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We've now looked at the basic scheme, the run tags , and the post-snap modifiers . We've also spent some time digesting how Michigan executes their Counter techniques. Now we're going to look at how the scheme is protected from defenses over-playing it. This protection is both built into the scheme itself, and is also done elsewhere in the playbook. Let's take a look. Protection via Alignment and Defensive Tendencies Alignment and motion can also help protect the scheme. Against Nebraska, Michigan attacked the wide side of the field because they were confident in how Nebraska wanted to utilize the safety as part of the fit from their Cover 4 base. (short motion) Many times you saw Michigan attack how teams defended Nub formations as well. Or how they check for unbalanced . Or eliminating pulling OL to avoid provided the defense keys . They also have built in rules they can include, based on defense or as a standard principle. This includes pulling the Center instead of...

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 (@Talk...

 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.