Poke any general or military historian with what's the biggest blowout battle in history and they'll either say Cannae or have a reason why not. In August 216 BCE Hannibal of Carthage finally got the Romans to engage him. Hannibal weakened his middle and concentrated on winning at the edges, and the Romans walked right into the trap, creating a bulge in the middle that turned into a Carthaginian envelopment. Thus compressed, the superior Roman numbers (86.4k to 50k) and heft (80k heavy infantry vs 32k heavy and 8k light infantry) were more hindrance than help, further reducing the space they needed to operate. It was an annihilation.

One of the most frustrating parts of Michigan's offense this year to me was they were constantly unprepared for the #1 thing that opponent defenses do. The first half of the Rutgers game was more of the same. Some of the endgame was too. But for most of the second half, the Wolverines were suddenly running plays that suggested they had at least read about Cannae, and had an idea how to get out of one.

[After THE JUMP: Marian reforms needed.]

How Rutgers Plays Defense

What I mean by how a team plays defense is really how they cover up for their weaknesses. Much of the meta game in football takes place in figuring out how your opponent is cheating to cover up a weakness, then doing things that take advantage of it. The primary weakness for Rutgers is one that'll be familiar to you: they don't have enough nose tackles. The starter is Julius Turner, who's listed at 6'0"/265. His backup is 6'5"/265. The other DT spot is a 6'4"/274 guy who was 250 last year backing up Michael Dwumfour, whom you will remember as a first step Michigan never could manage to turn into a football player. What they do have plenty of is outside linebacker types.

Schiano's answer is the Stunt 43 I touched on in Foe Film last week. Now we can break it down a bit better.

The "stunt" part is what they're doing with the Jack (we'll discuss why in a minute). The "43" refers to a 4-3 front. The Stunt 43 is about jamming up the middle using the path of the nose tackle, removing one of the interior gaps because it's just a pile of humanity in there, and keeping your linebackers clean to bounce outside and clean up. Here it is in action, on Michigan's second play from scrimmage in the 2nd half:

It comes off looking like a mass of humanity in the middle, free tacklers on the edges, and a rushing Rutger in play. When we slow it down, you can see there's more to it. What's really going on is a tactical retreat in the middle in order to compress the attackers, then envelop them, countering their superior numbers by compressing the space they can operate in.

STAGE ONE: COMPRESS THE INSIDE

The first thing you'll notice is they set up with the Nose on an angle towards the center's head. This nerf's the offense's ability to take advantage of their superior size directly off the snap. Just like the little nose guards in Bo Schembechler's slant-based "angle" defense, this little guy is supposed to get under the center's pads from that angle as quickly as possible, then do everything he can to gum up the works.

Even if he gets pushed downfield it's going to gum up the interior. The center can't get a release because he's got this dude in his chest. The guard can't get a release because he's got this dude's butt in his way. And the dude is so low they can't get rid of him. Let this block go on long enough and he'll just go to the ground, keeping all of your blockers trapped there.

The next thing is the activity of the 3-tech (Dwumfour) and the 5-tech. Where the nose's first step is angled, the 5T and 3T (can I call them the techs?*) are going upfield. Everything here relies on burst, getting a foot in the backfield and their heads into their initial gaps. Getting into those gaps is crucial to restricting space in the middle. They're setting an edge of sorts, jamming weights to either side of the mess the nose created. Again, the point is to delay the offense's ability to release anybody downfield. You can see it especially with Dwumfour's attack:

He's outside of Zinter and attacking the shoulder, cutting off Steuber and Zinter from releasing downfield. The entire line is now bottled up at the line of scrimmage.

* [Historically these were both called "tackles" and the guy in the middle was a "guard." I wish we hadn't changed things because it would make it so much easier to talk about all the modern 3-4s, 4-3 unders, 404 Tites, 3-3-5s, Buck 4-3s, and other odd fronts defenses use today without specifying which non-nose is an end and which is a DT.]

STAGE TWO:

You can also see the WLB (#3) activating against Filiaga up top. It looks like a blitz but a middle linebacker is going to be firing at anything that resembles run action. Behind Dwumfour the JACK (#26) is stunting inside. They're about to come into play as a second wave of defenders bottling up any interior gaps and keeping the last linebacker clean.

