personnel (one TE) was close to even, FWIW. When they don't have two RBs on the field, they're much more often in 11 personnel than 12 or 4 wide. 11 looks pretty typical: 

Basketball on Grass or MANBALL: The UNLV offense is mostly zone, so more in the Basketball on Grass category. Tons of variations on inside zone is a main component of the GoGo (pay $20 to listen to Marion talk about it here) and was their base running scheme in this game. They also ran a bit of outside zone and did mix in a few gap plays, power and counter represented occasionally, but they slot more in the zone category overall. 

Hurry it up or grind it out: UNLV qualifies as hurry it up, running tempo a decent amount and playing with good pace even if they aren't aggressively trying to rush you. They were starting the next play with 15-20 on the clock pretty regularly and then peppered in the tempo snaps after picking up first downs on a given drive. It is certainly possible that the Rebels choose to slow it down as a massive underdog against a team like Michigan, as we saw Indiana try to do against Ohio Staten taking advantage of the new clock rules. But I would lean towards not assuming a slow down, since this is a team with a new OC installing a new scheme and are probably wanting to focus on drilling their base looks. 

Quarterback Dilithium Rating (Scale: 1 [Navarre] to 10 [Denard]): Doug Brumfield is certainly a capable runner, which is one reason for UNLV to run the GoGo. They trust him enough as a runner to dial up a QB draw on 3rd & 8 right at the end of the half, which went for a TD: 

Brumfield had an interest in scrambling, even in cases where he had open receivers and probably would've been better off throwing to one of them: 

I'm not going to show clips of Brumfield running the option because those are best saved for a discussion of the offense overall, but you should get the idea by now. Brumfield is definitely a threat to run the ball, be it designed or scrambling. He's not incredibly fast but at 6'6", 225, he's a hulk and a beast to bring down. Michigan will get tested defensively against QB mobility in this game. 

Dangerman: I debated listing OC Brennan Marion as the Dangerman because I believe that the most likely way UNLV scores in this game will be through scheme frippery and not individual talent, but I'm saving that discussion for the overview. If I had to pick one player to highlight individually, I'd go with RB Jai'Den Thomas, who had a few runs I liked. The Rebels were able to be devastating on the ground against Bryant, 268 yards on 40 carries, despite a blocking performance between the tackles best described as "lackluster" given the quality of the competition. Some of it was schematic shenanigans, but some of it was from the flair of the backs: 

His initial path is blocked off, Thomas redirects his path, then shows a nice little cutback to get the first down. Thomas scored two rushing TDs in this game. On this one he got strong blocking but accelerates and weaves to punch it in: 

Here there's no push up the middle, so Thomas bounces, cuts upfield, and takes it in: 

Thomas is one of several RBs rotating in the UNLV backfield so he's not going to play the amount of snaps a usual Dangerman plays, but he's the player I felt was most deserving of the spotlight. 

HenneChart: Let's see how Doug Brumfield did as a passer against Bryant: 

UNLV vs. Bryant	Good				Neutral			Bad					Ovr
Quarterback	DO	CA	SCR		PR	MA		BA	TA	IN	BR		DSR	Screens
Doug Brumfield	-	6	2		1	2		--	--	4	1		62%	2

Pretty disappointing! I was expecting a strong showing against a bad opponent like Bryant, though in fairness to Brumfield, they didn't throw the ball a ton so he didn't get a chance to shake off rust (he was also lifted for the final two drives given the score). Still, it was a very bland outing, okay check down throws that are nothing special and then consistent inaccuracy on more difficult throws that were largely open. The throws he completed were all completely unremarkable  and charted as "catchable": 

The rollout there is something you will see from UNLV's passing offense, as a heads up. The throws Brumfield missed were like the following, receivers open but just overshoots them, or puts them in a harder position than it needed to be: 

That to me suggests that the inaccuracy displayed in this game isn't some death knell but could revert to a better level of performance. Another one he missed: 

He completed 65% of his passes for 7.5 Y/A last season so I wouldn't panic too much about Brumfield if I were a UNLV fan (a grim thought). This was probably just a clunker of an outing. Highlights from last year: 

Brumfield is a solid Mountain West QB. 

