spread is dead

This series is a work-in-progress glossary of football concepts we tend to talk about in these pages. Previously:

Offensive concepts: RPOs, high-low, snag, covered/ineligible receivers, Duo, zone vs gap blocking, zone stretch, split zone, pin and pull, inverted veer, reach block, kickout block, wham block, Y banana play, TRAIN

Defensive concepts: Contain & lane integrity, force player, hybrid space player, no YOU’RE a 3-4!, scrape exchange, Tampa 2, Saban-style pattern-matching, match quarters, Dantonio’s quarters, Don Brown’s 4-DL packages and 3-DL packages, Bear

Special Teams: Spread punt vs NFL-style

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This segment has a sponsor! Reader/business attorney/blogger Richard Hoeg loves football because he says it is the most litigious of all sports. I can’t say that’s why I like football, but I really like that this is why my lawyer likes football.

Richard recently left a lucrative career in big law to start his own firm, where he helps outfits like ours start, operate, fund, and expand their businesses. His small group has clients including a national pizza chain and a major video game publisher, plus an array of university professors, entrepreneurs, and licensees. Hit up hoeglaw.com or Rick himself at [email protected], or read his blog(!) Rules of the Game.

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THE PLAY:

I think something happened here.

Depending on whom you’re talking to, today’s concept is a concept, an offense, a philosophy, or a way of life, though all who use it will agree anyone who defines it differently than they do doesn’t know what they’re talking about.* Though nobody on Michigan’s schedule commits to it fully, bits of it populate every passing offense today, and big chunks have been reintroduced to Michigan’s schedule with Kevin Wilson going to Ohio State, and Minnesota and Purdue hiring P.J. Fleck and Jeff Brohm, respectively.

It’s the Run & Shoot, the Libertarianism of football philosophies, and like its third-rail metaphor the first thing you need to know about it is that few people can talk about it without getting pissed off. Observe this salty convert to the Church of Shoot:

“Going somewhere where they don’t have route conversions into certain coverages was just absurd,” said Jacobs, who played nine NFL seasons. “They’re just running routes in the defense, getting people killed. Size and strength is what they had, and that’s why they won. Let’s be real. They had great assistant coaches, but Jim didn’t know what he was doing. Jim had no idea. Jim is throwing slants into Cover-2 safeties, getting people hurt. That guy knew nothing, man.

That was the Brandon Jacobs line that got him into one of this offseason’s more unexpected Harbaugh news cycles, with Michigan fans, Harbaugh fans, and anyone who knows their ass from a go-route on one side, nobody of consequence on the other, and some NFL types trying to stoke something out of it anyway.

Despite said efforts what controversy came of it quickly petered out, not because the sides came together, but because the disagreement was ultimately too wonky for the kinds of audiences an apparent Harbaugh-former player beef would attract. As soon as Kevin Gilbride’s name came up, knee-depth football fans gave up and left it for the deep geeks to figure out.

So… Hi. [Hit THE JUMP why dontchya.]

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* I readily admit I don’t, so I’ve leaned heavily on the resources compiled here by Chris Brown.

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The most interesting man in the world, part XXXVI. Since Harbaugh's tweeting about the organic bananas Miguel grew today this seems like a good time to note that there's a 50-minute-long documentary on Harbaugh conquering South America on vimeo. I can't embed it, but, like

I hope to name something they do this fall "peruball."

Yet more complaints from the NFL. The spread is such a good offensive system that a collection of French six year olds could probably go 6-6 with it, according to Seahawks assistant Tom Cable:

“Unfortunately, I think we’re doing a huge disservice to offensive football players — other than a receiver — that come out of these spread systems,” Cable continued. “The runners aren’t as good. They aren’t taught how to run. The blockers aren’t as good. The quarterbacks aren’t as good. They don’t know how to read coverage and throw progressions. They have no idea.”

Nobody is taught anything. You show up in college and they're just all like "put that hat on, the one with the bars on it, I think the bars go in front, hooray we just had practice."

There is nothing funnier than NFL coaches having little stomp fits that their QBs can't take a three step drop when they are making the same transition college is, just slightly slower. As of 2011, 38% of NFL snaps were from the gun. That shot up to 58%(!) by 2014. The NFL is going to hit the theoretical maximum by the time Tom Cable gets done talking.

