What happened to arc reads?
Disclaimer: I'm not as well-versed in the finer points of running an offense or making reads as some on this board may be. So I'm asking honestly, why have the arc reads completely diasappeared from the offense?
If you have (what seems to be) a QB who is limited when it comes to downfield reads, but has legit threats at HB/WR/TE and seems to have a little shake to him, why not take advantage of the arc reads wrinkle? I understand it is asking for your QB to make another read, but it seems to me it provides a safety blanket by gameplanning to avoid the intermediate and deep ball stuff that just hasn't clicked. Any insight from folks who have more knowledge when it comes to the xs and os?
December 5th, 2020 at 3:58 PM ^
Because we're still trying to perfect the wildcat
/s, but not really
December 5th, 2020 at 4:00 PM ^
Michigan is still trying to perfect the forward pass
December 5th, 2020 at 4:03 PM ^
The accepted reason is that Gattis is but a puppet for Harbaugh and both him and Harbaugh are idiots.
The completely unfounded and likely irrational reason is that they probably have tried to run it but the QBs this year (in particular Milton) didn't show they could do so consistently.
I do know they ran it with more success last year, so it's not like they don't know it's effective.
December 5th, 2020 at 7:46 PM ^
They didn't run it much at all last year with Shea, though. It was baffling then, and it's baffling now.
December 5th, 2020 at 4:06 PM ^
I would assume that Milton isn't good at this, and our inexperienced line isn't good at getting to the next level. Maybe Cade would be a little better, but we won't find out this season. They look like they ran this but it was a straight handoff.
December 5th, 2020 at 4:11 PM ^
It's not Joe's fault, but what IS Milton good at?
December 5th, 2020 at 4:14 PM ^
He's really good at throwing a ball wearing a t-shirt and shorts in designed drills.
December 5th, 2020 at 4:17 PM ^
Does anybody have tape of this so I can at least watch something as 2020 Michigan football highlights
December 5th, 2020 at 4:35 PM ^
The truth.
By why did the coaches run off McCaffrey who could make all the reads?
December 5th, 2020 at 9:06 PM ^
This may be an accurate take but the fact that this has been the case the previous 3 years declares that the issue here is much greater than simply the players.
December 5th, 2020 at 4:18 PM ^
If you're trying to throw a football through a brick wall, he's your guy.
If you're trying to throw a football over them there mountains, he's your guy.
December 5th, 2020 at 4:43 PM ^
So does that mean he just needs to be put in during the fourth quarter so we can win championships?
December 5th, 2020 at 5:38 PM ^
The problem is , he would over throw the brick wall .
December 5th, 2020 at 9:11 PM ^
He should be able to throw a 60 yd hail mary
December 5th, 2020 at 4:20 PM ^
The argument the last 2 years was that Patterson wasn't good at making reads which was why they didn't run an actual Read Option/RPO offense and may have used the arc read to give him an easy read/ it was a play call. As in, run the arc motion with a directed hand off 2, 3, 4 times and then arc read "keep" when they got what they wanted from the defense.
The continued avoidance of QB runs and actual reads regardless of who is playing QB removes the likelihood that it was QB specific. It's play sheet specific.
December 5th, 2020 at 4:28 PM ^
So you're saying the "read" was more likely a design set up by...fake reads, designed keeps, and Shea never had to put 2 and 2 together? If true, disappointing.
December 5th, 2020 at 5:08 PM ^
Kind of.
I'm saying, given what we've seen, the arc "reads" were most likely arc "gives" with a nominal "read" using the TE motion to mess with the LBs. They would run it a few times in a game or across weeks before finally pulling out the arc "keep" and springing it for 15+ yards in big situations. Or, they would specifically tell Patterson to make the actual read this time. That 2018 Wisconsin comes to mind or when they needed a 1st down in a tight situation like the ND game last year in the rain. You could almost tell when it was coming because they ran the same split zone motion but gave to the RB 2 or 3 times to establish the look and then on 2nd and 8 or 3rd and 3 in a pivotal moment the same motion would happen and Patterson would keep it. It rarely failed. As in, Patterson made the wrong read and was tackled for a loss. I can't remember an arc read keep that didn't go for 5+ yards.
I'm not saying Patterson couldn't put 2 and 2 together (not saying he could either I guess). I'm saying Harbaugh/Pep/Gattis (because this crosses OCs - Fisch had some ROs with Rudock for god's sake) don't call true read plays allowing QBs to do so. If they are truly going to have a "speed in space" 11 on 11 offense, then the QB should be reading something more often than not. Watch the QB the last 3 years on shotgun handoffs. They usually aren't reading anything. I think Brian/Seth have been calling it out as "bad reads" when it's not even a read.
That's been my problem with the offense the last 3 years. They don't take the easy stuff and fail to establish what they are. PSU last year - bubbles were sitting there to be had. They ran them but it took them a while to get there. 2019 MSU LBs firing down on any run action - last year they ran a variation of the traditional RPO and had Bell sit down in a wide open gap to trigger the LBs to come down and keep Bell away from the safeties. This year (MSU's defense was slightly different)? Run the most basic pin and pull RB dive into a swarm of bodies 10 times.
Even if they wanted to say they weren't going to run that type of read offense, the run blocking has been average for most of the last 2 years. They sent 4 guys to the NFL last year but were sitting in the 50s in run efficiency (if I remember correctly) for most of the season. Brian chalked a lot of it up to running plays being turfed where they didn't threaten the QB run which gave the defense a man advantage, which is true. Even then, the run RBs didn't have places to go as often as you'd expect from that kind of a line. OSU (not a great example) would run that power read zone blocking stuff, cave in a backside DE and give Dobbins 2 lanes to rip through.
