Schedule note: Sorry this is getting up late. It, uh, ran long.

Well, Brian went and Joel Klatt'ed* me again. I was going to use this space this week to talk about how the threat of a McCarthy keep opened up the two big runs for Corum and Edwards, and then Brian went ahead and Neck Sharpied in his game column. That piece (with his embed replaced with a more permanent clip):

It changes things. I mentioned that JJ McCarthy's legs were an important factor in Michigan's ground game in the Indiana UFR, even and maybe even especially when he didn't have the ball. That's going to come up again in this week's edition because hoo boy the threat of McCarthy keeping the ball was a major factor on both of Michigan's long touchdown runs. The Corum one is obvious; just watch the cornerback to the bottom of the screen:

 

Brian then asserted the threat of McCarthy keeping created the block that sprung Edwards the drive prior. Since it's bound to come up a lot more, and has been a hammer point of ours for years, I figured I might as well dig all the way in. And by all the way in I mean ALL the way in. This isn't going to just discuss a concept or two. We're going to put a lot of pieces together that make up the Michigan QB threat run game, because it was all relevant, and all worked in concert to create a 400+ yard running day against what, in the not too distant past, was considered one of college football's better run defenses.

* [Fox analyst Joel Klatt frequently breaks down events during broadcasts immediately after they occur, preempting our core content that does the same several days later.]

[After THE JUMP: First they crashed, then they burned.]

I. The Security Guard

What we are talking about here is using the threat of a run to the backside of a play to hold a defender who's not accounted for in the blocking. Usually that defender won't even matter, because a lot has to go right for the offense for him to become the primary guy. That guy however can be the difference between a play that gets 7 yards or 70.

Now, zone read options are NOT the only way to mess with that guy. Michigan ran an RPO on their first drive that did a good job of delaying that backside cleanup man, and of showing us how to find him on any given play. He is #0 (Jonathan Sutherland), the LB/S hybrid in the middle of the field at the linebacker level:

The RPO is supposed to catch Sutherland caught between playing the bubble screen pass and the Pin & Pull run:

It turns out in this case Penn State was going to roll down a safety and Sutherland was free to play the run. He still gets caught by the RPO read, Michigan's blockers each execute their assignments, and the yardage the play gains is determined by the length of Sutherland's delay.

It had been our contention, prior to the Penn State game, that Michigan's offense has not been as explosive as its talent should allow, and that this was related to Michigan's choice not to establish JJ McCarthy keepers as a major part of the offense. You saw with the RPO that Sutherland wasn't really in a conflict—he had a safety to charge at the bubble and was free to attack Corum at his leisure. Who's Sutherland's guy then? It's McCarthy. Here's the same play, without any reads, against Maryland. Same thing happens: the guy waits on the backside, everyone gets blocked, and he runs it down when he can.

Whether by gap or assignment, there's always going to be a defender responsible for the quarterback keeping the ball and running out the backside. Like a cushy security job, the less likely our backside patrol officer is to have a QB escape attempt the more he can wander from his post to help the rest of the team meet their deadlines.

Over the course of the schedule's easy parts, Michigan chose not to attempt many McCarthy escapes, most likely because each carried a risk of a season-redefining injury. But Penn State understood they were the opponent worth removing the fetters. And on the first thing that looks like a zone read they're kinda-sorta respecting a McCarthy keep.

This is a Split Zone Belly play that Michigan wins with a good kickout block by Bredeson paired with great blockdowns to pry open a lane inside, but Penn State is actually running something to beat it: they're having the DE scrape inside against a run while Sutherland takes a McCarthy keeper.

Here I want us to shift our attention however to the OLB on the bottom, #11. He's got the purple arrow pointing at the double on the lower DT. He's the guy who ends this play, because he's now the backside guy, the unblocked guy, the guy who can end this play at his leisure. With Bredeson crossing the formation and McCarthy looking the other way, this guy's got little to worry about. While his DT is occupying a double, our LB can slide past where Oluwatimi can get to him. Corum has to bounce away from this guy towards Sutherland, and a well-blocked play that had the playside linebacker flying outside only gets a handful of yards.

So, Junior Offensive Coordinator cadets, here's our game: how do we erase that guy while still erasing all the rest? Hazard a guess? Make them overreact.

