Shot through the heart, cuz your LB’s too late. [Barron]

In a departure from Michigan’s first few games this season, Down G didn’t work against Northwestern, however a sort of similar A-Gap Isolation play was gashing them on the regular. This was not surprising given how Northwestern aligns its front, a thing I noted in the Foe Film last week.

Base Set: It's a 4-3 even, the same that Michigan State bases its defense out of. Even when they shifted to an under look they kept the wide splits between the DTs:

This is a thing you see Match Quarters defenses do when they like their middle linebacker a lot. The uncovered center can be dangerous since there's nobody to chip him if he releases on a linebacker. If you trust your MIKE to beat that block consistently you can get away with this bubble, making up for it with more strength in the B and C gaps.

And here’s how Harbaugh attacked it:

Before digging into this let's go over some actual football terminology. That way I can use the jargon later to explain why Michigan's curveball play worked so well against previous opponents, but was not expected to work against Northwestern, and why this cut fastball was devastatingly effective.

GAPS, TECHS AND SHADING

Ever since offenses learned to pass and run outside, their opponents have had to array their defenses with some points stronger that others. How you set the strong points of your front and react to the weaker points will establish your defensive identity.

This starts with where you line up the defensive linemen. They are your fortresses. Linemen are difficult to move, and the linebackers usually will line up at least partially behind those lineman to create an impediment for releasing OL to get a shot at them.

Here’s a typical (4-3 over) alignment:

• Techniques are those little numbers I put between the defensive and offensive lines. They are instructions for the defensive linemen as to how they’re going to line up. When we talk about a “3-tech” for example, that’s a guy who lines up off of a guard’s shoulder. There is no single established numbering system across football so I used what I’m familiar with above. Note the numbers in red correspond to where the defensive linemen are set up.
• Shading is an instruction to the offensive linemen, often represented in graphics by coloring in all or part of a lineman to show who’s got a defensive player lined up on him. This comes into play with line calls, zone running, or any play that changes up the blocking depending on how the defense aligns.
• Gaps are represented with letters, and are used by offenses and defenses alike to refer to gap assignments and attack plans. The letters in red denote gaps where a defensive lineman is lined up. An offensive player without a defensive player shaded on him is considered "Uncovered."
• Under/Over can refer to the front as a whole or a player. "Under" means weakside, "Over" means strongside (the side with the tight end)

So in this example alignment you could say the nose is aligned in a 1-tech shaded under the center and attacking the A gap.

Now see if you can find the softest spot in that front above. If you said backside B gap you get a lollipop. Not only is nobody lined up in that gap but the nose is on the opposite side of the next gap, leaving the left guard uncovered. To avoid that, a lot of 4-3 teams will put their nose in a “2i” technique, or over the guard’s inside shoulder, especially when the offense is in a spread formation and there are only two LBs back there to help.

The gaps that aren’t covered are (usually) the linebackers’ problem. Linebacker gaps are more pliable because they have other responsibilities besides that gap, such as passing, matching pullers, and dodging blocks from offensive players not committed to the linemen.

No team stays in the same front with the same linemen attacking the same gaps every play unless they want to be mercilessly attacked by plays that go at their weak points. They’ll shift their fronts, and also slant guys into different gaps than they started in, and blitz their other players to stuff up more gaps. But they also try to spend as much time as possible in the front that best uses their talent.

Now, see if you can spot the soft spot in Northwestern’s front:

You get a lollipop.

[After the JUMP: Why this works so well, and Down G wouldn’t]

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NORTHWESTERN’S 4-3 EVEN AND WHY THEY RUN IT

Like Michigan State, Northwestern is a base 4-3 even team that uses a lot of Quarters coverage, which means their safeties are heavily involved in the run game. There are some obvious differences in how their defensive backs play (that’s beyond the scope of this article) but the fronts are very similar. Northwestern prefers to have their DTs take the B gaps, giving their middle linebackers the A gaps.

This has some benefits. The linebackers are squeezed into the middle of passing lanes, forcing throws that are further outside with worse angles and more time for the defense to rally. Those prime B gaps that Inside Zone and Power teams love to attack are both covered with great big DTs. Also the DEs can spread out more, giving the defense a prime pass rusher from both sides (this is why The Gaz is more Winovich—or more precisely, Shilique Calhoun—than Gary).

