UFR Errata: Notre Dame 2010

you and magnus should fight... its the only way... :)

Steel cage match.  Brian v Magnus.  No one comes out alive.

Jones TD is on Cam..you can see the LB (Mouton?) digging hard to get under the out route so that any throw there has to be arched giving Gordon time to respond..his angle to Jones is way  too flat, and a proper response and angle would have given him at minimum, time to keep this down to a 20 yard gain and should have allowed him a decent play on the ball, unless it's thrown just right. IMHO, he broke out too late.

On the nine yard run, JT should have filled quicker to the LOS once he read run and having no real pass receiving threat to play, this thing would have been kept into the 3 yard gain area.

I really don't think Brian cares about mangus. But i'm all in for a cage match, give me $20 on Jesus Cook with a KO of magnus in round 3.

deeper that the receiver who got way behind him AND he was in between the two so QB would have hit a wide open under receiver and the deep receiver would have been blocking Gordon all the way to the goal line anyway. AND Rogers did bite and should have gotten deeper. That is they way I see it so three way cage fight?

I thought that Cam Gordon had the speed to play free safety (recruited to be WR?) just doesn't have the experience yet.

I know the running style of that ND Receiver looked gimpy, but he has incredibly long legs, and I think that Cam isn't chasing because he's mentally crushed once he realizes what he's done.

He starts to chase and closes a little, but by then he can see there's no time before the end zone.  So is this play the only judgement that he doesn't have the speed?

Who does have the speed to cover the field sideline to sideline?  Remembering from Misopogon's Hero Attributes, it was Instinct that was ranked higher than speed.  I think Cam failed on the instinct and execution, and speed was no longer an assisting tool on this specific play.

Is everyone basing the lack of speed on Cam's relative 40 time?

I guess I'm not that worried about this one play so far.  We survived the game, in all other ways Cam appears intelligent and instinctual, and I think this young secondary will get tested again, but will be able to respond better and better.

In any case, it's exceeding my expectations given the pre-season DOOM and gloom.

Watched the replay over and over, and I concur that it is on both Cam and Rogers.

As pointed out, Rogers bites up immediately, and could have been more useful had he maintained some amount of deep leverage.

However, it seems to me that Cam didn't even see the outside receiver releasing deep and read only off of the 2. He assumed that it was an overthrown ball to the 2, leading him to believe that he would either pick it off or it would fall meaninglessly deep / towards the sideline. Had he played the deeper of the two vertical routes, neither likely results in the TD (though they definitely pick up the first on the throw to the 2 and who knows what happens on the 1 depending on how the coverage plays out).

Nicely drawn up by BK, but my take is that if both stay deeper, the result is better for UM. That said, those guys needed to be aware in run support and you can't just drop the whole secondary deep on every play. Given the rollout, though, I'd prefer that they cover deep and rely on the LBs to get wide to prevent the underneath stuff.

Annndddd looking at it ONE MORE TIME, I'm thinking that Thomas Gordon could have done a better job getting over to cover the 2 (looks like it could have been a 3-level zone, if it was an obvious roll-out, which is why Rogers might not be wrong biting up) - which would have allowed Cam to stay deep.

At the end of the day... just tough to tell, but I'd say we had a bit of a breakdown on that entire side of the defense, leading me to believe that we just need to spend some more time preparing for combo routes on rollouts designed to beat 2-deep zones. If this went to Kovacs' side, I'm not sure that there is anything more positive that would have happened for us either.

Overall, I liked the game that Greg Robinson called and his zone blitzes and playcalling appear to be creative, but that 53-yarder to TJ Jones is on him.  There is no reason why you should ever run a cover 2 against a trips formation; it generally does not end well for the defense on a pass.

Looking at the pre-snap alignment, we were doomed from the start.  It was their 3 receivers against our 2 DBs.  Somebody's zone was going to get flooded, it was just a matter of whose; unfortunately it was our deep safety.  This is even further exacerbated by the fact that neither C Gordon nor T Gordon is wide enough to start the play.  There is no way C Gordon can get to the outside-most WR based on where he started; there is no way T Gordon covers the deep out based on where he started.  The only person who was in a good position to do anything was Rogers; he did what he was supposed to do by covering the the man in the flat. 

Robinson should have either changed the play call or called a timeout.  I hope this particular alignment/coverage scheme against that formation was not done intentionally or else we will have problems all year covering trips.

With this young secondary, Robinson needs to ensure that they are always in positions to succeed.  Judging by his experience/long track record, I have faith he will.

In Cover 2, the corner's responsibility is to read 2 to 1 (that is the middle slot & outside receiver).  The Sam backer (or whatever the heck that hybrid position is) should be leveraging #3 running to the flats.  The corner should be getting depth with #2 and ideally sqeezing the outside receiver to the safety.  The safety needs more depth so the he can see everything.  The way this play should have played out is with the corner dropping off on the deep 15 yard out and the safety taking the deep route running into his deep half.  If they would have thrown to #3 in the flats, you have two players (the corner and the Sam) with enough depth to rally to the ball.  It was a good call by the offense, but the defense was definitely in bad position.  If I were a coach grading the corner and safety, they both would have received a minus (maybe a double minus for the safety).  Neither of them were correct...

I am a high school defensive back, so I have some experience in this. Brian is 100% correct. When two go vertical, you have to go with them. Better to give up a gain in the flat than to give up a touchdown. And I'm sure it was a missed coverage call. In a trips situation it is better to go cover 8 (where the FS and the SS have deep corners, the Wide Corner has flats, and the Short Corner and Nickel Back cover the backside).

The biggest problem you're all having is the fact that this isn't Cover 2.

Reasons:

• Cover 2 is 2-deep, 5-under.  We are rushing 5 here, and we are in 2-deep, 4-under, not Cover 2.
• On Cover 2, the corner is supposed to funnel #1 inside toward the safety.  In this play, the corner isn't even aligned outside #1.

That said, I don't know what exactly the coverage is, however, the corners are jumping the flat now to take away hot routes and the safeties are likely playing deep half to take away the big play.  Such a coverage is designed to give up the intermediate throw, but the hope is the 5-man pressure gets to the QB before he has time to make such a throw.

The interesting thing is that Cam seems to be matching #2.  Go back and watch him match the 15-yard out (called a bench route) of #2.   (By the way, this route combination is a prototypical sprintout three-man flood route.)

It is my guess that Cam was playing a Cover 2-Read technique.  In 2-Read, the half safety reads #2.  If #2 is vertical the safety matches him.  A vertical route is defined as any route with a vertical stem of at least 10 yards.

Although I disagree with Magnus (and others) that this was Cover 2, I agree with him that Cam was responsible for the TD allowed.  I don't think this is a RPS -1, just a simple MA.

Magnus is right.   If you asked Cam this question, I'm sure you would get the same answer.

I've just gotta say that once again MGoBlog has proven to be quite possibly the greatest collection of football minds on the Internets. The level of detail that Brian, Magnus, Steve and so many others go into is astounding. Thanks again for all the analysis guys!

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