 

Overview

Now we get to talk about the GoGo offense in full, because the scheme is far more interesting to me than anything involving the players. UNLV isn't talented and none of these players rise to the level of being highlighted with enduring detail. The scheme, however, does, because it's the most unique that I've charted in 2+ seasons of FFFF. We've been lightly referencing it while saving the detail throughout the piece to this point, so now it's time to tackle it in depth. 

 

Who is Brennan Marion? 

We can start with the background. Brennan Marion is UNLV's offensive coordinator, notable for the fact that he is the sole innovator behind the GoGo offense. Marion isn't a disciple, he's the OG of this scheme himself. Marion was a JUCO player who finished up at Tulsa and got a training camp cup of coffee with the Dolphins in 2009 before going into coaching. Like many innovators, he was a young coach working at the high school level when his moment of ingenuity happened. Unlike many innovators of football, he's not white (Marion is Black), which feels decently interesting to note in the way it bucks the mold. 

Marion started working as a wide receivers coach at West Valley College, a community college out in California. He then did the same job for Harker High School before getting his first head coaching job at age 26 in 2013 for St. Patrick-St. Vincent High School in Vallejo, California. After leading St. Patrick-St. Vincent to a stunning turnaround, he was hired by Waynesboro Area Senior High School in Franklin County, Pennsylvania (also known as the middle of nowhere). Marion worked the same magic on Waynesboro, leading them to an even more improbable turnaround: Waynesboro had been 0-10 the previous year and had 10 wins total in the preceding five seasons... in just one year, Marion led them to a 6-4 record and a share of the division title. 

It was at Waynesboro that he began to develop the GoGo offense, a scheme that could marry spread passing with the triple option by going up-tempo, using misdirection heavily, lining up in unbalanced formations, and attacking down the field through the air. Arizona State snapped him up in 2015 as a quality control assistant, before Marion went to Oklahoma Baptist as an RBs coach. It wasn't until 2017, when Marion was hired by Mike London to be his offensive coordinator at Howard University, that Marion got to install the GoGo in college. When London and Marion took over this FCS program, Howard was coming off a 2-9 season and had no expectations. They entered their week one opener against (ironically) UNLV as 45-point underdogs and proceeded to pull off the largest upset (by spread) in college football history, using the GoGo offense to win 43-40. That win set the tone as Howard completed another miraculous one-season turnaround that Marion was involved in, going 7-4 overall and 6-2 in the MEAC. 

Howard took a step back in year two, but London and Marion had done enough to be poached by William & Mary, with the OC following his head coach to their new destination. Marion spent only one season with the Tribe, improving their record by one win before being hired by Todd Graham's staff at Hawaii. Marion was the WRs coach and since then has been climbing the ladder of CFB as a WRs coach, waiting for his chance to be an OC again and re-install his system. From Hawaii he went to Pitt in 2021, and from Pitt to Texas in 2022, where he also got to be Passing Game Coordinator. Now, in 2023, the 36-year-old Brennan Marion gets to be an OC again under new head coach Barry Odom, bringing the GoGo to the FBS for the first time and installing it at the school that was the victim of the scheme's most famous triumph. 

 

So how does the GoGo Offense work? 

The UNLV commentators on the broadcast of the Bryant game described it as having three central tenants (don't think it's that simple but let's run with it): 

1. Unbalanced formations

2. Misdirection

3. Vertical shots 

If you read through the base set section, you saw the unbalanced formations. Not just the two RBs being on the same side as the QB but often both RBs are to the same side as the WRs/TEs, leaving a completely overloaded formation. Which is where the misdirection comes into play. The UNLV offense tape in this game is rife with misdirection. I mean, just look at this!!: 

Formation is overloaded to one side, 4 skill position players vs. 1 on the other side. Brumfield takes the snap and rolls with both backs to the right, while you have the slot Jacob De Jesus roll the other way and receive a forward pitch from Brumfield, with two pulling linemen leading the way. UNLV ran that play a couple times, so if Michigan cares to watch film for this game, I'd have that one downloaded as much as possible. The problem is, you have to be ready for the pitch to sometimes be a fake!: 

Their run offense has plenty of reads in it. They have zone reads: 

And zone reads attached to screens: 

And one of the offense's primary spiritual sources, the triple option, is represented as well: 

