Years ago, Brian posted a UFR of a West Virginia game in order to provide his readers with a feel for how the Rodriguez spread offense worked. Nussmeier's offense at Alabama isn't so different from Michigan's under Borges in 2013, and indications are he plans to be a little more dynamic than he was under Saban. But I wanted to get a feel for the subtle differences, for the kinds of plays he ran with the kind of talent Michigan has been recruiting. And I've been meaning to actually try my had at UFR-ing because I know a guy who learned an awful lot about football that way. So I put Nussmeier's last game under further review, in hopes of maybe separating what's Nuss from what was just the Tide.

I went with this year's Sugar Bowl since they faced a defense whose talent level was relatively close to their own. Unfortunately Oklahoma's 30-front defense is closer to Michigan's than any M opponents save Notre Dame, and things you do with a fake plastic tree at quarterback are not the same you do with Devin Gardner, Most Alive Man on the Planet. I've since been downloading some games from his time at Washington and might do one of those next week if this attempt doesn't put me off forever.

Meta note: UFR is really Brian's thing. I am an interloper here.

FORMATION NOTES: Nothing very fancy. Not a lot of fullbacks; when they went to a Pistol H-back formation usually it was just a U-back they motioned into that spot. They do have a hybrid Shotgun-Pistol formation that's Pistol (QB is 5 yards behind L.O.S.) with the RB offset like in the gun. This isn't uncommon:

Oklahoma spent a lot of time in the 3-3-5 nickel above that was sometimes more like a 4-2-4-1, by which I mean the Quick (Deathbacker, stand-up WDE, Thing-Roh-Was-And-Shouldn't-Have-Been) came up to the line, and they nearly always kept one safety deep. When Bama subbed in an extra TE they went to a 3-4 with a safety playing the backside OLB; I called this "3-3-5 Eagle."

…and later started cheating this (not like how Bama does) like hell to the field:

Later on they did this then audibled out of it, moving Striker to the other side of the line; Bama hit them with a 43-yard run down the middle.

Oklahoma also used lots of Okie and things like Okie, which led to this:

From top to bottom on the line of scrimmage that is a WDE/OLB rusher type, a 3-tech, the MLB, a 5-tech, and the box (not Spur) safety, and two more safeties in the LB area. I asked for help and decided to call it 3-3-5 Dime to differentiate it from the nickel look; usually the MLB backed off into coverage anyway.

See?

Si!

[after the jump]

BANISH DOUG NUSSMEIER TO THE REMOTEST REACHES OF THE TAIGA!

ANNARBORSVLAG?

Describe this place.

Lots of snow, ice, trees, fur trappers, stubborn people from an ancient culture who mistrust any technology that wasn't used by their gods.

Do it!

It is done. Your new offensive coordinator is Lane Kiffin, who never in a million years will put up 516 yards and 31 points despite a bazillion turnovers against the 15th most efficient defense according to Fremeau.

Also I remind you now that you're a Michigan fan, not a Bama one.

I am amazingly not depressed by this fact right now.

Shall we do the drives?

Do the drives.

First half:

• Three scoring drives of 75, 65, and 80 yards that took just 15 plays combined.
• A one-play interception
• 11-play, 67-yard drive with a fumble on the 10.
• Two two-minute drills, one that's intercepted, another that results in a missed 30-yard FG.

Second half:

• Two TDs off of ridiculous plays by their freshman RB
• Two three-and-outs
• Seven-play drive that gets to midfield and punts to the 1.
• Game-sealing sack/fumble.

Except when in a two-minute drill, which was a lot of the time, Alabama's strategy was jab-jab-jab-WHAMMO. It's just that they happened to score on their jabs while only one whammo connected. What made the difference were superior athletes, not so much the play designs. There were probably 2,000 quick outs this year by college and pro offenses to an RB in the flat whose linebacker didn't shade over him, and I suspect very few of those get more than the easy 3-5 yards. You've seen bubble screens get 6-7 yards aplenty, but 53 yards on the second play of the game was all on the receiver talent.

Yeah these Alabama guys are pretty good at football. We should get some 5-star receivers.

Somebody call The Mayor.

You seemed to like their running backs. How do they compare to ours?

Derrick Henry in this game was everything we hoped to see from Derrick Green, except fast. He turned a vintage Poor Damn Toussaint opportunity into 19 yards with a subtle stop. He flat out-ran safeties who stayed with Amari Cooper and Kenny Bell and DeAndre White all day.

I mean, if Oklahoma was ever going to produce something like that 1940 Cal fan, this was his moment:

Rather, I think Alabama has produced something like Adrian Peterson.

This is all instinct and ability stuff, so RETIRE FRED JACKSON TO THE NOW-VACANT POSITION OF BELOVED EQUIPMENT MANAGER! doesn't accomplish anything. Henry was also a boss at pass protection. People will remember Anthony Thomas not doing anything in the NFL and forget what it was like watching him run over, around, through, and right by everybody as a freshman; that's who Henry immediately reminded me of.

It's hard to tell if Michigan's got a guy like that in Green or Smith, since those guys had few opportunities when JUST two dudes were collapsing on them in the backfield. If we end up with another Kevin Grady when everyone else's record-obliterating RBs obliterate other records, I be jelly.

It looked like Oklahoma's pass rush got in McCarron's head. Can't the OC do something about that?

I'm new at this. Is there a certain method you prefer that information to be presented?

You might try a…

I know.

Devin Gardner 2013

A.J. McCarron 2013

You guys should hang out. There were 9 pass plays charted as pressure, more than any from Michigan's 2013 season. There were also 5 throwaways, which you can mentally view as McCarron responding to the pressure.