These two have hybrid jobs. The WLB would have to back into coverage if the quarterback's head pops up to look for openings. The Jack would convert his little stunt into a full one, crossing the formation and attacking the first gap that gives him a clean shot. That's why they're watching the backfield so hard. There's a read going on here. I'll use an example from later in the game to show you how important that interior edge is to them. Watch WLB #3 (Olakunlie Fatukasi) fly up on this play when he sees Dwumfour get double-teamed.

Back to our original play. It's a run, and therefore they're responsible for keeping the guards from getting free. Their arrival is the signal to the Techs that they can now stunt outside. They disengage with the guards and engage the tackles. Crossing the tackle's face creates an edge, but if the tackles stick to them, that means the linebacker is free to pop outside instead. In this case we can see both: Dwumfour and the Jack stunted, and SDE #97 took on a play-long double so WLB #3 could hop outside.

Technically there's an extra gap in here but there's no way Haskins can get into it. In fact #50 managed to use a push-rip move on Carpenter, who's now on the ground blocking nobody. Count the hats inside however and even without Carpenter (329), Michigan still Filiaga (345), Zinter (334), Steuber (339), and Barnhart (301) inside versus a 265-pound nose, a 234-pound WLB, and a 248-pound DE/OLB. The problem is they have no room to do anything with that size advantage because they're getting Hannibal'd.

STAGE THREE

The last piece of this defense is the cleanup man, MLB #8. All of this activity up front was about keeping him clean so he can read the running back and go wherever he does.

How Michigan Attacked It

Longtime readers know my Neck Sharpies Rule of Three [ways to defeat any football concept].

1. Execute: Play assignment football. Every man does his duty, though duties may not be even.
2. Moves and Countermoves: We guessed you would do this, and did something unsound to catch you at it.
3. Dominate: A great play/valiant effort by our hero turned the tide.

1. EXECUTE

Once you've established that you can run, you put the defense at a disadvantage. As I noted in FFFF, Rutgers system puts that backside linebacker in a run-pass bind by design. This is the weakness of the Stunt 43. That same guy they're trying keep clean—the guy whose reaction will determine how many yards the running back gets—is also one of their most important intermediate pass defenders. The safeties are high, and playing quarters, and one of the ILBs has to fire on anything run-like since he's a big part of the fit in exterior gaps. Often Rutgers will have their backside LB set up seven or eight yards off the line of scrimmage—nearly out of the box—to make sure he's in position to cover slants and crossers, figuring he can make up the ground after the snap. After the above the WLB stopped taking extra yards. He's the ILB on the top:

This was a very well drawn-up play. The WR action on the top forces the safety to stay away from the seam, so this is all up to whether the SAM (Singleton) can provide a chip on the TE and the MLB (Tyshon Fogg) can cover Eubanks. Singleton isn't thinking about the TE release because he suspects they're trying to edge him, and Fogg is regretting the two yards. This play also requires McNamara to read the guy, and to make a good pass over the DE trying to bat it, and for Eubanks to come down with it.

2. COUNTERMOVES

Brian pointed out in the game column yesterday that the reason Michigan was able to run that RPO to the TE was because they'd finally established they could run the ball. The example he gave was actually a specific countermove to what Rutgers does. It's a "Trap" play, which means they let a DT into the backfield only to whack that guy with a block from the backside.

They should have done this more, but once that SAM has seen it you figure he's going to react whenever the tight end goes for a trap block.

3. DOMINATE

The least interesting answer to "Why did this work" is "Because Player X did something great" and when you're breaking down Rutgers it's the answer you probably least want to hear, since that's less replicable against real football teams.

The fits and starts of the running game on Saturday had roots in #1 and #2: Michigan has young offensive linemen who often screw up their assignments—especially when they're difficult ones. And for whatever reason—probably the same one—Michigan doesn't install a lot of things specifically for their opponents. Sometimes they do (see the MSU game) but they're bad at it.

These factors are interactive; if you screw up an execution you could still get back to the positive with a tactical win and a great individual effort. How many UFR breakdowns read like:

"Silly freshman(-1) biffs a thing, but nobody's home because a defender was wiped out by the play call (RPS+) and then Studs McSmurfyface(+2) does a thing.

There's going to be a few of those this week, and I caught one at the top of this drive.