Yet all of those running plays are not the base. The base is simple downhill runs between the tackles, often with the use of tempo to try and keep the defense tired. We noted in the play type by down section that UNLV was run-heavy on first down and then also documented how UNLV goes tempo after getting first downs, and those two things do go together. They get a first down, run up to the line, and slam it down your throats. Unfortunately, they don't really have the horses to do it too well right now. The push by the offensive line was very poor overall, with a lot of plays looking like this: 

Given how little push they got on standard runs against BRYANT, I am expecting this OL to get their asses handed to them by Michigan's defensive line. If UNLV gets substantial gains on the ground against the Wolverines, it'll be their funky misdirection plays or through the option/read plays, the ones that confuse defenders or put them in conflict (or perhaps ones they get via tempo). UNLV running inside zone or power against Kenneth Grant, Mason Graham, and Kris Jenkins is going to be dead on arrival. 

 

How about the passing game? 

Those supposed vertical shots were not as plentiful as the misdirection or unbalanced formations against Bryant. As I noted in the Brumfield section, a lot of his throws were quick, short, and simplistic. There were a few down the field, including one I showed you, but as mentioned, those were missed more than you'd like to see. I can't say that I expect to see many more vertical shots against Michigan, based on what I saw from the pass protection against Bryant. The OL was having trouble, particularly the tackles, against a bad FCS team: 

LT in this game Anton Ambuehl is driven back and the whole pocket compresses backwards five yards. Brumfield is forced to throw off his back foot and overshoots an open Ricky White. I didn't like the work of RT Tiger Shanks on the ground either, and we have evidence from his disappointing PFF grades as a starter in 2022 to give him the Cyan. Both tackles got the Cyan, but even the IOL was not immune from pass pro incidents: 

Ambuehl is cooked there, but C Jack Hasz loses track of his rusher, who ends up with the sack. To compensate for the likely ass-beating in pass protection, expect Marion's offense to be prepared as ECU's was, getting the ball out quick, throwing screens (there were a handful of those from the GoGo in the game I charted), quick out routes and stop routes. But maybe because Ricky White is back in the Big House, Marion will honor him with a little fuck-it-and-chuck-it to constitute their "vertical shots" for the day. 

 

So we won't learn about the corners? 

Probably not. None of these WRs are particularly great anyway (I liked De Jesus, but more as a kick/punt returner and gadget slot than anything else). So long as it isn't Vincent Gray on Halloween 2020 against Mr. White, we're doing fine. But the line of scrimmage is going to be even more dramatically tilted to the Maize & Blue than that fated game was. 

 

Anything else we should know? 

Ehhh. As I mentioned previously, the RBs rotate a lot. I showed you Jai'Den Thomas in the Dangerman section, but they used a bunch of guys. Courtney Reese will play, so will Donavyn Lester, and Vincent Davis only had a few carries but one was a house call (credit to comically bad tackling): 

Michigan is not Bryant. 

 

What does this mean for Michigan?

In UNLV, Michigan will be playing an offense that their defense will be much, much better than but who may be mildly annoying due to the scheme tactics. Michigan has not played an offense quite like this one, even if its roots draw from plenty of familiar concepts, most famously Gus Malzahn at Tulsa (who Marion played under... you can read friend of the site Ian Boyd talk about it here). Marion has been in the FBS as a positional coach and though he was given a small upgrade in title by Texas last year, where they hoped his two-back sets could help them optimize the presence of both Bijan Robinson and Roschon Johnson, he has not brought the GoGo to the FBS until now. A primary reason for what allowed Marion to turn so many different teams around and pull off staggering upsets like Howard over UNLV is the fact that defenses are not prepared and not used to playing teams that run his offense. 

Michigan is far too good, relative to the Rebels, to lose a game due to Marion's offensive tactics, but it could cost them a TD here or there. It may take some time to adjust to the misdirection and the other stuff that the Rebels will toss out there and I could see it resulting in a big play. Michigan may just be so good, and so much more athletic, that they swallow up UNLV and the scheme doesn't matter, but it'll be fun to watch Michigan's young defenders, be it in the secondary or at LB, deal with this offense once it gets to garbage time. If nothing else, UNLV will display a scheme that has Football Coaching Twitter saying the words "I'm excited to watch UNLV this season" and we get to watch it up close, which is much better than the usual drab 30+ point non-conference blowout. I'll take 2023 UNLV over 2022 Hawaii or Colorado State any day of the week.