The screens were pretty annoying, right? Why was Michigan not getting lined up? Why were they having so much success, even on long downs, with this tactic? What was the plan to beat them? How did they adjust? Let's dive in.

Opening up Multiple Fronts

A Walt Bell offense doesn't attack you with the normal array of football moves. They're irregulars, light infantry, moving units across the battlefield with lightning speed and choosing where to engage, which is ideally wherever you're late to arrive in force. The last thing they want to engage in is a battle in the middle. Your troops against theirs? Game over. What they would much rather do is split into two groups, always of varied compositions, use tempo to increase the likelihood of the defense failing to find their others and line up correctly, and use the second before the snap to pick one of those two widely separated points of attack to have the next engagement.

IU's trick was to create multiple fronts, separated by so much distance that defenders had to virtually declare by alignment before the snap which one they were going to be participating in. Bazelak would read the defensive alignment during the second his line was frozen and know which battleground to choose. In this case it was whether Colson (LB on the bottom) and/or Moore (safety just above the bottom hash) were part of the play near the snap or the play out in the flat.

Notice here that the line is run-blocking; they aren't told that the pull is live. But also notice that there's no mesh point; it's not an "RPO"—or at least it's not a post-snap read. The QB sees Michigan only has two guys playing way off for the three guys lined up on the field side, makes the check in his head, and throws it.

This style also dictates how you have to defend them. All those fancy pressures and coverages you use to confound an offense trying to win old-fashioned leverage battles can't help you against Indiana, because they're so spread out that none of your defenders are close enough to each other to swap jobs. Amoeba? Forget it. Want to use Cover 3 to get them guessing if the pressure's coming from the right or left? Get used to Indiana choosing your Rip/Liz calls for you.

I think that's what's going on here.

[After THE JUMP: The adjustments, the reactions, and IU runs out of ideas first]

Note the odd man out from either play is Rod Moore. Michigan sensed it was a passing down (2nd and 10) and was trying to play some Cover 3 with a rat (#28 Quinten Johnson). It's the same coverage they used to get Moten his interception a few weeks back. It's a bit nonsensical against this look because you're running Moore away from the trips side where he's bound to be needed, but there's not time to check.

The result is Michigan playing this super-duper soft. Sainristil is really the only guy lined up to take away a screen, with Turner his only other help outside, or at all for that matter. Turner's not even much help—Michigan's running their base Cover 3, which is weak in that very flat Indiana is attacking, because the cornerback is bailing to a deep outside third and the Nickel has to make sure the H doesn't get a free vertical release. When it becomes a screen, Turner is bailing, and Sainristil is all alone out there with the TE and the ball.

Worse, the most obvious guy to be defending this, the strong safety (#19 Rod Moore) is bailing for a deep middle third as well.

Sainristil got into his blocker and forced the ball to the sideline, but that's where Turner's bailed into his deep third. With a receiver given a chance to get all the way to the 1st down marker before Turner's stopped dropping back, he's of no more help than Moore.

So what's the plan for a screen? The only way Michigan could possibly have defended this is if Sainristil got playside of the tight end and funneled it back to Junior Colson, who is getting out here as fast as he can. This is a major conflict for Colson, who until the ball is thrown does not know his meeting at the running play's intended gap has been canceled. He's reading the backside pullers and readying to clock the LT if he tried to come a power gap. Colson is the only defense against that run. It's coming right at him.

But if you think you've got a special athlete in Colson who can get over there AFTER the ball is thrown, and a special player in Sainristil who can get across his blocker and keep this from getting to the sideline, I kinda see how it might work.

This next one has four IU players for three Michigan defenders outside of the hash mark.

Again, the only way this possible works based on Michigan's alignment is if those defenders can get a two-for-one. That's a big ask for defensive backs who also have to cover these guys until they become blockers. There's nobody for the jackrabbit until either that side's LB (Colson) or Safety (Moore) arrive.

That might actually be what Michigan's thought process was. No, I don't think Moore (#19) is supposed to get there. I think Green and Sainristil are supposed to push it back inside to Colson.

The clue is the communication, or rather miscommunication between Green and Sainristil. Indiana is in an illegal formation here. The X is waving at the ref to approve that he's within a yard of the line of scrimmage; he's not but the ref doesn't have time to respond before the snap. Tempo!

The unbalanced formation has drawn Green over to line up behind Sainristil. Sainristil is motioning at Green. Green is motioning at Sainristil. I don't know what their exact checks are but I assume part of it is deciding if the guy is an eligible receiver (ergo one of them has to cover the guy) or not. But the biggest deal is who gets what side.

Then Green motions the other way.

Then they both step inside at the snap.

I'm guessing if they had a moment to figure it out that one of them was supposed to shoot outside and reset the line of scrimmage so the back had to cut inside. It actually sorta works with how quickly Colson got out there. You just need Green to shoot up into this guy and Sainristil to keep his WR close enough to Green, not letting the guy edge him. If the A-back has to cut back he's running into Colson. Moore's still well out of the equation.

It didn't work, but…it could have? Asking your guys to make a play like that is quite a lot, but I sort of see the tradeoff. Instead of Indiana dictating where the battle takes place, Michigan gets to keep their material in the middle of the field and force the Hoosiers to come back to it. In the meantime, fake screens and all the other counters to Indiana's base don't work because that's what Michigan's taking away. Beat them from a disadvantage and there's nowhere to go. Fail to do so and it's a couple of first downs.

