Breakdown Sports

The best concepts in football tend to build off of other known tendencies. In both the run game and the pass game (and the play action pass game), it is easiest to scheme success when telling the defense one thing, initially, and then turning it into something different. In this post, we're going to look at how Michigan has built off of established tendencies to force the defense to respect multiple things. Kirthmon F Dozier, Detroit Free Press

We are going to continue our look at various passing concepts, this time with 2x2 and mirrored passing concepts. In this post we are going to trim out the concepts that are designed to attack the middle of the field and put those into a separate post. 2x2 concepts allow an offense to attack a defense based on post-snap looks and coverages via a simple read of the safety. Completely mirrored concepts, when the same concept is run on the both sides of the formation (such as all-hitches), is something of which I'm not a huge fan, but there are advantages to it. You look at something like all-hitches, which overloads underneath zones, and you see a viable option in the short passing game against zone heavy teams; similarly, completely mirrored concepts can allow you to pick on certain defenders or to a certain side of the field based on defensive look. We'll also look at "base" concepts, which see the outside receivers run the same route, and a third receiver work the mid...

If you've been reading me for a while, you've noted that I'm a big fan of switch concepts. I like them for quite a few reasons: They force the defense to define their coverage They force the defense to define their leverage They help attack defenses from a variety of positions/places They can naturally alter the timing of pass plays (thus effecting the coverage defenders reactions to routes)  They can naturally alter the depth of route concepts (this maintains the route timing but moves it shorter) They can change the coverage's technique by altering the reception area and providing a moving target laterally and vertically to hinder the defender's "position maintenance" They naturally "rub" defenders in man coverage They tend to force pre- and post-snap communication and consistent eye discipline They force defenders to move within their zones to effectively play coverage in a zone scheme They can make it more difficult to jam rece...

Even with an offense that has sputtered lately in Northwestern, there are still some really cool intricacies and chess matches that can be found from game-to-game. In my opinion, most casual fans get caught up with “is it working or not?” Obviously, in the end, that’s ultimately what’s important. But the issue that I believe catches fans is when they try to figure out “Why?” Often, they converge to mostly meaningless catch-phrases such as “predictable”, “not innovative”, “stupid” and the like. The idea being that they see, they actually see with their own two eyes, a team execute a certain thing with ease and they assume “it must be the play design.” That’s because you can see the play design, you can see it develop in front of you and you can kind of understand it and when it works, obviously it works. Compounding matters may be video games, where many casual fans can call their own plays and feel some sort of ability to do what this guy getting paid a bunch of money can do. But ...