Should we be in the I - formation more?

Submitted by CincyBlue on

Watching the OSU game against Wisconsin,  I saw TP play pretty well.  His throwing delivery is terrible, but he gets the ball to the WR's and seems to make pretty good decisions. 

With that said, I am wondering if Michigan needs to be in the I - formation more this year and mostly on 1st and 2nd downs.  These downs seem to be were our drives stall out.  If we are 2nd and 13 or 3rd in long, I think we have a very small chance of making a first down. 

What if we just line up in the I and try to get 4-7 yards running our RB's?  Does that make sense or no?

 

MGoBoard

Magnus

October 6th, 2008 at 2:07 PM ^

IMO, it doesn't make sense.  Running a lot of plays out of the I formation is a bad idea when you're trying to implement the spread offense.  Everything is different - angles, timing, the exchange, the dropback, etc.  And if you run out of the I every time, it becomes too predictable.  Rodriguez is plowing ahead with the spread offense.  He wants to win, but he wants to win by playing the spread.  It will behoove our players to get used to running the spread, since none of them are seniors and they'll be running it again next year.  Running the "I" just delays the inevitable.

Joined: 07/17/2008

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West Texas Blue

October 6th, 2008 at 2:19 PM ^

OSU has a respectable OL; we don't.  Being in shotgun definitely has helped us this year; I can't imagine how bad pass-pro blocking would be with 5 and 7 step drops with our current patchwork OL.

Joined: 06/30/2008

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ShockFX

October 6th, 2008 at 2:24 PM ^

You can run out of the shotgun like the I-Form btw.  You just bring in a TE, and do a 2 RB offset from the shotgun.  RR did this against Wisconsin.  Leaves you with 2 WRs to either space the field or block with on the edge.

Joined: 07/16/2008

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hat

October 6th, 2008 at 10:36 PM ^

I don't know that it really matters.  Defenses are gearing up for the run on first down.  Right now they're mostly putting seven in the box, since we typically have six blockers.  If we put a seventh blocker in there, they'll probably bring up an eighth defender.  Either our OL has to improve a whole lot in its run blocking or we have to loosen up the D by converting more pass plays on early downs.

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