Breakdown Sports

Indiana Wheel Route Everyone knows about the Post-Wheel route concept. According to 2016 Twitter and beyond, it has been and continues to be undefeated. The legitimacy of this claim can be argued, as much as anything can legitimately be argued on Twitter. Admittedly, it’s a great concept that can be run effectively with a variety of personnel and from various formations. What I want to show today is a slight variation of it, that has tons of eye-candy on top of it to really maximize the effectiveness. This comes from Indiana OC Mike DeBord (as much as Michigan fans don’t want to believe it). It is the Cross-Wheel combo.

AP Photo/ Darron Cummings For nearly a half of play, the Indiana Hoosiers looked poised to make the Buckeyes sweat out a potential early season massive upset. It wouldn't be the first time a team came out with a great gameplan earlier in the year and caught an opponent looking ahead to the supposed bigger challenge. With the Ohio State on defense, the Buckeyes wanted to come out in a lot of single-high defensive looks, predominately Cover 1 , put bodies near the LOS, and out athlete Indiana. In the battle of the DL vs OL, OSU dominated. But on the outside, despite relatively good position from defensive backs, Indiana executed nearly perfectly. One could argue that the execution was bound to wane, but repeatedly throwing one of two throws - a fade or a back shoulder fade to the boundary - allowed IU QB Richard Lagow to find an easily repeatable rhythm, particularly with big bodied and sure-handed WR Simmie Cobbs. In this article (and the next) we will look at the basic gam...