Breakdown Sports

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT MAIZE N BREW Introduction There are many odd and unique things about Northwestern. They're the only team in the Big Ten that is private. They wear purple. Their home games are every other teams Chicago home game. These guys have been the most annoying team that hasn't been that good but somehow has been good over the past decade. They have two quarterbacks capable of starting... and they're nothing alike. I introduce to you: Kain Colter aka The Runner and Trevor Siemian aka The Passer. In the words of Vince Lombardi, "What the hell's goin' on out there?" Well, I guess I can at least try to explain some of their spread offense and how it starts to differ with their two QBs. The rest, well, not so much. The Run Game Bear with me, I just spent an hour thinking up bad section title puns from classic movies (‘Citizen Kain' anyone?) then spent the next hour trying to convince myself that they weren't as stupid as they seemed....

Last time we looked at how Michigan attempted to stop Nebraska’s speed option attack with a Cover 1 . Not finding much success, the very next week, facing Northwestern, they turned to more two-high coverages in the face of the Kain Colter lead spread attack. In this post, we’ll look at how Michigan utilized a two-high man under and Cover 4 to defend the speed option. How the Speed Option is Run Be it under center or from the shotgun, the speed option is essentially the same. The offensive line, in the case of most modern day offenses, will run their standard outside zone blocking scheme. The one difference is that the offense will bypass the defense’s EMOL toward the play and instead work to the 2 nd level. The defender left free with be the option defender, the player that the QB will read to determine if he will keep the ball and run it himself or pitch the ball to his RB. Here is how it looks: Northwestern will also occasionally run a true triple option from th...

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT MAIZE N BREW Introduction Last time we discussed MSU's front 7 scheme . Their front 7 sets up a lot of their success, but that success is also tied to their favorite coverage: a variation of the Cover 4 . State is pretty much aggressive at every defensive position on the field, and this steps from how the back 7 play together in coverage. In this part, we are going to look at how MSU's cover 4 differs from most, how they run their cover 4, and how it all ties together to make one of the better defensive units in the nation. Cover 4 By looking at this play diagrammed, it looks like it's some sort of soft, prevent defense. The way MSU plays it is anything but. Still, most teams that run a cover 4 play a little softer on the outside, but still is far from a cover 4. In fact, the cover 4 plays more like a man coverage than a zone coverage, how so and why, well let's look at a table that describes some of the defensive responsibilities. P...

Leaving the offense for a minute, perhaps the most aggravating thing from the Nebraska game was Michigan's inability to defend the speed option. Unfortunately, this has seemed to be a common trend for the Mattison defenses since his arrival back in Ann Arbor. But why? Is Michigan doing something inherently too difficult to accomplish? What are they really asking their defense to do? In this post, we will look at how Michigan has tried to defend the speed option in the past, what went wrong against Nebraska, and how Michigan will look to fix this issue this year. How the Speed Option is Run Be it under center or from the shotgun, the speed option is essentially the same. The offensive line, in the case of most modern day offenses, will run their standard outside zone blocking scheme. The one difference is that the offense will bypass the defense's EMOL toward the play and instead work to the 2nd level. The defender left free with be the option defender, the player that the QB ...