These routes seem more like rub concept curls (old-school buttonhooks) than "Snag" concepts. These look like 4-vert concepts with curls tagged for the outside receivers. Or even "Smash" concepts attacking the low safties instead of the outside Hi-Lo.
Michigan has used the solutions you proposed in other games. On the play you pictured some Spread-Option teams will use the playside slot or wide reciever as the pitch in a Dive-Keep-Pitch triple option. Odoms and Mathews have caught "Pitches" (looks like long handoff after dive-keep action) on the "Zone-Read Dive". If the CB was consistently coming off of coverage the coaches should have exploited that for TDs. Play action versus this defensive look is killer. Unfortunately, UofI may have called Paper when RR called Rock. Game theory figures heavily into the effectiveness of what is technically called a Veer Option. Hence why head coaches RR and Paul Johnson call their own offensive plays.
Pursuit to the ball requires significantly more effort than blocking until the ball carrier gets beyond me. Also, the physiology/biomechanics advantage is in the offense's favor. Resisting a force is more difficult for humans than exerting one. For example, chart an offenses ypp in the 1st to the 2nd quarter and the 3rd to the 4th. The Barwis effect is real and measurable. Michigan improved ypp on offense through the game (for reasons beyond conditioning, but Koger's, Minor's, and Threet's big plays are not quite as effective/don't happen). Wisconsin's ypp in the game remained more or less constant (no trend beyond the equilibrium).
Odd fronts are great against spread teams and teams that like to pull lots of guards because the Nose Tackle can really muck up pass protections vs. spreads and really mess with. Personnel wise I agree with Gsimmons and his statement that the real benefit to 3-4 is the versitility to not break base defense versus more offenses.
Regarding the Mailbag question: Lots of 4-3 DCs will recruit LBs to play DE (see Dennis Erickson at Miami circa 1990).
You might be referring to the variant of the Single-Wing called the "Single-Wing with the Spinning Fullback" which is much more akin to Wing-T blocking concepts and the idea of "hiding" the ball from the defense by the player taking the snap turning around and shielding view of the ball from the defense. Single-wing concepts are incorporated into most spread offenses especially ones with bigger QBs like Tim Tebow. See the article I wrote for SMQ: http://www.sundaymorningqb.com/story/2008/2/28/131454/592
Check this video of some old-school Michigan single-winging (from Coach Hugh Wyatt of Camas, WA): http://homepage.mac.com/coachhw/iMovieTheater9.html
Offensive football rules have swung too far towards passing, and this is one of the final overreaches that will swing things back to a more manageable equilibrium in High School football. The NCAA, to its credit, dealt with this in its rules a long time ago. The "Scrimmage Kick" rule that allows for substitution of ineligible numbered (read: big, slow) players off for a punt formation was edited when college coaches started exploiting the rule as well. The edit: eligible jersey numbered players (1-49, 80-99) were only allowed in the interior five of a scrimmage kick formation (direct snap deeper than 7 yards) in "a kicking situation clearly exists (i.e. 4th down, punter substitution)."
Expect the NFHS and other governing bodies to adjust. The Notre Dame Box offense utilized a similar exploit: shifting just before the snap to change the side of the strength in the single wing offense (read: having 7 players on one side, suddenly changing to the other, and snapping the ball near simultaneously). This offense does a similar trick only with who is going to be an eligible receiver at the start of the play.
I would not stake the future of a program or season on this offense.
I think that Shafer will follow a similar pattern that has established success in D1 football like Tenuta at Miami and Amato at FSU: Recruit a stable full of LBers and drop the ones that get huge down as DEnds. 4 fronts wreak a lot more havoc for Olines/Offenses than 3/5 fronts, and that is clearly the philosophy Shafer ascribes to.
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These routes seem more like rub concept curls (old-school buttonhooks) than "Snag" concepts. These look like 4-vert concepts with curls tagged for the outside receivers. Or even "Smash" concepts attacking the low safties instead of the outside Hi-Lo.
Michigan has used the solutions you proposed in other games. On the play you pictured some Spread-Option teams will use the playside slot or wide reciever as the pitch in a Dive-Keep-Pitch triple option. Odoms and Mathews have caught "Pitches" (looks like long handoff after dive-keep action) on the "Zone-Read Dive". If the CB was consistently coming off of coverage the coaches should have exploited that for TDs. Play action versus this defensive look is killer. Unfortunately, UofI may have called Paper when RR called Rock. Game theory figures heavily into the effectiveness of what is technically called a Veer Option. Hence why head coaches RR and Paul Johnson call their own offensive plays.
Odd fronts are great against spread teams and teams that like to pull lots of guards because the Nose Tackle can really muck up pass protections vs. spreads and really mess with. Personnel wise I agree with Gsimmons and his statement that the real benefit to 3-4 is the versitility to not break base defense versus more offenses.
Regarding the Mailbag question: Lots of 4-3 DCs will recruit LBs to play DE (see Dennis Erickson at Miami circa 1990).