Breakdown Sports

At some point on Saturday, the Michigan vs. Purdue matchup turned into a battle of "who can out execute you" vs "who can out scheme you". Jeff Brohm utilized some wonderfully designed misdirection plays to get guys open in space, while Michigan was confident they could line up and wear the Boilermakers down via execution. But as the game wore on and the two teams continued to play nearly equally, Michigan pulled out a change up that allowed them to get a walk-in touchdown. In this post, I want to look at some little things that happen in the Michigan run game that impact the defense's reaction. Bryon Fuller/MGoBlog

 Against a 3-4 Okie front, one of the keys for any offense will be “how can we block the ILBs”. With a standard Tight Zone or Power O scheme, that can be difficult, particularly when the DL can handle double teams and the OLBs can funnel everything back into fast flowing interior defenders. But the Buckeyes found several ways to exploit the Oregon front, getting both outside and punching it right between the tackles. In this post, we are going to look at how Ohio State utilized Tight Zone with a Wham blocking tag to seal the Oregon front and get OL into the ILBs. Eleven Warriors

Previously, we talked about OSU utilizing split zone as a viable way to simplify the read option game for inexperienced QB Cardale Jones. But to move the football in the college game, you still need some semblance of a passing threat. Rather than forcing their QB to make complicated reads or fit the ball into tight windows, Urban Meyer and Tom Herman dialed up a simple play action pass concept to allow Jones and his receivers to be effective while not needing to over think. In this post, we’ll look how this “3-Verts” concept works, and more specifically, how it works as a great addition to the split zone play .

Ohio State essentially started their third different QB of the season a couple weeks ago. Most teams talking up this type of fact are on the wrong end of an unexpected season, however, in this instance it wasn’t following a disappointing season. In fact, this discussion happened before and after the Buckeyes were able to put up 31 first half points on offense against a previously stout Wisconsin Badgers defense. And this wasn’t just any regular season game, it was the conference championship game. But it wasn’t because Cardale Jones – the new starting QB for OSU – came in and played lights out with the full plethora of the playbook. Instead, the surrounding Buckeye cast stepped up their game, including the coaching staff. While receivers bailed out dubiously thrown balls, Head Coach Urban Meyer and Offensive Coordinators Tom Herman and Ed Warinner planned and called a simple, straight forward, and forgiving gameplan that allowed Jones to be productive while being protected, despite on...

We’ve talked about the basics of zone running ; we’ve talked about adding an additional back into the backfield ; we’ve talked about the various ways you can utilize outside zone and inside zone and multiple reads to make like more maddening for the defense; now let’s mash it all together and look at a zone read option based approach with multiple backs. Having multiple backs allows us to utilize all the advantages we talked about in the multiple back piece, but the threat of the read and the option allows for some other creative means of attacking a defense. In this post, we will explore those options.

Previously we looked at the basics of the zone blocking scheme . To do so, I drew up the plays in 12 personnel. While 12 and 11 personnel served as the catalyst for many of the early success of the zone blocking scheme, many teams began adding complexity and different looks to the scheme by implementing variety through the use of FBs and H-backs. Previously, in man/gap schemes, FBs used as lead/kick blockers or as deception for the backfield flow was deemed as a near necessity to run the football. Zone offenses saw this advantage, and as the scheme has developed, many of these advantages have been implemented into a zone based scheme as well. In this post, we will look at how tags can be used to modify the zone blocking scheme and attack defensive strengths and weaknesses and provide various looks for the opponent. The player identified by the red box will be the player the back is attempting to block. I don’t show all the multiple options and formations (obviously) that you can run ...