They're running an inside hand off out of the gun and trying to do some frippery up front rather than pushing guys around and giving the RBs a head of steam. I wasn't always a fan of the old school, downhill power stuff circa 2015-2017, but if you're not going to have your QB threaten to run, go under center and let your RB get a head of steam to meet a LB in the hole at 3 yards and put him on his butt rather than lose a yard.
December 6th, 2020 at 6:30 PM ^
Arc Read is the exact same read as a normal inside zone read. You are still reading the EMOL. It isn't an "easier" read. The addition of your H (or F depending on your terminology) arc releasing around the EMOL to a 2nd level defender is what makes it Arc Read. That H/F can come from the same side of the formation or opposite so it has a split zone look to it before he arcs.
December 7th, 2020 at 12:17 PM ^
I meant it as an easy read/play call. As in, the coaches would tell him to actually make the read on certain plays or would straight up tell him to pull it.
Also, with the TE coming across the formation the QB has some additional traffic in case he pulls and is wrong. On a normal RO where they're optioning the EMOL without the TE crossing the formation, if the QB is wrong he goes 1 on 1 with the defender and is usually screwed. With the arc stuff, if he makes the wrong read, the TE is still there to get in the way even if he's looping around to get to the 2nd level.
December 5th, 2020 at 4:27 PM ^
There are a lot of theories about what has happened to UM and Harbaugh. I wish I knew which was correct. For example:
1 - Harbaugh lost his fire, esp. after the 2016 OSU game.
2 - Harbaugh hired Gattis but doesn't let him run the offense and thus it's a shitshow
3 - Harbaugh hired Gattis but is actually letting him run the offense, and Gattis just isn't very good; as a result, Harbaugh and Warinner take back the reigns on occasion (like ND last year) and it looks ok again
4 - Harbaugh has some kind of medical condition which is preventing him from being all in
5 - Don Brown can't keep up with modern offenses and thus is no longer any good as a DC
6 - The player pipeline (recruiting, retention) just isn't working; the guys who come here don't work out, the wrong guys come, those who come often leave
I don't know what the F is actually going on, but I wish I did.
December 5th, 2020 at 4:41 PM ^
Gun to my head, 2-1-5. I never got the feel that we were seeing Gattis' offense.
December 5th, 2020 at 9:09 PM ^
Its the head coach all the way. The offense still look like it did when Drevno and Pep was OCs.
December 5th, 2020 at 4:52 PM ^
I would also add that Harbaugh doesn't have his coordinators from the Stanford and 49ers years, and they may have been a large reason for his success. Roman and Fangio are both doing well in the NFL post-Harbaugh, whereas Harbaugh's career has dwindled.
December 5th, 2020 at 5:11 PM ^
Roman isn't looking that great anymore. Jackson was awesome last year but has been bottled up this year and even kind of called out Roman in the press.
December 5th, 2020 at 6:15 PM ^
Maybe he's having a bad season (still #15 in the NFL), but he built the #12 offense in Buffalo and #1 offense in Baltimore without Harbaugh. What has Harbaugh done without him?
December 5th, 2020 at 9:42 PM ^
He got fired in Buffalo if I remember correctly and the offense didn't really drop off with Lynn taking over. He got some criticism in SF as well later on and his own QB said teams know what they're running during games this season. Is he crap? No. Is Harbaugh crap without him? Also no.
December 6th, 2020 at 2:18 PM ^
Practice is hard.. and they worked hard to almost beat OSU then fell flat. And if futility creeps in.... The players read fan sites and media saying we won't beat them etc,and the grind becomes a real grind. Then try again and get actually blown out with a questionable defense. Rinse and repeat the futility thoughts. Then mccaffrey bolts... Team played hard but then lose to MSU. Futility thoughts creep in. McNamara lights it up. Then gets hurt. That's where we are.
Does anyone know if he's playing ? I really wanted to see him go after his first start win vs OSU.
December 5th, 2020 at 4:31 PM ^
We practice against a defense that makes everything we do seem good...
December 5th, 2020 at 4:47 PM ^
Every game we put 200 ping pong balls into a raffle tumbler. Each ball has a play written on it. These plays come from basically every style of offense, and no play is designed to work in correlation to any of the other 199 plays. Unfortunately, the arc read ping pong ball hasn't been chosen in several weeks.
December 5th, 2020 at 4:59 PM ^
Some evil bastard must've stuffed the tumbler with about 150 balls that say "inside run for a loss of one" then
December 5th, 2020 at 5:08 PM ^
There's also side tumbler with Haskins, Evans, Charbonnet, and Corum ping pong balls. This is why you'll often see a drive where Haskins is the entire offense, followed by multiple drives where he doesn't see the field -- unless of course the Haskins Wildcat ball is chosen, those are exclusively for him.
December 5th, 2020 at 9:00 PM ^
Harbaugh and McDaniel can't teach it who they ignore it
December 6th, 2020 at 1:04 PM ^
It seems to be tied to Gattis more than Harbaugh. We ran it a bunch and VERY successfully in 2018, then hardly at all in 2019, and now it’s out of the offense. I don’t necessarily by that it’s too hard to read for QBs because every college QB has run a zone read in some capacity since middle school. It seems to go against the RPO concepts Gattis enjoys. In fact I’m not sure Arc was apart of the Moorehead playbook and Gattis is off that tree.