Also since teams don’t often even bother to send receivers into the meat of your linebacker level, you can get away with blitzing both of them right up the A Gaps they’re covering—the dreaded “Double A-Gaps Blitz.”

The downside is there are no linemen in the middle of the defense. You’re leaving the center totally “uncovered”, with linebackers responsible for the gaps to either side of him. You can only run this consistently if your middle linebackers—especially the MIKE—can both cover and defeat blocks. You’re giving the center a free shot at these guys. You’re also gambling that your DTs can fight back to restrict those gaps, staying in the B gaps but pushing their blockers inside to clog up the A gaps with bodies.

Ruiz has a clear path to either LB

This describes Northwestern pretty well. Their MLB, Paddy Fisher, is a neck-rolled throwback who loves to bang into blockers and was PFF’s best run stuffer last year. Their WLB, Blake Gallagher, is a sophomore breakout player who’s adept at staying back and knifing past attempted blockers. None of their DTs are nose-like but they’re all disruptive, strong 3-techs

The 4-3 Even plays to their strengths, making life harder on the inside linebackers who can handle it. That buys some DTs in the way of your favorite running lanes, and more strength to the edges. In an age when nobody remembers how to use a downhill fullback anymore this is an excellent strategy.

UNTIL YOU MEET BEN MASON…AT SPEED

This is an “Iso” play, short for “Isolation.” It looks like Inside Zone, and is blocked like inside zone, right up until the fullback screams into a gap with an unblocked linebacker. It is the MANBALL-iest of plays: find a guy across from you and kick his ass. In most versions the Iso requires you double-team/combo an interior lineman. But when the defense does that for you by alignment, all you have to do is keep them where they’re standing.

The lane is behind your fullback, right up their stinkin’ gut.

Iso is the First Play, literally the first play in Yost’s playbook. Power and Zone and all the other running plays exist because football defenses adapted to stop Iso before the forward pass was allowed. But it’s not a game-breaker, and because of that Iso regularly falls out of favor outside of short situations. The history of football defense, in fact, is that of teams borrowing an Iso defender to help somewhere else, shortly thereafter followed by someone who brings back some version of the T-formation and pops them in the mouth.

On this play Northwestern indeed aligned in “1-tech” (center’s shoulder) in an Under front, but slanted that guy back to the B gap.

Thus, the slant effectively converted the “Under” they showed back to an “Even”—the front Northwestern likes best, and also the front that Michigan designed this play to attack.

With the tackles in the B gaps, all Runyan and Onwenu have to do is seal those guys and not get shoved back into the hole. Easy enough. The slant by the NT does Bredeson’s job for him, and gives Ruiz a free run on Paddy, who’s watching a quarterback take a shotgun snap and can’t fire until he sees either a handoff or Ruiz move past the line of scrimmage. As long as Bredeson and Onwenu—Michigan’s Big Big Boys—hold those linemen where they are there’s a big lane forming.

The “Isolation” part then comes into play as the fullback lead, isolated on the linebacker covering the backside A gap, plunges head-first into that guy. This is the play right here: however long it takes the WLB (#51, Blake Gallagher, to the right of the hash mark) to react to a fullback charging at him, the more space the running back will have to run by him. He doesn’t take his first, noncommittal step toward the line of scrimmage until the ball’s in Higdon’s basket and Mason is up to full speed.

And once he realizes what’s happening, Mason has effectively inserted an extra gap in the line, and Gallagher is on the wrong side of it.

Paddy is in his gap but he’s a linebacker and Ruiz is large. Gallagher can maybe try to knife behind Mason, or at best rock Mason back to squeeze the gap shut. Also note there’s a cutback lane forming if Onwenu’s DT fights back to Gallagher’s gap, but there’s also a Quarters safety stepped down and in position to keep that down.

And then Mason connects. This is what you get from a weaponized Harbaugh fullback: not only is Gallagher sealed, he’s not even on the hash anymore. As Mason forces contact, mass and acceleration are both in Michigan's favor, and Gallagher is treated to a lesson in Newtonian physics.