II. Creating an Overreaction with Arc Read

What we'd love to do—in fact what the Greg RomanMatt Weiss/Lamar Jackson-fueled explosive Ravens offense (I will keep embedding this Kollman video until you have it memorized) was built on—is getting the backside guy to do something unsound because he's got to worry about an athlete who can't be handled straight up. We got that with Sutherland to a degree in the first play, because the threat of Roman Wilson and two blockers on a bubble screen was more than three Penn State defenders could be counted on to handle alone.

We want McCarthy to be that threat you have to overreact to. We want one or both safeties bailing deep because his passing is too dangerous not to. We also want the backside linebacker so afraid of McCarthy's legs that he misses his opportunity to run down a Corum or Edwards run. And the first step towards that is demonstrating the threat.

This is a few plays later on the same drive as that Split Zone Belly we just ran. Michigan gives the same look to the other side, plus a receiver, Wilson, coming across as a second Arc. A Double Arc if you will. Yes, we ran this last year and yes it is SO RAVENS.

The Wilson cross shifts responsibilities for everybody. After the arc read erases the crashing DE and Schoonmaker gets around the playside LB who was supposed to replace the crasher's edge responsibility, who's the force player/edge guy now? It's the cornerback, who's matched on a receiver, true, but is nonetheless a cornerback, and also deep downfield.

Now, the MLB can replace, but Penn State's LB talent level isn't what it used to be, and #43 there isn't enough of an athlete to keep up with McCarthy. He can't prevent McCarthy from getting to the sideline and going as far as the Wilson vs. CB block allows, which is virtually no different than how long it takes for the safety on the top hash to arrive.

In case that Double Arc wasn't enough to establish The Threat, this one was:

That's the same play with Bredeson in place of Wilson, and it catches some really irresponsible behavior from Penn State, who's trying to do the 2019 Army thing where they crash an end, shuffle the scrape exchanger to induce a give, and blow up the frontside with hell-for-leather LBs. If Bredeson and Schoonmaker could have prevented this safety from making a heroic tackle it was a touchdown, because once McCarthy dusted the playside LB he had two blockers and only the safety to beat.

The way this all broke down is worth another look, because it really shows how committed Penn State was to stopping Edwards on this run, and why McCarthy's running ability broke it. First you get that end crashing inside of Schoonmaker, who can ignore him. McCarthy reads that and pulls.

The playside LB also shuffled inside so far that neither lead blocker had to use himself up.

 

This is some MAJOR disrespect to LB#26 there from both TEs. They think there's no way that guy can get to McCarthy as shuffled down to the edge as he is. Michigan's TEs are counting on it. And…

 

It's a lucky escape (Michigan still scored a TD on this drive). And Penn State has learned their lesson. The next time Michigan runs Arc Read they're overplaying McCarthy, Oluwatimi can seal Mr. Hiyo Silver to the topside, and Edwards gets to romp through the secondary.

Did you see it? Penn State slanted to the bottom and the LBs were supposed to hop up to replace. In the process they overcommit, Olu can sneak out behind them, and Edwards hits it backside, with Schoon kicking the shuffler.

III. The Reversal

Michigan kept running this with PSU weirdly guessing at one side or the other to blow up, and Michigan usually (not always) reading it out correctly. But now it's now late in the 2nd quarter, and Penn State's strategy of being extremely lucky two times and Ji'Ayir Brown occasionally doing something heroic is 1 point ahead of Michigan's strategy of being the vastly superior football team. It's 3rd and long, and time to bring out a look that they haven't been showing since 2019. April 2019 to be exact.

Our reads heretofore have been splashing around in QB running land; this play is where they head to the deep end. McCarthy here is the primary run threat, the guy running what the play is blocking, as opposed to the Arc Read where he's truly the counter, or an RPO where his job is to keep a backside defender away from the runners. We can draw it up but I'll warn you there's so much going on it's a bit hard to see.

Penn State's weird front and how they dropped out of it—they're trying to do some Amoeba here—made the reads confusing, but the OL did a nice job of turning out guys who were jumping outside and vice versa. Here's a simplified version to make sense of the play this is supposed to be without the weird front and dropbacks:

This works a lot like a Bash/Inverted Veer or Power Read in that the QB and RB's jobs are inverted, but Michigan has added a Jet back to be the guy threatening out the edge and converted Corum into a lead blocker. The shifting of jobs plays on the defense's tendency to assume certain roles for each player. You see Corum heading into the flat and you expect him to get the ball, walking right into his block. You see Edwards jetting across and you assume Michigan is setting up a screen for him. Typically when Michigan has used jet motion this year and prior it's a way to not use the QB in the run game. Here they gave the RB's normal job to McCarthy. They're not really looking for a non-Corum person to run the ball unless it's Edwards. The entire backside is reacting to the threat of Edwards.

