Breakdown Sports

  A look at the fourth quarter of the Michigan vs Ohio State football game in the 2022 season. Previously 1st Quarter - LINK 2nd Quarter - LINK 3rd Quarter - LINK Film Review - 4th Quarter

 A look at the third quarter of the Michigan vs Ohio State football game in the 2022 season. Previously 1st Quarter - LINK 2nd Quarter - LINK Film Review - 3rd Quarter

  A look at the second quarter of the Michigan vs Ohio State football game in the 2022 season. Previously 1st Quarter - LINK 2nd Quarter Cover 0 double rat. I don’t like it much without a pressure look added too it, too much time vs man. But that’s not the problem here, coverage just poor, but a poor throw bails OSU out pic.twitter.com/8tMuqurDSV — Space Coyote (@SpaceCoyoteBDS) November 29, 2022

 A look at the first quarter of the Michigan vs Ohio State football game in the 2022 season. First play, Michigan vs Ohio State IZ RPO. Single high Cover 1. Call gets booted into the sideline pic.twitter.com/ucWnNWH7vV — Space Coyote (@SpaceCoyoteBDS) November 29, 2022

 A look at the first quarter of the MSU vs Michigan football game in the 2022 season. First play, MSU vs UM. One of the few well blocked run plays gets UM in kind of a unique front game. Nice gain for the RB on split zone pic.twitter.com/IPTKVNxvZI — Space Coyote (@SpaceCoyoteBDS) November 1, 2022

 The Michigan State Spartans will face off with the Michigan Wolverines on October 29th for the Paul Bunyan trophy in Ann Arbor, MI. This serves as my preview for the match up. Courtesy photo/Michigan State University Film Review 2022 Penn State vs Michigan - LINK 2022 Wisconsin vs Michigan State - LINK 2021 Michigan vs Michigan State - Part 1 and Part 2 All Michigan - LINK All MSU - LINK

Film review of the 1st half of the 2022 Wisconsin vs Michigan State football game. First play Wisconsin vs MSU IZ from 11P vs a 3-4 pic.twitter.com/bNyjVSQyBk — Space Coyote (@SpaceCoyoteBDS) October 27, 2022

 Film review of the 1st half of the 2022 Penn State at Michigan football game. First play: Penn State vs Michigan Pistol with Jet motion. Quick game Spacing + Stick. Just feeling out the PSU response pic.twitter.com/l6X77cJork — Space Coyote (@SpaceCoyoteBDS) October 18, 2022

Film review of the 1st half from the 2022 Wisconsin at Ohio State football game. First play Wisconsin - OSU. Split OZ. Eyes an issue on the front side pic.twitter.com/n1sRqnFAac — Space Coyote (@SpaceCoyoteBDS) October 7, 2022

 Film review of the 2nd through 4th quarter of the Maryland at Michigan football game in the 2022 season. Bit of good offense and defense here. Maryland wants the rail route, it’s taken away. Nice job moving to the comeback route pic.twitter.com/On1RgJCtw1 — Space Coyote (@SpaceCoyoteBDS) October 4, 2022

 Film review from the 1st Quarter of the 2022 Maryland at Michigan football game. Aside: If you're interested in Michigan Defensive breakdowns, I suggest following Colin. He's been doing this all year, puts it in convenient threads. Always informative https://t.co/45C4FG3pIv — Space Coyote (@SpaceCoyoteBDS) September 28, 2022 And now:  First play, Michigan vs Maryland. Little RPO action pic.twitter.com/iLW64BFY3y — Space Coyote (@SpaceCoyoteBDS) September 28, 2022

 In a Twitter thread, I provide my thoughts on the current state of the Iowa Offense in the 2022 season Hi Everybody! Here's my semi-annual defense of the Ferentz offensive system! pic.twitter.com/obvXTgMiFy — Space Coyote (@SpaceCoyoteBDS) October 4, 2022 The Offense Today The system itself is still sound, in the year 2022. While the Ferentz way of running outside zone differs a bit from others, you see outside zone (OZ) based systems proliferating throughout the NFL with the Rams, 49ers, and Packers (though, we should note, those systems are starting to use more gap schemes too).  The boot action, the flood concepts, the vertical shots off the run action, all of that is still, in this day, great. With the shift to a lot of man/zone match principles on defense, this sort of run pass conflict and threatening both sides of the formation is very hard to defend.

