The game of football is fairly complicated with a lot of rules. If you happen to have small children who have stopped in front of the television long enough to ask questions you quickly become aware of the complexity. It becomes difficult in a real hurry to try and explain what's going on.

"Yeah this side has the ball...on this side. Yup. And they want to get the ball all the way over here...oh, they're kicking now. So...before they get it all the way over there they have to get it just over here within three tries. Technically four..."

One of the rules which confounds even devoted fans with years and years of game watching experience  regards offensive formations. "Too many men in the backfield? What does that mean?" There are some specific rules about how you're allowed to line up which lead to unwritten rules on how an offense is expected to line up. Breaking the unwritten rules is becoming one of the most popular tactics in the modern game and the method for breaking them is with "unbalanced formations."

Here's the set-up. The offense needs to have seven players aligned ON the line of scrimmage before the ball can be snapped. Obviously the five offensive linemen account for five of those spots and then then two receivers or tight ends make up the next two. What's more, anyone lined up in between the first player on the line of scrimmage from the sideline and the offensive line is ineligible. He's not allowed to receive a pass down the field.

To illustrate:

This is a typical formation you see. The Z receiver is on the line of scrimmage, so if the H or Y were also on the line they'd be "covered up" and thus ineligible to go catch the ball. If the Y, H, or running back (R) wanted to motion over to the X's side of the formation they'd need to stay off the line. If they lined up on the line of scrimmage inside of the X, they'd be ineligible. If, hypothetically speaking, they lined up on the line of scrimmage OUTSIDE of the X receiver then he'd become ineligible.

All this make sense? Good.

[Hit the Jump for how Michigan used it]

I think it's intuitive why it'd be disadvantageous to line up with ineligible receivers. What's the point? If they can't catch passes for you then aren't they liabilities?

No they are not, not necessarily. Defenses typically don't have a lot of answers for how they line up against unbalanced formations with ineligible receivers on the line of scrimmage. If you line up in an unbalanced formation they are often checking the sideline for instructions. If you do it at tempo it can really cross some wires for defenders and even the coordinators up in the booth.

Typically, ineligible receivers in unbalanced formations are there to either distract the opponent or, even more likely, to block. Technically for a running team like Michigan, most players are blocking most snaps anyways. It's all hands on deck to try and help clear lanes for Hassan Haskins and Blake Corum. If you aren't doing your part in the effort to spring Corum, what is your purpose?

Unbalanced formations typically just declare for the defense which guys are blocking and which guys are receiving. That's a disadvantage, but they also tend to help deconstruct defensive structures and isolate matchups and space for the offense to focus the hammer on.

Michigan has run a number of unbalanced formations in 2021 and used a bunch against Rutgers in their harrowing 20-13 victory. Here's a primer on some of them, what they are intended to accomplish, and how they fared against the Knights.

Trying to attack the Schiano front

First, let's start with one of Michigan's challenges in this game, the stunting, hybrid 4-down front employed by Greg Schiano. Here's the issue illustrated against the sort of basic, power-spread 101 scheme favored by Michigan these days, tight zone from Y-off trips.

Michigan struggling running tight zone against one of Schiano's favorite stunts. pic.twitter.com/pDw1uhQ60D

— Asst to the Minister of Culture (@Ian_A_Boyd) September 28, 2021

Let me draw it up for you.

The idea with the play, which is essentially "duo" is you have double teams at the point of attack on the nose and the field defensive end. Those are combo blocks aiming to climb up to the linebackers but priority one is to blow the D-line off the ball and suck in defenders.

You're still in a spread set so if you can draw in defenders with a power run game you can then set up play-action or RPOs. The best part here for power-spread teams is you hardly need to involve the quarterback in this run game concept unless you want to give him a keep read if the nickel blitzes. You don't read the end though like on a zone-read, the tight end blocks him.

Here's the trick of it for Michigan. Schiano is clever with his run fits and is a fan of stunting the Jack linebacker/end on the boundary edge. He's tough for offensive linemen to get a hold of, especially if they're not looking for him, and the running back is reading the inside linebackers on this play and aiming at the backside A-gap. Consequently, the Jack can show up unexpected and unblocked to tackle the running back in the hole.

Michigan also had issues with this play against edge blitzes by Rutgers. In the example above the Knights are playing Cover 2 in the boundary and quarters to the field but they'd also bail the boundary safety deep and bring the nickel or free safety off the wide edge.