McCarthy only has to deal with an edge who flew upfield. Keegan is the guy responsible for kicking that dude, gets a one-handed shove, and McCarthy's acceleration takes care of the rest.

It's a near run thing, but as soon as they get by that guy it's clear sailing to the first down.

Barnhart's and Oluwatimi's guys dropped back so Michigan can take all of that space as blockdowns—and yes you can "turn out" those blocks if that's what the guy gives you, e.g. Barnhart's (#52).

So that's why the play gets a crucial 1st down, and could have had more if Hayes had found somebody to block. But let's talk briefly about what it does philosophically. Opponents for years now have been treating Michigan's quarterback running game as a side show at best. The thinking is they'll hit you with it to keep you honest, but Michigan isn't actually *trying* to use their quarterback as a primary runner. This play dispenses with that, at least as far as Penn State on Saturday was concerned. Harbaugh clearly planned on using McCarthy's running ability to do some heavy lifting in this one, and PSU now has to respect that. I would argue it was this play, even more than all the Arc stuff they ran earlier, that really created the openings Brian discussed.

IV. The Payoff

So now let's take all of this stuff we've seen and apply it to the two long runs. Here goes Edwards:

This is very much like the first play we drew up; remember the RPO/Pin & Pull? (Buck and Pin & Pull are the same things.) The only difference is instead of using a bubble as the backside threat, it's a Split Flow, IE an option where the QB can run it out the backside or throw to his tight end.

We're maxing out on colors/things going on here. On of the most notable bits is who's responsible for the edge of the defense: the cornerback. That's a matchup teams usually try to avoid, since you're liable to get an offensive lineman kicking out a guy much smaller than him, and after what happened to Grant Newsome it's illegal to just submarine the guy.

What Penn State has bought with that gambit however is an unaccounted for linebacker in the WLB. Technically Ryan Hayes is supposed to release on that guy but that's a block that seldom comes off. You've got a linebacker reading the pullers and an offensive lineman who's supposed to get all the way down there to head him off? Can't happen.

Except on this play it happens. Ryan Hayes is the LT lined up in front of Donovan Edwards (who shifted down to shotgun) here. The LB in front of him is the guy we're watching.

At the snap Michigan has two linemen pulling, but our WLB here has time, and, you know, wants to be sure. Hey, I procrastinate and trust my abilities too.

But, I mean, he should go.

Hayes gets to him.

Hayes gets around him.

And given their respective speeds, that's plenty to get Edwards by him.

Should that LB have been hanging around backside until the backside tackle could get down and around him? It's a good play by Hayes to do so, and no. But you kinda understand what was going though the LB's head. After all, he remembers the last footrace with this guy.

Is that LB hanging backside if McCarthy hasn't already dodged/outrun/outflanked a bunch of his teammates. Not likely. And remember, it doesn't matter if Michigan doesn't get the play blocked up how they're supposed to. The run's success was determined without Not-Huff here. What his hesitation caused was the explosive.

That brings us to the Corum run we mentioned way back at the top of this article. As Brian said, watch the cornerback at the bottom of the screen (near the 1st down line), #4 Kalen King. Because of Michigan's personnel and alignment, that guy has been pushed to more of a safety role, meaning he's now the running game's last line of defense, the unaccounted for man in the blocking scheme, the security guard if you will:

The reason the play gets to the 50 is because Michigan caught Penn State slanting their DL, with the LB level correspondingly shifting the opposite direction. PSU did this to generate some TFLs on 1st down earlier, so Michigan is hitting them with the ol' Split Zone. Remember how I said you can turn out the "downblocks" if need be? Those LBs get turned out.

The reason this eats the other 50 yards is King, overplayed the quarterback. Why? Well, Penn State tried running down McCarthy with their middle linebacker.

They tried allowing their smaller, quicker OLB to shuffle and attack McCarthy from the inside out.

They tried having the line slant his direction.

And they even tried having an edge defender fly upfield right at JJ.

And every human watching who's not suffering from a case of terminal Penn State brain knows they can't handle this guy straight up. So we get this Penn State cornerback (from Cass Tech). On the replay angle you actually get to watch him taking his final, fatal steps downfield and outside, passing Blake Corum at the Michigan 45. King reenters the frame later, but only in futile chase mode.

Or you could just turn on the volume and Joel Klatt will explain. Man he's good at this. Anyway, Michigan has a quarterback running game. Long may it run.