 Film review of the first half of PSU vs Auburn, 2022 First play PSU-Auburn. Duo. Best run blocked play from PSU in half a decade pic.twitter.com/wuPuSyKLvF — Space Coyote (@SpaceCoyoteBDS) September 26, 2022

 Film review of the two first defensive drives for Michigan State vs Washington in 2022. First play MSU-Washington. DT saves the day here pic.twitter.com/yG8yA8gtLS — Space Coyote (@SpaceCoyoteBDS) September 23, 2022

Film review from the 2022 game against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the Ohio State Buckeyes. First play OSU-ND CB blitz first play of the season!? Ballsy. Who I actually want to focus on is the DE here though pic.twitter.com/OJCP5ZekOG — Space Coyote (@SpaceCoyoteBDS) September 7, 2022

 Film review from the 1st half of Nebraska Offense vs Northwestern Defense 2022 First play of B1G 2022 Nice start for Nebraska. Little IZ + Bubble RPO. Quick simple read. Get the ball out and go pic.twitter.com/K7BsxZqmNo — Space Coyote (@SpaceCoyoteBDS) September 2, 2022

 I've put together some tweets, but didn't get as in-depth as I originally wanted to. That said, I believe I have enough for at least an initial primer of the Jim Knowles defense. Jim Knowles has a pretty diverse background, starting as a primarily 4-3 coach, growing into a 4-2-5 coach at Duke, and finally transitioning to the 3-high safety coach at Oklahoma State which he is known for today. Still, he didn't lose all the tricks in the bag that he developed over the years, so let's take a look. Ohiostatebuckeyes.com

 We've now had an opportunity to look at the general scheme and various run tags Michigan deploys , as well as how they can modify things post-snap . But as any football coach will tell you, all the scheme in the world can't make up for poor execution. Michigan, in their run game, was a well oiled machine. It was clear on film that they were well coached and I want to take a look at some of that now.

In Part 1 of this series, we looked at the basics of the Michigan Counter package, including the five basic schemes (Counter OH, Counter OF, Counter OT, Counter HF, and Counter O). We also looked at run game tags that can be applied pre-snap to modify blocking assignments, and when to incorporate them. In this part, we are going to look at Post-Snap Modifiers (i.e. reads), and how Counter serves as protection of other schemes, and how Michigan protected Counter within their scheme.

 Michigan only ran Counter to the wide side of the field approximately 25% of the time. But against Nebraska and their 2-high heavy, sky force favored defense, Michigan decided to aim their attack to the field more often than usual. This led to some sequencing in their Counter/RPO scheme. Counter + Short Motion In running Counter to the field, Michigan would bring the outside WR in short motion into the formation, giving him a better path to the safety and force the CB into run support. Michigan Strong Counter OH pic.twitter.com/ix4tuaKROv — TalkingDogBDS (@TalkingDogBDS) May 30, 2022 Notice how hard the safety tries to buzz down, and how delayed the CB is in their coverage scheme to commit to the run. This allows Michigan to maintain a numbers advantage at the point of attack and force secondary run defenders to clean up. They did this twice, though the second time Nebraska had on a unique coverage call. Michigan Strong Counter OH pic.twitter.com/pjIO2p1iVj — TalkingDogBDS (@TalkingD

 While the most utilized run scheme for Michigan throughout the duration of 2021 may have been Inside Zone  (specifically, split zone ), it was Counter that ended up as their most effective play . This post is going to look at how Michigan utilized a few counter schemes and a number of tags in order to execute the play at a high level. We’re also going to look at a few variations that they included to break tendencies, and a few other plays that serves as protection for the rest of the playbook.  

 In this post, we're going to look at A-Gap Power. A-Gap Power itself is not new. As I detailed in "History and Evolution: Power O" , what we know today as standard power was really the B/C gap constraint to the more traditionally Power Sweep. But by the late 70s and early 80s, you started to see variants of A-Gap Power schemes appear as teams wanted to protect their off tackle runs by showing a puller, but hitting inside. Teams like NDSU and Wyoming made a lot of hay off a specific type of A-gap Power, and as they've had success and their former coaches and disciples and knowledge have branched out all across football, you see this specific type of A-Gap Power arise elsewhere. This post is going to go over a few of the basics of A-Gap Power.

