Breakdown Sports

This is a link to a preview that I did over the summer. After several teams ran quite a bit of the mesh concept to start the year, I figured it was a good time to link it here. *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     * Preview: Running the Mesh Concept In short, the first inside receiver has an aiming point just in front of the MIKE's drop. He must cross in front of the MIKE so that the MIKE is not in a position to defend him and is also unable to reroute the underneath crossing route. The second crossing receiver will aim for the short side shoulder of the other crossing receiver, making sure he doesn't get rerouted by a LB. The receivers will then continue across the formation working to gain distance horizontally, stretching the LBs, and looking for voids in zones for the QB to see. It's typically an easy read because... There will also usually be a flat receiver to stretch the defense...

Introduction Part of what makes Wisconsin’s offense so difficult to stop is the pass off the run action. In last Saturday’s game against Purdue, Wisconsin showed one of their two favorite three man routes out of their wing formation (single back, two TE to the same formation, two WR to the other side), which is their favorite formation to run their outside zone stretch running scheme. We’ll look at how Wisconsin will use run action, and the same initial route look to attack both sides of the defense, to the playside and away from the play action. Coverages Wisconsin Should Expect Out of the wing formation, you can expect to see anything but cover 3 (at least during normal down and distances). That’s because of the inherent weaknesses of a cover 3, namely: run support suffers because you are three deep across the back and your force defenders must also cover the flat; and its greatest weakness in coverage is the underneath seam, which is easily exploited by the two TE side. So wha...

Introduction Michigan State is known for their use of the Cover 4 defense, pretty much all day every day. While they occasionally make forays into other defenses, it is more often the nuanced changes they make within their cover 4 that confuses offenses. Against Notre Dame, the Spartans rolled up their safeties and played them a bit tighter to the #2. We'll look at how this affected Notre Dame, how the Fighting Irish tried to counter this, and how Michigan State was still able to hold down their offense. Cover 4 - ND's Initial Attack Previously I have written about MSU's defense, both  their front and their  favorite coverage . Against Notre Dame, Narduzzi and Dantonio made a nuanced adjustment with how they played their safeties. One of the constraints offenses run on MSU's defense is the bubble screen to the field side. They attempt to draw the OLB in against the run and bubble outside, putting him in a quandary to defend both inside and out and be responsible fo...

Wisconsin has found a creative way to get both running backs – Melvin Gordon III and James White – on the field at the same time. Being two of the better RBs in the country, having only one of them on the field fails to maximize a lot of what the offense can bring to the table. Against Purdue, Wisconsin ran jet sweep motion with an inside zone look from the RB several times to threaten the outside and the interior with their two RBs. They also did a few other things. In this article we are going to look at what this play concept brings to the table, along with two important plays that Wisconsin has run off of it already, and one play you can expect them to run against OSU if they start getting behind the chains and the Buckeyes start pinning their ears back. Inside Zone I'm drawing up this in a ace double wing, but these plays were also run out of your standard ace formation and a balanced solo formation. We'll get to those later. But the inside zone and the end around can b...

Introduction Michigan showed some recurring issues on offense against UConn, and none crept up more obviously than Gardner's lingering problems with throwing the ball accurately. My presumption has been that he is mentally affected, and this has caused him to struggle with his timing and his mechanics. Since the last quarter against ND, he has looked markedly differently. He is staying on reads longer, he is aiming his passes, and he is really trying to fit the ball into areas even when he has other receivers open. In this article, we will narrow the look to UConn, and see what it will take to get DG back on track. Play 1 This play is going to be Gardner's first INT against UConn. Michigan is going to put two receivers on each side of the formation and run a simple mesh concept. I discussed the mesh concept a bit in my  preview of PSU . Gallon, correctly reading zone, sits between two zone defenders. Gardner comes of his first read, which appears to be Funchess, and comes d...

This is all going to get quite confusing here. But in this piece and another future piece, I will preview Wisconsin for the blog Land-Grant Holy Land , an Ohio State Website. Yup, that's happening. Introduction Over the past, oh, I dunno, let's just leave it at over the past, Wisconsin has been known for their potent run game. While Alan Ameche, that old Iron Horse, isn't walking through to run his offense any time soon, the Badgers seem to be doing pretty well dating back to the Alverez era, er, the Alverez coaching era, er, that first time Alverez was coaching Wisconsin on the sideline and, well, this introduction is all over the place. And I have a great Alan Ameche story for those willing to hear, for those who like old timey stories that may or may not be true about really old Wisconsin Heisman Trophy winners. Bread and Butter I don't want to get too in depth about how these plays work, and instead spend time how they work off each other. In several places, I...

Michigan LINK Michigan State LINK Minnesota Against a formation with three receivers on one side, you almost want your cover 3 to become cover 6. FS should slide 3 receiver side otherwise the deep third CB will be left in a bind, and that's what happened on SJSU's long TD pass. FS didn't help in seam. I guess that's why Minn is running mostly cover 1 press man. Played cover 3 and got beat between two zones, neither defender covered a man. The biggest area I'm disappointed with Minn is their DL. Thought they would be better there, but getting leveraged fairly easily. Power O by Minnesota. Extra blocker with QB run. Good push by Minnesota; SJSU not doing a good job with leverage at point of attack. Minnesota blockers do a really good job so far of getting squaty at the legs and driving the DL. TD that came from the slot WR. If you're pressing inside the hash (receiver lined up on hash, but you have inside help and man outside, so no outside help,...