Harbaugh angle on the above. It'll be interesting to see what Harbaugh does given the above environment. It's a stretch to call his Stanford offense "pro style" for a lot of reasons. It was both far more spread-friendly and far more caveman than that term implies. Andrew Luck ran his share of zone read and the Cardinal had an affection for shotgun runs on third and not quite short (IE, 3 or 4). Meanwhile they'd happily roll out a goal line formation on first and ten from their own 30.

Harbaugh was similarly extreme in both directions as an NFL coach. His first two years in San Francisco his team used fewer wide receivers per play than any other team in the league. At the same time they were introducing Colin Kaepernick as a college-ish run threat.

So the spread is dominant because people who have never seen a football can run it. At the same time you can't poke an NFL coach without that guy giving the public perception of your weird-ass offense a recruiting boost. Harbs gonna Harbs without thinking about what other people will say, of course, but I wonder if the shape of what he does is going to look significantly different than it did at Stanford.

On baseball. We had a mailbag Q that asked how Big Ten had gotten rathergood at baseball that I couldn't answer particularly well, but our former baseball writer Formerly Anonymous had an excellent comment that tackles that topic:

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RPI has changed drastically to emphasize road wins.  It's helped the northern teams quite a bit.  As an example, the Missouri Valley conference is one of the strongest conferences in RPI this year by playing tough teams in the non-conference on the road.  The top 25 in RPI includes Dallas Baptist (who I've seen and know are good), Missouri State, Radford, and Bradley.  What the hell is a Radford or a Bradley?

Add that Nebraska and Maryland were two very solid adds in the last few years.  The B1G has had several big wins over big name programs this year. 

• Illinois has wins over Coastal Carolina, and series wins over Oklahoma State and South Florida.  
• Ohio State has a signature victory over ACC leader Louisville in the midweek.
• Indiana took 2/3 from Stanford, split 2 with College of Charleston, swept Cal State Fullerton, and beat Louisville in the midweek.
• Nebraska split with Fullerton as well and swept Florida Gulf Coast. 

All of those are pretty damn impressive wins.

The big kicker though is how down the Big12 is.  They are looking at only having 2 tourney teams this year.  Texas is way down leaving just TCU and Oklahoma State in the running.  Tech has an outside shot, but its borderline.  Part of that is losing Texas A&M and Mizzou (granted they added TCU after that loss).  Baylor is down, Oklahoma is down.  They just aren't up there at the moment.

There's some structural disadvantages yes, but the amount of money put into programs like Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, or anyone else in the B1G the last few years, the B1G is definitely showing some major improvements.  We've been a 2-3 bid league for a while, we're taking advantage of a down Big12 to grab another, and our recent success in facilities/adding good teams has lead to some better recruiting.

For more in depth coverage, I suggest d1baseball.com.  They've amassed every major college baseball writer I have read over the last 15 years into one site.  Aaron Fitt (formerly of Baseball America), Eric Sorenson (ESPN/CBS), Kendall Rogers (Yahoo!), Mark Ethridge (SEBaseball), and Michael Baumann (Grantland) are just a few .  "O.M.G., it's amazing" is probably the best way to describe it.  They do regular features of different areas of the country along with national storylines. 

For B1G fans, I'd suggest starting right here for a take from that site. There's also a season update from about a month ago and an early season/preseason article about how B1G has spent big on baseball.

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Michigan can help out the league and their cause this weekend in an odd home series with #13 Oklahoma State that closes their season. Yesterday's game was a 12-2 hammering by the Cowboys, so Michigan probably has to win both tonight and tomorrow to give themselves even a faint chance of an at-large bid. The very idea a 14-10 Big Ten outfit would be on the fringe of the fringe of the bubble is a ton of progress.

Softballin'. Angelique Chengelis profiles Michigan catcher Lauren Sweet. The Wolverine softballists kick off their NCAA tournament tonight at 6 PM at Alumni Field. It's on ESPNU as well.

Etc.: In news that is, in retrospect, not surprising, Iowa and Tennessee drank every drop of liquor at their bowl game. Brendan Quinn joins the ranks of people who just don't want to hear about the Fab Five anymore. Bielfeldt to Nebrasketball? AFC Ann Arbor in the Daily. Haven't had a bread photoshop in a while. Point guard acquisition matrix. Against a 30-second shot clock.

Of local interest: there's a Barry Sanders charity raffle going on. You could play golf with him and discuss whether abruptly retiring from the Lions was a good idea or the best idea.