You may have noted the play I used to demonstrate the design of the Stunt 43 defense was a 2nd and 1. This was because of a nine-yard Hassan Haskins run—Michigan's first play from scrimmage of the second half—that immediately preceded it. Despite Michigan losing a lot of their one-on-one blocks, Haskins had the space to break a tackle and pick up a chunk.

The reason for that space twofold: Michigan swung their blocking in two directions to create more space along the front, and was Gattis had an RPO read that kept the cleanup man from activating in time to cover all that space.

Here's that play:

It's a Pin & Pull—the offense's base running play back the last time they had one—with an RPO on the backside ILB.

This is how the Roman Army responded to the Cannae disaster. Rather than treating the line like a phalanx—one big wall working together—they went to a system of sub-units that were capable of more complex and surprising maneuvers. One of these "manipoles" wouldn't just stay inside until they were useless; they could pull flanking maneuvers, reinforce other areas, and puncture holes in the enemy front, causing a rout.

Likewise there's no reason to leave the big guards inside just to have them squeezed between the Techs. Pin & Pull (and its cousin, Counter Trey) is Michigan's most natural response to the Rutgers defensive strategy. It's a return to status-quo: mono-e-mono: man to man: just you, me, and my guards. Oh and one of those guards—Chuck, his name's Chuck—is kicking out your cornerback. Meanwhile the Jack and MLB coming inside-out provides an opportunity to get them stuck inside with blockdowns. Gattis deployed a senior tight end and a tackle in a tight end's shirt to this purpose.

To this Gattis has added a read on the backside linebacker, putting that guy in a run-pass bind. In this case the WLB has a lead blocker (Zinter) in front of him, as well as the Sainristil route behind. As I noted above, the WLB in the Rutgers defense often ends up caught between his run and pass jobs. Slapping an RPO read on him isn't taking him out of his lane (unless you run the RB out of the backfield and use the QB as your runner), but it is holding him back until the handoff's made. He plays this one well enough, stepping up when he sees that Dwumfour is going to make a pass difficult.

One absolute fact is that Michigan's offensive line has gone dramatically downhill in that time. A year ago our starting right guard was Michael Onwenu, who was on track last I looked to be the NFL Rookie of the Year according to the level of analysts who believe blocking is part of football. Thanks to injuries and graduations and whatnot it's now true freshman Zak Zinter, who's going to true freshman this play hard. Michigan also lost both of its blockdowns on this play; both tight ends—Honigford (#85) and Eubanks (#82)—are planted on their respective bottoms by the Jack and MLB, Eubanks comically. Also Dwumfour, the 3-Tech, has that big burst and got a step upfield of Barnhart.

That could have ruined the play. It is, in fact, the whole point of Rutgers using this strategy. Dwumfour's get-off means he can be in the backfield before Zinter can get around him; indeed he bumped Zinter off his route and into Haskins, and might have been in position for a thundersack on a pass read. In classical tactical terms, the way to stop the enemy from pulling material out of the phalanx is to drive hard and fast through any gap in the phalanx and cut off the flanking maneuver.

Zinter getting bumped puts him in a bad way but neither does he seem to remember what his job is, as he continues outside to push on the back of Filiaga's block on a cornerback instead of turning inside to look for the backside linebacker.

There's something else to notice here, however. Lookit all that space. Against your normal fronts pin and pull is trying to crack the outside and push in the inside to attack outside. The defense's flanking maneuver has put so much material outside, and used up Dwumfour to fly upfield as fast as possible, so their forces are now split into two groups, with just one unit in any position to close down the space in between. And he's been held by dangers to the South.

Hassan Haskins is going to win some UFR points for turning Fogg into mist here, but I hope we save one for the playcall that created all that space despite some atrocious blocking.

Michigan also adjusted to Dwumfour later on. If you can pull your eyes away from the play-irrelevant, CONSPIRACY(!)-level holding by Schoonmaker on the outside (thanks, line judge ) you can see Michigan changed up the way they dealt with their hot-footed old teammate, doubling Dwumfour successfully so Barnhart can seal the free LB outside.

It works because BEN MASON actually makes a block, but it's still dodgy because Rutgers is shooting the Jack into the backfield. Also Haskins reverses field like a boss after getting caught behind the Jack.

The offense has a long way to go yet, but there are some things they can take away other than "escaped Rutgers." They did know how the Rutgers defense worked, put their guys in positions to succeed, and prepared multiple looks.