 A quick look at Michigan running Unbalanced Counter CH/OH to the weakside of the formation.

Despite heavily featuring gap run schemes throughout the year, Michigan's plan when facing the vaunted Wisconsin run defense included almost the total elimination of pulling offensive line. In an effort to maintain part of their core playbook, they leaned on a 3-back style offense and "Pull Replace" (replacing a traditional offensive line pull with a back executing the assignment) to retain part of their Counter playbook. In this post, we are going to look at how the Wolverines executed Counter HF from an unbalanced look, how the Badgers responded, and how this scheme can be sequenced off of and run against a variety of formations.

Quickly, I wanted to talk about how Wisconsin is so good at defending gap run schemes. In the video below, I talk about what makes the Badgers defense so good in that regard. Have gotten some love from Wisconsin, so here’s some love back. Watch how well the whole front plays this gap scheme. Box player keeps it inside. 4T holds up to down block. NT fights back on combo. PSLB scrapes right off 4T butt into hole. BSLB ball hits all the way outside PSLB pic.twitter.com/wO4wkAniak — Space Coyote (@SpaceCoyoteBDS) June 15, 2022

This post features a series of tweets discussing OL technique on a north/south (veritical) double team. PSU Watch the C. Watch his 2nd step (left foot) His eyes are on LB. He knows he needs to check him. But as he opens with his right foot, he lunges forward with his left, and now is off balance. If he moves his left foot laterally or with depth, he can stay square and redirect pic.twitter.com/1MZ901ULQK — Space Coyote (@SpaceCoyoteBDS) February 10, 2022

Along the offensive line, it is important to have various techniques and calls that can optimize player strengths, match ups, and angles, and give the opponent different looks. A "Club Block" is a backside combination block in which the backside end man on the LOS (EMOL) will work immediately to the second level, and the blocker inside of him will work out to the end. Club Block 2014 49ers Playbook In our case, we'll use it as an exchange block between the Back Side Guard (BSG) and Back Side Tackle (BST) as well as between a Back Side TE (BSTE) and BST, with the caveat that it is always the EMOL that is releasing directly to the 2nd level.

  I breakdown interesting plays - schematically, technically, and from and execution standpoint - from the 2021 Ohio State at Michigan football game. Just the film this week, but as always, you can find links to previous films reviews for overall summaries of each team provided the tags for each post. Each team has a tag. Other Michigan Reviews:  LINK Other Ohio State Reviews:  LINK All Film Reviews:  LINK All 2021 Season:  LINK First play of the second half OSU vs UM. OSU goes rare IZ from pistol. UM shows two high but rotates to C3 Buzz. Decent gain pic.twitter.com/sRSbSy4tQV — Space Coyote (@SpaceCoyoteBDS) May 10, 2022

 An interesting twist on a fairly simple sail concept from Michigan State. Let's take a look.

Against Northwestern's primarily two-high defense, Michigan State found a wrinkle that was effective for their run scheme out of a 3x1 formations (three receivers to one side of the formation, one receiver to the other side). Primarily a zone team, MSU attacked the Wildcats with a mix of Zone Windback and Counter OT . Let's take a quick look at their use of Counter.

 I breakdown interesting plays - schematically, technically, and from and execution standpoint - from the 2021 Michigan vs Georgia CFP semi-final game. Part I: HERE Stretch from Michigan. Anticipated this after the SECCG. From a technical standpoint, it’s actually pretty well blocked. But the C gets held up by the NT and senses a LB run through, which causes a miscommunication between C and LG pic.twitter.com/X83Kziox35 — Space Coyote (@SpaceCoyoteBDS) January 25, 2022

 Down G is a play that once featured heavily in a lot of prostyle offenses, only to go out of vogue in the modern spread era. But as teams have begun incorporating more TEs back into the formation, and have felt the need to implement more gap schemes back into the zone dominant offenses, Down G has been a play that has allowed them to get there. I've previously written about Down G , and how it acts as zone on the backside, and guard kick out on the front side. It is essentially a frontside version of pin and pull, and many will even run it that way if the Center is also uncovered and free to pull. Against Michigan State in the opening game of the season, Northwestern to get outside the Spartan defensive ends setting the edge. With a mismatch also on the interior of the OL, Northwestern started dabbling in Down G to utilize the DE's momentum upfield and out, and pin the defensive front inside. From their TE-Wing look, they were also able to sequence the play with a vertical pla

 Against Ohio State, the Golden Gophers got two critical 3rd down stops going to their Cover 2 from their 3-Down, mugged up look. Let's take a look at how it works.