Michigan did two more things this play to increase the space to run through. (1) They jet-motioned DPJ to the side they were running it, creating a threat that revealed Northwestern’s Quarters coverage, pulled the safety wider, and maybe got in the WLB’s head a bit, though the WLB isn’t responsible for DPJ unless he slants inside. (2) They added spacing between the center and the right guard. Look how wide the gap they’re attacking is:

Offenses leave subtle clues to their intentions all the time, but at this level most of them are probably missed.

WHAT IF THE DEFENSE DOESN’T GO IN THEIR GAPS?

Northwestern slanted a lot in this game and occasionally that meant slanting DTs into the A gaps after giving Michigan a primo look for an Iso. This is the play I used for the canonical splits when explaining Northwestern’s base alignment. They’re not going in those gaps however:

You can zone out of it. Here you can see the slants, with the red lines showing both DTs heading for A gaps.

Onwenu feels it and zone blocks his DT in the direction the guy wants to go. Now it’s B gap run.

The WLB shoots this gap before waiting for a handoff because he thinks they’ve ID’d the playcall and he can blow this up. But Michigan’s fullback still got moving first, and Mason meets that guy in an audible collision. Paddy Fisher was held on the backside because of the slant so he’s stuck behind some trash and Karan again gets a good gain in seemingly no space because every hat is accounted for.

Again: “ISOLATION”—even in a wad of bodies this play is really about what happens with the isolated LB versus the fullback block. The way for the defense to win it is to activate that LB on fullback action:

But of course, that opens up other things (hi Nebraska!).

WHY DID YOU SAY THIS IS RELATED TO DOWN G?

Let’s circle back to last week. Remember the one where the Husker LBs went doink?

Doink

Watch the two middle linebackers as they react to Mason, who (just like 2 plays ago) is really just planning to Wham block the DT that Onwenu ran past. You can’t key the fullback when facing this offense because Harbaugh showed you the fullback is likely to lie.

However Northwestern’s 4-3 even alignment is enough to make them strong against Down G. Remember, the Wildcats are sacrificing some interior integrity to reinforce their edges. That is a very different base fronts/approaches of Michigan’s first four opponents (numbers on the linemen are their techniques):

These opponents all gave Michigan a DE on the strong side they could block down with a tight end, and an edge blocker the guard could kick. Let’s see what happens when you try to run it against Northwestern however:

Okay not totally fair because this one caught a slant, but note the guy to kick ain’t no Nebraska OLB wearing #22—the edge of the gap Michigan is attacking is held by The Gaz himself. Bredeson has a much harder time moving him, and then Runyan’s bad block becomes relevant and Gentry getting away with an egregious hold can’t be capitalized.

I’ll give you another Down G event from this game that wasn’t RPS’d:

This is another formation when they showed under and slanted, with the backside going to their Even gaps and the frontside sending the 3-tech into the B-gap (which after the pull is the same as the A gap) and The Gaz into the C gap, with Gallagher replacing on the edge. That should help Michigan since those guys are slanting away from their downblocks. But this is where you see what I mean about strength on the edges. Gallagher isn’t leaping out there, he waits for Bredeson to show then gets a running head start and attacks. After Gallagher comes a run from the safety to take out the crack blocker, further delaying any cut forward. Finally there are no more blockers, the cornerback (who was facing the play the whole time) contains, and one by one every Wildcat gets to arrive at the line of scrimmage.

Sorry those aren’t great examples. But it’s really a good thing we don’t have any because Down G against this kind of team is already going uphill.

The problem is the End. He’s out there to set the edge, and much better positioned and equipped to do so against a pulling guard. Also the Quarters coverage frees the OLBs from having to cover a quick seam from the #2 (reading outside->in) receiver, so they can activate against the run. Also the linebackers’ patience rewards them, as they don’t have to flow backside once they read the guard’s kickout pull. Again: Even is good at guarding the edges.

And that’s fine. Down G was a nice way to power through some soft parts of the schedule after Notre Dame. I haven’t scouted this year’s Maryland but unless they’ve changed sans Durkin I don’t think they do a lot of this. Michigan State will. So it’s nice to know now that if an opponent like that shows a soft belly, Michigan has a way to punch through their gut.