MGOEVENT!

Tomorrow (Friday, 9/23) night MGoRadio returns LIVE and in-person to Underground Printing's store downtown. We'll be broadcasting from 329 S. Main Street (next to where the Bo Store was) with the Sklar Brothers.

Afterwards we'll be heading over to the Ann Arbor Comedy Showcase to see Randy and Jason Sklar perform, followed by an MGoBlog afterparty. We'll get pizza and drinks, and have a Q&A, and one of those questions can be "Brian do your old standup routine!". Tickets are here and doors open at 6:45 PM. If you haven't gotten your copy of HTTV, or your want it signed, we'll have some there.

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Remember how we used to make such a big deal about how Peppers and Dax could line up around the box and still couldn't get edged? Good defenses often align weak against something, daring you to walk into the trap. Either the players are particularly prepared for the obvious response, or they've got a guy out there who can still do that job from a disadvantageous position. Like how Michigan's defense comes out with big line splits, but when you go to run through those gaps you discover Mike Morris and Mazi Smith have squeezed the open gap shut by being strong and humongous.

UConn didn't have Peppers, but they were going to line up like they did, daring Michigan to set aside whatever they wanted to practice or run it into stacked boxes. Also the secondary was going to be playing way off and bailing deeper at the snap.

"What are you gonna do, screen me?" –Quote from man screened.

Neither did they have anything like a Mike Morris who negate big gaps in their fronts. But stabbing peasants gets old. Michigan didn't invite Connecticut here to play a football game; their job was to be practiced upon and collect a check. So how do you run the thing you want to practice when they're determined to take that one thing away?

[After THE JUMP: How indeed]

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What We're Practicing

At first it went how you might imagine if you're running the thing the other opponent is unbalancing themselves to take away. Watch this subtle line shift by UConn before a 3rd and 3 run play.

Those guys are moving a shoulder toward the backside with no shift frontside by the linebackers. Why? Why are they moving away from the strength of Michigan's formation? Well, because they know that's where Michigan loves to run. That's what we do, right? We run Counter Trey and Split Zone, both of which feature at least a tight end crossing behind the line of scrimmage, and runs out the backside.

Sure enough, this play is supposed to be a Counter GT, i.e. a power play that pulls the backside guard and tackle. That big gap between the shifting linemen and the edge guy? Michigan was abandoning it anyway. The backside control was just McCarthy reading the edge. Now credit where due, that OLB #0 (former Spartan Brian Bouyer-Randle, by the way) set up in a way where he might have had a chance to take out the running back on a give as well. To do that and still corral JJ McCarthy is a Hat+2 event for that guy. I'm more interested in the edge on the other side.

This was Iowa's plan against Counter GT last year as well. The playside edge gets inside and upfield constrict the running room, crucially keeping his head *outside* Keegan's kickout/turn-in block. He's backed up by an OLB, who sets up *inside* to collect whatever spills his way. Getting tighter to the line ruins Keegan's angle for a kickout. Getting upfield means his impact with Keegan is going to jam up the entire play. This should cause a backup, meaning people aren't getting to their blocking targets on time, and the ball is trapped in the backfield with an unblocked edge in pursuit.

Best case scenario here Keegan can shoulder the edge, Hayes can get through to the unblocked playside LB, and Corum runs off his back. I don't fault McCarthy for pulling it and hoping to get around the trap.

Now, Michigan could adjust to this stuff on the fly and still get yards—"Execution" if you're wondering what the buzzword for that might be. We even got examples. This early Corum touchdown got the same setup as crushed runs, but Olu did an amazing job of catching an edge who was trying to play the up-and-in game on him and turning that guy inside.

Likewise Schoonmaker did well to read the DE's head was inside Oluwatimi and redirect outside. But he too had a terrible angle to block the OLB playing up and in. Corum had to dodge him.

Other runs weren't so lucky. I believe Brian is going to blame Gio El-Hadi for sticking to his double while an unblocked guy runs into the backfield here, but you can see why El-Hadi was engaging the double.

Flaring the DTs out like that is another way to harden up the edges. No, there's nobody for the middle—the MLB on the bottom of the midfield 'M' here is going to have to account for Erick All if this play gets over there. But that's the gamble to overload the edges, since that's where Michigan wants to be attacking.

You can be a lot better than the other team, but if they're playing unsound to take away your favorite thing, it's hard to do your favorite thing.

The Response

So say you're Michigan. You don't want to just screen them (or in the case above, let Ronnie Bell dust the CB in press man) because that's not even practice. You don't want to just run ISOs into splits you need a Mike Morris or Aidan Hutchinson to close down…

"What are you gonna do, ISO me in the A gap?" –Quote from man ISO'ed in the A gap.

Well, okay, I mean you don't want to JUST want to run ISOs into the giant flashing "RUN HERE!" sign that UConn's leaving by shifting linemen to Michigan's edges? But the play above is actually a clue to the answer. Note that they couldn't shift the *entire* line to one side this time. Instead they spread out both sides. Why is that? To find the answer, find the side Michigan wants to swing a tight end to.

Sorry, were you looking for something subtle and complicated? Wrong week. But yeah, that's more or less how Michigan canceled UConn's edge games, leaving the Huskies taking 50/50 shots at which side Michigan meant to swing their meat to. When they guessed wrong, they were very wrong.

Watch the behavior of the DEs and the OLBs on either side of this formation, and compare it to the first example in this article.

Start outside, come up and in.

Suddenly, UConn has all their edges pinched and upfield. Michigan has three tight ends on the field, and two of them are about to outflank the two guys who thought they would be jamming up pulling linemen. The DE here compounded his problem by believing he had induced a give. The OLB is still coming in expecting the DE to force the ball inside for a stick. Too late he realizes up and in is terrible way to defend a ball going outside.

There are more ways than that to balancing the formation, but two off TEs (IE the Flexbone) is a marvelous way to force defenses to play straight up against power running games, which is why Wisconsin uses it all the time. If you go back to Jim Harbaugh's senior year, Michigan had the same response in the second half of The Guarantee game. If a defense wants to give up their gut and their horizontal security to nibble at the edges and hang back in a deep sell, WR screens are not the only way to stretch the integrity of those edges.

But then again, screens work too.