Note: Most of of my long "here's a handy guide for Borges complaining" post got deleted. Here's a few bits of it.

So I did the thing where I update (finally) the UFR database, then self-UFR the last game because this damn column comes before Brian does the UFR for the latest one, and then I say things about all the things. Let's just cut to the things:

Yards per play (# attempts in parentheses) of normal downs by formation.

Opponent	Shotgun	Ace	I-Form	Pistol	Tackle Over	Goal line	Total YPP
Central Michigan	6.7 (17)	7.7 (21)	7 (19)	3 (2)	-	1.5 (2)	6.8
Notre Dame	7.4 (14)	10.6 (22)	3.2 (13)	4.4 (14)	-	-	7.0
Akron	21.8 (11)	5.6 (19)	4.5 (18)	-1.8 (5)	-	-	7.6
Connecticut	5 (25)	2.8 (19)	1.8 (12)	3.5 (4)	-	4 (1)	3.6
Minnesota	6.1 (9)	4.9 (7)	1.7 (7)	-	5.8 (20)	-	5.0
Penn State	3.6 (16)	7.7 (22)	3.8 (9)	6.4 (7)	0.8 (11)	-	4.8
Indiana	7.2 (34)	14.1 (14)	8.8 (16)	4 (1)	11 (8)	-	9.2
Michigan State	5.3 (23)	7.4 (7)	1.8 (4)	0.1 (12)	-	-	4.0
Nebraska	4 (23)	0.3 (7)	1.8 (12)	6.3 (6)	-	0 (1)	3.1
Northwestern	5.4 (16)	4.7 (21)	5 (24)	11 (3)	-	-1 (2)	5.1
Iowa	2.7 (23)	1.2 (9)	5 (13)	4 (2)	-	-	3.1
Total	6.1 (33%)	6.7 (27%)	4.6 (23%)	3.6 (9%)	5.5 (6%)	0.8 (1%)	5.6

What's left out are 2-minute drills, 3rd/4th down and longer than 6, and any short situations.

And yards per play by how spread, i.e. the  # of receivers in formation, they got each game, with % of plays they lined up that way in parentheses:

Opponent	Avg WRs	None	Big	2-wide	3-wide	4-wide	Empty
Central Michigan	2.33	1.5 (3%)	2 (3%)	8.1 (56%)	7 (33%)	-1.3 (5%)	-
Notre Dame	2.29	-	-0.8 (6%)	8.6 (59%)	5.5 (35%)	-	-
Akron	2.23	-	9 (4%)	5.5 (70%)	13.5 (26%)	-	-
Connecticut	2.33	4 (2%)	2.5 (7%)	2.9 (49%)	4.5 (43%)	-	-
Minnesota	1.70	2 (5%)	4 (35%)	5.4 (47%)	7.7 (14%)	-	-
Penn State	2.14	-	5.7 (14%)	5.2 (58%)	3.7 (28%)	-	-
Indiana	2.66	-0.5 (3%)	16.2 (7%)	9.7 (40%)	10.7 (23%)	6.5 (27%)	-
Michigan State	3.00	-	-8 (2%)	4.1 (26%)	4.8 (41%)	3.6 (30%)	-
Nebraska	2.47	0 (2%)	3.7 (6%)	0.5 (43%)	6.3 (41%)	1.3 (8%)	-
Northwestern	2.15	-1 (3%)	2.2 (8%)	4.9 (64%)	5.7 (23%)	18.0 (3%)	-
Iowa	2.91	-	-1 (2%)	3.6 (38%)	2.1 (30%)	3.8 (26%)	3.5 (4%)
All games	2.38	0.8 (2%)	4.6 (8%)	5.7 (51%)	6.2 (30%)	4.8 (9%)	3.5 (<1%)

My base assumption was that when Michigan goes more spread they're putting the B+ receiving threat of Dileo, or the C+ receiving of Chesson on the field, and usually moving the C- blocking/D- receiving of A.J. Williams or Joe Kerridge off of it.

The Fetal Position Theory of Offense

However going to wider looks didn't seem to do much good against Iowa or Michigan State (that one at least M was behind for a good portion). That's because of a lot of things, one of those being that despite spreading it out, Michigan's been leaving those guys anyway. Both players are probably the best blockers of their position groups, but that's not saying much. Meanwhile they give up pretty much any threat of doing something other than blocking, and opponents have used that opportunity to tee off. Since neither is good enough to pick up a majority of those blitzes, there've been a lot of messes in the backfield as a result.

