Film Analysis Ep 1.1 - Pass Offense Struggles vs. ND

Good stuff.

Ugh, Runyan.

Great stuff! The text overlays are good but it would be nice to have voiceover as well if you have considered adding it for a bit if detail and to break the silence.

I thought the 2nd play "jump ball" was pass interference. Borderline call but it didn't get tipped and the defender sort of climbs him to go up for it. Looks like an "over the back" call in basketball.

Just echoing other posters. These are great and glad to see them back. I always have difficulty seeing what Brian sees from his UFR stills and just take his word for it. The videos, slow motion, and visual effects help a ton on a subset of plays. 

Really well done!  Thank you

Jesus, Bosa is going to eat Runyan up....

IMO, OL was bad but some of these plays were just defeated. Multiple times we would have been successful if the first or 2nd receiver won their route. And I think Shea needs to step into the pocket a bit. Stepping back or right or left only exposes him to the guys coming around his tackles.

1st play - Shea needs to put that throw on the hash marks instead of the numbers. Maybe Collins needs to do a bit better. The OL could do better, but  Shea completes his drop and steps into the throw. It is under pressure, but he is able to make that play.

2nd play - Bad OL call. True Soph during 1st start though.

3rd play - Playcall, WRs, QB, then OL is to blame. Stunts take a long time to hit home. When Shea completes his drop, the guy who sacks is still at the LOS. We only need 6 yards, and shouldn't have to protect forever.

• Playcall/WR - Shea on 3 step drop, Collins isn't even running a route. Perry losses on the slant, and converts it to an outside route that is too little to late. Gentry runs into double coverage.d 6.
• QB - DPJ is open out of his break. Shea needs to step up into the pocket and pull the trigger on that throw.
• OL - Could have handled the stunt better.

4th play - Notre Dame just won. Mason, McKeon, or DPJ are well covered and Gentry lost his route badly. OL lets thru pressure which takes away Shea's 5th option (his legs). Shea makes the mistake after seeing his first two reads are covered. He needs to step into the pocket to get to his third read. Instead he hops back another yard and a half and opens himself up to pressure from the right. Step up and put a ball in the Gentry-zone or throw it away.

5th play - all on Ruiz. Again, true soph during 1st start. They are running PA, and the Mike isn't blitzing, he is going after Higdon. The PA completely sucks in the LB. Perfect, exactly what we want! Ruiz has to be ready for that and be in position to block. Higdon has no chance when Ruiz shades that far right.

6th play - Runyan beat. OL needs to give QB more time on 3rd and 10. Notre Dame won the RPS too. Higdon is double covered deep. Perry is covered on the out. The other side of the field doesn't matter after McCaffery reads left first. But DPJ might go the distance if he throws out to him first. LB on Gentry is looking at the QB. Martin has his block set up and Gentry is there to blow back DPJ's corner. Easy 10 yards out there.

7th play - OL beat by a stunt. Stunts still take forever to get home, especially when the DT has to go outside 2 of his guys. Shea makes things worse by stepping to the left after finishing his drop instead of up and to the right where he can save Runyan/Ruiz's mess and could have hit DPJ out of his break or Evans in the flat. The OL ends up winning on that side as well. Being a yard up and to his right instead of a yard left would have put him in prime position to take the running lane he sees after it is too late. 

this is more worthy of a diary post than half the ones posted

Not to add onto your duties, but it would be really interesting to see some successful plays get broken down in this manner as well.  Maybe that would be treading too far into UFR territory?

A couple of uneducated thoughts:

• On the ball where McKeon had to box out to prevent a near interception, was the ball tipped or was Patterson's arm just hit?  If the ball wasn't tipped, then that should have been pass interference, right?  The DB climbs over McKeon's back before the ball arrives.
• On the INT you gave most of the blame to Higdon, and I agree that he did poorly.  But I think Ruiz needs more of the blame on this one.  It is debatable whether he even needs to step to the right immediately (before checking blitzers).  There are more protectors than rushers to his right and his footwork seems terrible, stumbling off balance as he tries to recover.  
• On the fumble, WTF was Ruiz doing??  I've never seen an OL chase his defender two spots over on the line.  Even after he biffs handing off to Bredeson he could still amazingly hand off to Runyan and take his guy for this play to work.

Runyan was bad in this game, but Ruiz had a couple of major issues too in my opinion.  

Regarding the 2nd play.

If the ball was never tipped, should that have been called a defensive PI?

Nice dissection.

Given the porous offensive line play, I hated the empty back field sets and you know ND just LOVED to see us line up like that.  THEY LOVED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

These videos are really fantastic. Thank you for your hard work on them. I learned a ton!

on the same token, from the mistakes we made, how “easy” is it to address our problems? Are we doing 101 stuff here, or in our PhD?!?! I have no sense for the “lift” required to go from where we are today to serviceable.

on the first play, I have no idea what Onwenu could be looking at to react so late to the DT beating Ruiz.  its like he doesn't even see him until he is almost past him.

Great stuff my man!

I do my own "UFR" stuff and while it may not be new thread worthy I will share my review points here.

Yes Runyan was bad, but Ruiz and JBB were also quite terrible this game. I think if JBB was playing LT this game he would have done as bad or worse than Runyan. Owenu made mistakes but overall I thought was not bad. I was really disappointed is Bredeson's frosh to soph jump but thought he played excellent this game. He was simply great. Very high on him.

DPJ was really struggling blocking on the edge. McElwain said he played too much and he was gassed while on the field. Umbig11 said DPJ has been a +blocker in practice. I really hope this was an endurance thing and not him just sucking at blocking this year.

