Breakdown Sports

 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.

 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.  

 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.