What's to be done? One solution is to use an unbalanced formation. The Wolverines put a tight end on the line of scrimmage to extend the edge for the play and then still flexed out receivers to the field, both of whom are eligible (it's the tight end who's ineligible). Hypothetically, they could throw an RPO or traditional pass if they're not covered which forces Rutgers to line someone up out there.

pic.twitter.com/VkSgEuTjkJ

— Asst to the Minister of Culture (@Ian_A_Boyd) September 28, 2021

Rutgers knows the tight end isn't running a route but guess what Michigan fans? Opposing teams don't need the formation to tell them the Wolverines probably aren't throwing to Joel Honigford or Luke Schoonmaker. They're barely ever throwing the ball at all and when they do so it almost certainly isn't going to one of those guys.

In the first example above, Rutgers brings an edge blitz from the linebacker. Michigan is in 12 personnel (two tight ends) so the Knights have a linebacker out there rather than a nickel and he puts a little too much emphasis on disguise here. It takes him forever to get off the edge and by then Michigan is running the ball into the cutback lane behind the tight end. Had Cade McNamara pulled the ball he probably finds a wide open edge vacated by the blitz.

Then in the second example the Wolverines are in 11 personnel (one tight end) and the tight end is covered up but there are three eligible receivers outside of him. This time the Knights blitz the safety and McNamara sees him screaming off the edge and pulls the ball only for the safety to throttle down and tackle him for a loss.

The nose slants to the boundary so all those gaps are accounted for and the linebackers are both heading toward the cutback lanes. Angles were good there for the running back had McNamara been able to see the safety slowing down and punished him with the hand off.

Technically you could mix in RPOs on these concepts but Rutgers is playing man coverage on the eligible receivers anyways so you're already canceling out potential run defenders. Now the only way the defense can thwart your run game is by playing without any deep safeties or beating your offensive front honestly without outnumbering it.

Losing up front

Rutgers beat Michigan's run game honestly for much of the game. There were points in the game where they played coverage defenders on ineligible receivers when Michigan got into unbalanced sets.

For instance...

Good news (I guess?): I'm seeing more good ideas in the run game ruined by bad blocking than I thought I would. Unbalanced formation+pullers gets them numbers w nobody high if Corum breaks loose. Vastardis(68) got swum by the cocked NT, and Keegan(77) 'not-my problem'd it. https://twitter.com/Misopogon/status/1442592438602944514/video/1

— Seth M. Fisher ( @Misopogon ) September 27, 2021

The second receiver from the sideline is ineligible but Rutgers still has their nickel covering him. You don't want to leave him alone because then he becomes a blocker in the screen game and there's no one to match him. If you're going to defend him might as well use a coverage defender who's not going to be particularly involved in the run game. Sure this nickel could potentially have helped in the run game but he has a long way to come after making sure there isn't a screen thrown his way. Additionally, if you are facing tempo and a lot of unbalanced sets perhaps you embrace simplicity and play along with the pretense of the receiver being eligible so you don't commit busts on defense.

As it happens, Schiano wasn't worried about answering for Michigan's size, power, and skill up front in the run game by outnumbering it and cheating over defenders. His solution was speed and movement up front. Starting nose tackle Julius Turner (seen in Seth's example) is 6-foot-0 and 275 pounds. His back-up Jamree Kromah is 6-foot-4 and 275 pounds. Their job is to slant and move across gaps, muddy the picture for the running back, and cancel out the A-gaps by starting in one and often ending up in the other. The result of this movement is often for the running back to end up cutting into predictable gaps where the linebackers can be found, coming unblocked because it's hard for the line to adjust to the nose tackle's movement to work through combos and advance to the backers.

Michigan had unbalanced formations to try and solve for the issue with the nose, the Jack stunt, and the edge pressures.

Center/tackle sweep by Michigan. pic.twitter.com/PojGbpMbeH

— Asst to the Minister of Culture (@Ian_A_Boyd) September 28, 2021

The tight end is covered up again, but this isn't a serious liability because we know they're not throwing to him. The Wolverines pull the center so any slanting by the nose is just going to make him easier to down block for the guard. Here's the issue this time, the ineligible tight end is trying to block down for the backside linebacker. Before he can get there, the middle linebacker pops him and drives him backwards into the intended hole.

The center Andrew Vastardis arrives to kick out the edge blitzer (thus accounting for that issue as well) but the man left tackle Ryan Hayes is supposed to block is busy driving the tight end backwards into the hole and the man the tight end was going to block is quickly arriving as well to thwart the play.

So Michigan had a variety of schemes designed to isolate and attack different parts of the Rutgers front from multiple formations, traditional and unbalanced, but were often simply unable to block the Knight defenders.

I'd expect them to continue to use these sets to help them isolate points in the run game. There's endless ways you can draw up unbalanced sets to try and hit off tackle like on the tight zone examples above. Rutgers used unbalanced sets to run four or five different versions of power in short-yardage before the Wolverines sorted it all out. Ultimately, unbalanced formations will serve as a tool for supporting the run game, but play-action would be an even better force multiplier against the better-coached defensive fronts of the Big 10.