Last year we had zero QBs and this year we already have 2? Dylan did a fine job considering the circumstances and was actually moving the offense a bit. Very encouraging to see. Patterson is really good. Yes he made mistakes but he was behind the 8 ball all game due to terrible blocking and cramp issues. For his 1st game here he did well and showed a lot of skill we aren't used to seeing at the position here. He will only get better and we should still be very excited about him. 

Higdon was not great, nor bad, just ok. Ran hard but missed a couple lanes that could have turned into something. He made some decent blocks but also made some very poor ones. Need a dependable blocking back! Where the hell did Evans go? he needs to be utilized! I cringed when I saw Higdon line up outside in a 5 wide while Evans was on the bench. 

Gentry looks like Tarzan but plays like Jane once the ball is in the air. His frame and athleticism are A+. Highpointing the ball and attacking to the ball still looks to be a weak point for our receivers. Speaking of which...Hawkins can not let a small receiver make that play! Other than that though, Hawkins played really well. He will start next year.

I thought Metellus looked good before rightfully getting kicked out. Kinnel will make some plays but also likely lead the team in missed tackles. Bush, Gary, and Winovich are beasts. I would like to see both our DEs learn some inside moves however. Mone is exactly what you'd expect, a big stout run stuffer...nothing more nothing less. Marshall needs to play less DT and stay upright more. Dwumfour hype is currently still just hype. He played alright, but nothing special. Why did Solomon barely play? We need him.

Ross can hit! He made mistakes, but not as many as Gil. Both were a weak point this game but I'd expect improvement from both. Gil needs to stop over pursuing run plays, but at least he runs very fast.

Our CBs weren't elite but did better than most are probably thinking. We are still in excellent shape here. No worries for me.

Let's see Ambry return punts. DPJ made another poor decision and just doesn't have the short area burst you'd like to see from a punt returner.

Best offensive grades go to Perry and Bredeson. Worst go to Runyan, Ruiz, and JBB.

Best defensive grades go to Winovich, Bush, Gary, Watson(big points for the pick). Worst go to Gil and Kinnel. I though Kinnel played better on first glance than what I actually graded on review, if thats worth anything. 

Play 1: Couldn't Shea have seen that Collins "lost" the route, but had a new post route wide open? Instead of throwing to the original planned route, why not throw it to a bunch of open space (didn't look like there was a safety over there) and hope your WR makes a play?

Play 2: Definitely on Ruiz. And why isn't that a PI? Dude climbed all over Gentry's back? 

Play 3: Terrible play call. Have three receiving options all running to the short side of the field. Why not try a jump ball to DPJ on the far side? Throw to the pylon and hope your ultra-athlete makes a play? Bad on the line, but no fault to Shea (unless he has power to audible, then he should have adjusted the play before the snap). 

Play 4: I think it's on Ruiz. He over-committed to helping Onwenu instead of just stepping back and making sure nobody comes through the middle. Higdon definitely needs to do more, but that LB is running almost full speed. Tough task for a RB. 

Play 5: 100% on Runyan. Dylan possibly could have thrown one to the sidelines where only Perry can get it, but that LB is right there reading his eyes, so it'd be a dangerous throw if you leave it in the playing field. 

Play 6: 100% on Ruiz. Can't try running around the entire left side to block a stunting linemen. 

In summary: ND's experience and talent on the DL was way too much for Runyan and Ruiz. Their D-Coordinator knew exactly how to attack our OL, and their guys executed the plays. 

Let's hope our OL gets better every week, because the B1G is loaded with great DL and D-Coordinators. We won't win against NW, Wisconsin, MSU, PSU, or OSU if the OL can't fix these mistakes.

This is outstanding. I disagree with some of the analysis (first thing coming to mind: Ruiz is not the culprit in the second play) but this is well-thought-out and absolutely tremendous presentation. It's probably a lot of work but I'd love to see it every week. 

Bravo.

The goal line play action play isn't successful because Mason is too late turning his head around. If Mason gets out in the flat quickly and gets his head around to Patterson, this is an easy dumpoff TD to the fullback. Left side of the line is "run blocking" to hold LBs. Not designed for the QB to hold the ball for long. Patterson should throw this into the cheap seats if nothing is there. Easy read, for the QB, but he tried to "make a play" instead of be smart. 

This is great stuff

That was an excellent break down. I really like how you highlight each player to explain what he's doing and where things either go right or go wrong. Fantastic work!

Runyan does not have the feet to play tackle.   He is not coordinated enough.   That will never change.  Mayfield or Hudson have to play now with the hope that they achieve upside.  

Thanks for doing this. As a football novice, the explanations and rewinding the play each time really made what was happening easier to understand. Looking forward to the rest of them.

Good stuff.  

My issue with the second pass attempt is that someone should have audibled to either pull someone else to block or become an immediate outlet.  Like, any of the inside receivers could have taken a step and turned right around and been wide open before the ND secondary had a chance to respond.  Or just immediately cut across the back of the defensive line and gotten open.  

The only really concerning issue I had with the playcalling is that they rarely changed the play once they got to the line.  So if ND lined up to take advantage of it, Michigan rarely, if ever, responded.

Great stuff, man. I left feeling worse about Ruiz, better about JBB, and about the same as Runyan (which wasn't good). 

After watching these, I blame Patterson more. He needs to make his presnap reads more accurately and more decisively. He has to recognize the hot read in a stacked front in a 5-wide, not back formation. 

He should’ve put the ball on Mason on the goal-line.

Collins was pushed inside, yeah, but he should’ve seen that and put it down the middle.

As much as people want to completely blame the offensive line, he was holding the ball too long against a pretty good defensive front 7. 

He has to make and trust his reads. Hopefully he focuses on it this week, because he’s a super talent. Inconsistent in game one.

As the young kids say, this shit is fire 

Thanks, Ozzy. Great Stuff.

Never saw any lineman standing around Kalisesque looking for someone to block, that is at least encouraging.