The part they left out of the movie The Blind Side is all about Lawrence Taylor's terrifying outside move and how the position of left tackle grew up from that. It mentions that great defense is all about getting the pass rush into the quarterback's head, where it replaces all the progressions and timing and processing of where the WRs are. Gardner's 2013 and McCarron's bowl game are a fantastic study on this. If there's a difference between the two, it's that McCarron didn't throw it nearly as often, since he had a running game.

Oklahoma's nasty pass rusher is Erik Striker (6.5 sacks, 10.5 TFL this season as a sophomore). This opened up the outside running game some when the TEs handled him correctly, squeezed it shut when they didn't, and also gave McCarron room to roll. When he came on obvious pass downs it was all Kouandjio71 could do to keep him outside of the pocket.

This was a Sooner strategy and it worked. Final bill was a few runs and a couple of out-of-the-pocket plays in exchange for two drive-killing sacks, a game-sealing fumble, and a false start.

Teams won't try that as much against Devin Gardner; when Denard was back there it was asking for 60 yards in your face. It's a simple formula: the less mobile your QB, the more you rely on your LT to hold up against opponents who think they're LT. Nussmeier couldn't do much else than that since he spent a lot of drives a slave to the clock.

He could teach his quarterback not to throw it to cornerbacks.

Earlier in the drive Alabama showed their reaction to this blitz:

Several plays later Oklahoma said "try that again."

That's an attacking defense baiting a would-be national championship team that's down by a touchdown and trying to execute a 2-minute drill to even it up at the half. It was brilliant. I RPS minused it but it was McCarron who made the check. Mostly I think it was a great play by Oklahoma.

What do you know now about Nussmeier that you didn't before?

He'll throw a bubble screen when it's open, so he's probably alright. McCarron responded as well as can be expected to being constantly under threat, which is extrapolatedly (word?) encouraging for Gardner with Michigan's OL minus Lewan & Schofield.

Bama got most of its points this game from pure talent. UM's 2012-'13 hauls were still a little less loaded than Bama's average from the last five years, and Michigan doesn't plum the far reaches of academic plausibility, or oversign then cut those who won't make it. However there are things you can do with Drake Harris, e.g. throw it up in man-on-man coverage and expect he'll come down with it, that you wouldn't dare try with White or Cristion Jones. There's plenty of young offensive talent in Ann Arbor if it can be molded and deployed in a sensical manner.  Michigan's offensive coordinator doesn't need to engineer wide open guys to pull a few upsets; all we're asking is that he get Derrick Green past the line of scrimmage with some momentum, where our advantages that come with winged helmets can really shine.

He's not Rich Rod, committed to an offensive scheme and playing subtle games with it to catch the opponent cheating. He's not Urban Meyer, obsessed with engineering the perfect offense that never breaks down nor leaves the outcome of a game to chance. The way this game was called you could tell there's thinking behind it, not just plays strung together. The thinking was perfect for Alabama: we have superior weapons; unleash them all and see which one reaches the enemy base first.

In packages and RPSing, the Pistol H-back look was one of the most consistent yard-gainers of the day. They debuted it near the start of the 2nd quarter with a PA off a zone running look:

On the next play they lined up with this again, motioned the TE, and got 16 yards on Power O. In the 3rd quarter they brought it out and ran power again with a subtle tweak. The next drive they ran inside zone with the backside end blocked by the TE. Then they ran power again with it on the next play when the defense was expecting the PA, and then they put the TE back on the line of scrimmage and offset the RB and Oklahoma was all sorts of confused:

Later they had a pulling guard block the backside DE. This sequence made up the bulk of Nussmeier's RPS+ plays, and each wrinkle was executable (the core of it is still Bama's base play).

Do you feel the difference? In my mind, Borges would have led off with the inside zone run, because that's the base play they want to run. And then he would have run it three more times before breaking out the PA, expecting that no defensive coordinator would suspect that they have a play-action off something they just ran three times in a row. Next game they'd show the power look after the PA pass and the base zone run were smothered. Then you'd never see it again because the trick's been played. The next time Borges leads off a package of things with the counter and then the  counter to the counter will be the first.

Nussmeier's offense made sense. The new-looking stuff was based on the stuff they rep the most—inside zone. It stayed fresh by borrowing a little here and there from other offenses, just enough to keep the defense from guessing games. Rather Stoops went with high-risk/high-reward stuff that created big stops and a few big plays. Ultimately 31 points should be enough to beat teams if the defense takes that step next year that we think it will.

(Added) So it is Borges's offense except it makes sense?

Not really. It was a more spread offense (and figures to be more so at Michigan) than anything Borges has run here and used a ton of pistol. Here's a breakdown of Bama's plays this game, excluding non-normal situations (2 minute drills, goal line, short/long on conversion downs) versus Michigan's over recent years:

Spreadiness:

That's an average of 2.6 wide receivers per formation, versus 2.3 for Michigan this year in normal situations.

Formation preference:

I think this is interesting: it's the same amount of shotgun as Michigan's 2013 offense (through Iowa; Ohio State game isn't UFR'd yet). But imagine if tackle-over, half of the I-form sets, and a third of the Ace sets were given over to the pistol. I don't know if that was an adjustment to Oklahoma, or if he did it as a compromise between sense and Saban's sensibilities. But it think it would be a much better fit for Michigan next year than wasting a quarter of our downs in the I. Overall I'm much more encouraged about this hire than I was at its announcement.