Here’s an interesting observation: Ever notice that a lot of the highlights from this year’s Playoffs and conference championships came from under center? Have you noticed the same thing in NFL highlights? Is this real?

Not too long ago Jim Harbaugh was one of a dying breed of offensive minds in football who still ran their offenses primarily from under center or the pistol. A decade later, under-center offenses have made a major comeback in both the pros and the highest levels of college football. It’s not that big of a surprise; defenses figured out how to react to shotgun spreads, and did so. But offenses are still primarily from the shotgun, or various hybrids like the Pistol and Offset. But I think there’s also a sampling bias going on with the big plays, because under-center plays are more likely to produce explosives.

Under-center runs have two things going for them when it comes to producing explosive plays:

1. The ball is hidden at the mesh point, and
2. The running back is able to angle towards more gaps with momentum.

The first point reduces the amount of time the defense has to react to whoever ended up with the ball after the mesh point. The second dramatically shortens the timing of the play’s development. While you’re giving up the gun’s benefit of letting the quarterback see the field, what you’re getting in return is more effective play-action, and runs that have a better chance of breaking big as the RB has access to more gaps that the defense has less time to react to.

Contrast this run from under center

With this one:

Even though they’re attacking the same spot, the way they play out is so different. Everything is compressed in the under-center run, with fewer defenders flowing to the ball because they haven’t had the chance to react. Those with the play in front of them are reacting as quickly as they can, but even that works against them, as one of these dudes overruns Corum.

If under-center/pistol running was manifestly better these teams would not have spent most of this game in the Gun. Keeping your quarterback’s face towards the defense has all kinds of benefits for passing and quarterback running. But there’s something to be said, when you need a big play, for going behind the center.

[After THE JUMP: The good explosions.]

We saw a lot of this is our game.

I’ll start with an Alabama touchdown from the Pistol that brought back an old trick popular in the 1970s: Wham ISO.

Bama started in a spread-ish look but motioned into a tight front. This is Harbaughffense: many gaps with a running back lined up in a spot to threaten the frontside A and B gaps quickly, and an offset fullback to lead block. They block it up like Iso too, with a hat for a hat and the fullback coming downhill like he’s going to lead block. Michigan is short a man on the line—they have five linemen for five OL and a TE, but they also have two linebackers ready to make the doubled guy right. They assume Grant is going to get a double from the center and the RG.

But the RG isn’t doubling. He hesitates a bare moment, just enough to make sure Junior Colson is focused on the fullback, then releases on Colson. Michigan is usually fine with such a decision—if you want to single-block our DTs you’re not going to run up the middle very well—but remember Alabama has another blocker: the fullback, #45. And instead of finding a linebacker that dude is going to replace 77’s normal job and double Grant.

What’s going on here is a replacement—a weird Wham where the fullback is the second doubler on the nose.

But the reason it works so well is how quickly they get into it. Grant is still feinting to the backside A gap that Barrett is going to going to fill. When he gets back across the center—like Michigan knew he could and Alabama was counting on—he suddenly finds a fullback. That guy’s not going to last long either, but they only need that brief moment.

It doesn’t help that Sainristil was slot to react to the tight end staying in to block and Jenkins really got turned out badly by the right tackle (who had a particularly good game I thought). With Moore tracking over the two receivers on the left, Sainristil has a ton of space with the RB and misses. This all happens so fast that nobody else has a chance of affecting the play or getting back to prevent the score.

Explosive.

The explosives also come from the effectiveness of under-center runs to stretch both sides of the field with counter action. When you’re in the gun, or even when you’re offset, the running back’s angle is pointed to a certain side. As defenses evolved to stop mostly-gun offenses they learned to favor run defense to the side opposite the RB and force him to cut back, which robs him of his momentum and can lead to awkward angles. When you go under-center or pistol, the RB is naturally threatening both sides of the formation. This is great for running counter actions, because one step to the right gets the defense reacting like there’s going to be something quick and hard to the right. Then you go left and…

Michigan set this play up over the course of the season by running stretch opposite the direction they sent fullback Max Bredeson. Alabama downloaded this content and was ready to blow up a stretch to the right. The MLB takes a very hard step that way and is dead. The WLB is trained to be more circumspect but he’s got issues if he wants to beat Blake Corum in a footrace.

The motion got a rotation from the nickel and safety back to their base 2x2 position but it also got that nickel moving instead of preparing to take on a block, and with eyes on the new #2 receiver on his side he’s not ready for a crack block from Cornelius Johnson.

The WLB gets stuck behind the crack block from Johnson as well, and Bredeson gets to kick out a puny cornerback.

The motion is a key component to all of this—Al Borges mentioned after the game that 29 of Michigan’s 31 first half plays had motion attached. That has something to do with Alabama’s defense—they are a switching match coverage system that has a ton of different checks and assignment details involved. The more you make them apply those assignments, the greater the chance they screw something up.

This especially comes into play in the passing game, where a little bit of space can turn into all of it in a heartbeat.

Under-center runs tend to get a bigger reaction from the linebackers than shotgun/offset runs, because they have less time to get into their gaps before runner’s coming through them at speed. That reaction can be profitable, of course. Here Alabama had a safety starting to come down when he saw Bredeson crossing the formation, and that guy only ran fast when Corum got the ball.

But that is an overreaction, and can be punished.

The flea flicker didn’t go off because of poor execution in the backfield, but just look how much space underneath is created by that reaction.

Poor execution almost doomed the double-pass, but there was so much space from a safety overplaying a stretch run that McCarthy didn’t have to exactly step into this throw to cash in on an open Roman Wilson.

Michigan frustratingly doesn’t take as much advantage of this as they could, something we’ve been over many times in this space and others. One of the reasons these opportunities exist for them however is because of the tremendous danger of their under-center runs.

This was not good defense by Alabama. The WLB here is so worried about the gap forming AJ Barner’s blockdown that he jumps into it, never minding that the DE (who chose the wrong school) is coming inside of Colston Loveland.

Two guys in one gap means none in the other, and Corum uses the time gained from coming downhill in the Pistol to good effect by getting that WLB to fully commit. The MLB on the backside could have tried to shoot that gap but he’s got to be careful of a quick-hitter coming at him from the play’s backside. Corum breaks some tackles in the secondary and Michigan has all the points they need to send Nick Saban to the offseason.

WHAT WE’VE LEARNED

We are going to see a lot of under-center from Washington, who brought it out often in their wins against Oregon and their victory over Texas. They have a reputation as a passing spread, but their under-center game creates explosives for running backs who can attack a number of gaps efficiently in their zone runs, and gives Michael Penix linebacker-free single matchups downfield that he can turn into massive passing plays. I believe we’ll see a lot more of it from Michigan as well, seeing as Washington’s defense is likely to struggle defending Michigan’s base under-center running game without severely overreacting to it.

I know living in the spread era has taught us the shotgun is more efficient, and down-to-down it inarguably is. But don’t get too mad when you see Michigan line up like a Lloyd Carr offense. They’re just going for an explosive.