Failing to do so

The key to Indiana's success wasn't necessarily the scheme but that Michigan wasn't able to get lined up how they wanted because of IU's tempo. After a play you could be all over the field and facing any direction. You head to the middle of the field, find your opposite on the other team, and get lined up. Too many times Michigan players were often still in the middle of the field and looking when the ball was ready to snap. Fox kept cutting to close-ups instead of showing replays or watching them line up but I managed to get one example of Michigan trying because they were so late on this one.

IU's guys were sprinting to the bottom of the field while Jimmy Rolder, a true freshman linebacker, is checking with his mates on his next assignment. Then he settles into his linebacker spot, peers into the backfield, and is like "Wait, wasn't there supposed to be a running back?"

On first watch I saw four guys on three, Bazelak making the sight read, and figured Rolder had true freshman question marks popping out of his head. He does, but watch how the two inside DBs played it.

It's tough because you can't leave that blocker without risking a pass from the RB; Moore and Sainristil were both trying to shove their guys upfield until the RB committed to crossing the line of scrimmage. If they could have won those blocks outside, or push those guys off at that point, however, they might think Rolder is on the way, and they've got a shot at holding this down. Rolder isn't on the way, or at least not anytime soon, so they retreat to the 5 yard line and live to stuff another day.

It was sometimes hard to tell those from the full-on busts. Here's Colson, still just a true sophomore, who 10 seconds after the last play ended doesn't know which side of the formation his RB went to.

The guy is actually all the way at the top, beyond the numbers, IE as far away from Colson's check-in point as possible. This is the point: Indiana practices getting into wide and weird sets then snapping it before you're lined up, thus mitigating the need for their offensive linemen to block anything. Also this was a sack.

The above play is also why Michigan may have been trying to preserve as many guys in the box as possible. Colson hanging around until the last minute might even have added to the mystery. That IU line was even more disorganized than any of us were ready to believe, unable to handle even a smidge of uncertainty in their protection assignments.

So they didn't. They spread everybody out and hiked before even bothering to Mike. That's actually a smart response if you're going up against an Amoeba defense, whose whole deal is wandering around before the snap disguising coverages and rushing lanes. Everyone's so far away from each other they're pretty well locked in with whichever offensive threat happens to be in the area. It's also hard to confuse a quarterback who's only allowed one place to go with the ball. As soon as Indiana went to a tight formation Michigan was like "YES FINALLY" and blitzed their faces off while dropping dudes directly into the quick outlets this was supposed to create:

Did they adjust or just get better at doing this?

It was an adjustment. Indiana was still trying to create numbers advantages but Michigan gave up on trying to have their strong safety rotate high while Colson plays both plays, capitulating to IU's demands that everybody declare what they're doing before the snap. Watch Rod Moore, the safety on the bottom hash, on the first play again.

Now compare with this play (he's in the same spot):

Moore's dropping down as soon as the Bazelak makes his sight read. Michigan also dropped the cornerbacks down into more press coverage, even if they were still going to bail, since they weren't really having any trouble keeping up. It didn't really change their roles against screens—I don't think I have any CB tackles against those. But it may have caused a few run reads.

IU had an adjustment planned for this, of course. They started using #12, their RB/WR jitterbug, as a second back, hoping to get him matched on a linebacker. That happened occasionally but Michigan settled into having a safety chase him. After awhile any time that guy went wide, a safety came down to add himself to the box. If that made the coverage easy to guess at, who cares: Bazelak's not exactly going to tear us up downfield.

I didn't clip earlier examples but this was the standard procedure after halftime. No more rotating. No more funny Amoeba games. Just match a guy to a guy and let the Hoosiers pick which fair battlefield to fight on. Indiana didn't put their 2RB Flare Screen game to bed, but Michigan did it for them. The screen that Mason Graham killed was supposed to be a counter to the defense reacting to the flare.

Pre-snap it does look like he's going to be able to take the flare screen, which is a live option. With the other safety bailing deep when Makari Paige screams down the offense should have numbers, figuring at least one defender (maybe one who doesn't have one yet) will try to sack Bazelak.

But Michigan sniffed out the slip screen, with Graham watching the RB instead of going for the quarterback out of his spin move. Jaylen Harrell was curling back on the slip screen as well. I guess they figured the inside play was unlikely to be "sit in the pocket and survey."

And once that was sniffed out, Indiana was out of plays. That's one of the negatives of IU's offense. You can run a lot of things, but you can only still install the same number of plays as anybody else. If you're averaging 90 snaps a game versus 55, there are going to be a lot of repeats, and three-peats. Eventually they figure it out.

Any more confusion?

Yes, IU had one more trick. With the numbers matched, the only other major issue was making sure defenders tagged their offensive players. This led to a midgame metagame of Indiana swapping players in and out, and Michigan trying maximize how long the exchanges took so their guys could make their new marks. This was some rules gaming: if the offense takes a player off the field the defense gets to make a switch as well, and nothing says they have to be quick about it.

To the bad: these officials weren't past planting a ball then arresting Michigan for possession of an extra cornerback:

To the good, when the officials didn't blow IU was forced to take a timeout, and on another play they were getting noticeably annoyed about the whole thing. Also to the good: Michigan figured out how to get everyone accounted for. As of this point there was no more flailing about between linebackers and safeties (at least not until the red zone when they're all linebackers) over who should head outside when an offensive player motioned out there. Moore casually rolls down as Moten drops to the middle third. His flare taken away, Bazelak chucks it away.