A high level look at the 2021 Wisconsin Offense vs the Penn State Defense Wisconsin PSU gets a little stuck with an interior stunt. But great example of a WR getting to a primary run fit defender and breaking this run open. Great angle into the block pic.twitter.com/1oT9DH00W5 — TalkingDogBDS (@TalkingDogBDS) February 23, 2022

Previously, we looked at why throw back plays work. Next, we looked at OSU taking advantage of the throw back in their play against Minnesota This post will look at different version of the throw back that can be added to your playbook. Elsewhere - Leak Everyone has talked about leak, but at least on my blog, I've never explicitly wrote about it. So let's say this is the chance. Here is a diagram of leak: 2016 Falcons Playbook There are lots of iterations of Leak now, but I want to point out a few things that I like better than others.

I talked previously about how teams sequence the throw back into their run and boot gam e. By threatening run, boot, and throwback, you maintain a threat over the full field. In the Buckeye's opening game against Minnesota in 2021, they actually started attacking Minnesota with the throwback plays before even really delving into the boot action. Seeing how Minnesota reacted to the stretch action and boot action, Ohio State felt that they could win their matchups with their WRs in a space. Let's take a look at how OSU attacked three of the four levels in their throw back game. RB Rail, TE Delay An inversion of the standard "Leak" concept . What I like about this is that the initial alert is the RB running the rail. I've often talked about how the most forgotten person on the field is the player that just received the fake handoff. Defenses naturally eliminate that player as an eligible receiver, and as such, he often becomes the most dangerous person on the field.

A high level look at Penn State Offense vs Wisconsin Defense, 2021.  “Favre 3” from Wisconsin? — Space Coyote (@SpaceCoyoteBDS) February 10, 2022

This game was originally looked at here in more detail This is a high level look at Michigan State vs Northwestern in the 2021 season. MSU 6T DE executes push-pull on TE. Cuts off puller pic.twitter.com/JRxJCDstZr — Space Coyote (@SpaceCoyoteBDS) February 8, 2022

 In offensive football, we often talk about the act of "sequencing plays". What this means is that we initially build a base play. Once a defense does something unsound to stop that base play, we "sequence" a "constraint" play designed to take advantage of that unsoundness. Once the defense responds to that "constraint", we further the iteration to take advantage of that response. In this post, we are going to look at the sequence of events that leads to running throw back plays. 2014 Falcons Playbook -  Sequencing

 A high level look at Ohio State offense vs Minnesota Defense. Game previously looked at in detail here .

 A high level look at Minnesota Offense vs Ohio State Defense. Game previously looked at in more detail here. Hard to see hands but looks like we have some placement issues at C and 6th OL as well that could have sprung this — Space Coyote (@SpaceCoyoteBDS) January 26, 2022

A high level look at Nebraska Offense vs Illinois Defense, 2021  Nebraska vs Illinois Stack alignment. Between CB and Safety someone busts. Either CB should take vertical, or safety needs to gain width, depending on if they are just running their coverage or making a stack adjustment. Hard throw, which may be why safety playing so far inside pic.twitter.com/nmRpt6ALnX — Space Coyote (@SpaceCoyoteBDS) January 20, 2022

I breakdown interesting plays - schematically, technically, and from and execution standpoint - from the 2021 Michigan vs Georgia CFP semi-final game. First play, Georgia vs Michigan. Single back power. Michigan gets some wins actually but can’t finish, and then RB does really well to get skinny and north/south pic.twitter.com/njdeOGbnND — Space Coyote (@SpaceCoyoteBDS) January 7, 2022

A high level look at Illinois Offense vs Nebraska Defense, 2021 Illinois Under center trap pass. Simulate power, TE crosses the formation and catches ball behind WILL. Space cleared out by post-wheel pic.twitter.com/EUyrFKpQBL — Space Coyote (@SpaceCoyoteBDS) January 19, 2022