Iowa blew up Michigan's penultimate drive with back-to-back A-gap blitzes. On the first Kerridge was in to pass block and got lit up by the blitzer, who was immediately into Gardner. On the second they had Green in there and had him run a pattern that the defense ignored. With immediate pressure Gardner ignored Green and chucked a pass into an unready Funchess's back. That is progress, but the lesson is just doing the thing you ought to be good at doesn't fix the problem; you have to practice doing it as well.

Execution Issue

But even when they do spread like a boss, there's a lot of things going wrong. Look that this play, the penultimate (so rare you get to use that word twice in a day) offensive one of the game for Michigan:

Starts at 0:53:38 if browser player isn't working.

There's so many ways to win here, but nothing comes of them.

1. There's bubble action. Though of course they don't throw it despite it being open because this isn't a check (Michigan's checks are only to ISO or the pistol speed option). And Funchess, not Gallon or—infinite ARRRGHHH—Norfleet, is still the designated bubble screen guy. Anyway with the safety deep and bailing, the bubble is 7-12 free yards if Michigan can recognize it and throw it, but that has to be built into the offense. The way Borges has been using the bubble screen is on called plays. It was cool that he threatened it out of a more open look—previously it seemed his capitulation to this one play was predicated solely on its usefulness for running from heavy sets. The way Rodriguez used—and the way Urban will deploy it against us on Saturday—is it was as an instant check to things opponents did to hamper his zone read game.

Fuller captured one of the ultra-rare instances of a shotgun-Kerridge play that wasn't him blocking.

2. Tipped zone blitz. That end spread out and the obviously blitzing linebackers suggests there's going to be a zone blitz pre-snap but there's just 6 seconds on the playclock at that moment so they don't really get to adjust to that. Still, this is a win for an outside run, since that DE is going to drop back and stand where a great block would normally deposit him.

3. Center and guard versus linebackers. This ought to be a win. Those LBs stunt their blitz a bit so that the first gets a 2-for-1 and the second can slice in free. By coming up pre-snap they made it harder for Glasgow to get off the combo and pick up his guy, but he just has to come off the double and take a half-step sideways to block that gap. Here's where agility in a spread center helps you, and where the lack of it hurts Glasgow, even when he knows what he's supposed to do.

4. Magnuson starts the play far to the playside of that tackle. That's a big advantage for the offense. The DT indeed slants into Mags, then chucks him and gets to the outside, totally blowing that advantage.

5. It's Devin Gardner and Fitz Toussaint in the backfield, so chances of a missed tackle are pretty good. However Gardner is at about 45% right now because he's been beat up so badly in the last few weeks, and Toussaint's pass blocking problems are part of what's inviting these interior blitzes, since the downside for the defense (having that guy violently cut to the ground while a receiver slants into the unoccupied territory) is unlikely from Michigan's offense.

Also Jackson's is hesitant with his block, and is set up to spring Funchess to the outside, so that nickel guy is going to be free to tackle after just a few.

So going to a spread isn't going to fix everything. The formation did give them more room and opened up the bubble, but Michigan can't access those yards because they come to the line too late to see anything in the defense and adjust to it, and hasn't practiced doing that. The defensive playcall made Glasgow's athleticism the key to the key block, but that's not Glasgow's strength. And crappy blocking elsewhere meant this play was still dead in four ways. Such is Michigan's offense. They're not all good at any one thing, and they don't do the things that some of them are good at, and the end result is a lot of plays where guys are forced to execute the things they're bad at.

The Little Bubble Package: Dead?

Here's how the Bubble-or-Run package has fared:

Opponent	Runs	Bubbles	YPA
Michigan State	0	1	8.0
Northwestern	7	3	5.4
Iowa	5	2	2.4

They've adapted.

Iowa was crashing the backside SAM and had their safety ready to pounce on the bubble (even if Funchess didn't drop one). I think there's something you can do about that (dare I say rollout?). Running it against Northwestern was cool, but I would have expected Borges to know by now that's it's scouted and lead off with that third counter. Or add it to the scrap heap with the rest of the fancy things he's tried. I'm sure a picture pages is coming so I won't get further into it.