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....

Introduction Michigan ran a two plays last Saturday against Notre Dame that where the same exact concept. Intended to take advantage or the Irish getting lost in zone or getting rubbed in man, these two plays are the Y-Stick concept and the Z-Snag concept. Both are essentially the same play but with different receivers running extremely similar routes to similar parts of the field. Michigan would run it once early to see what Notre Dame was giving them. They’d run it a second time but get presented with a different look. They’d run it a third time for a huge pick up as they saw what they originally saw early in the game. Then they’d run it a fourth time, or, they’d present it a fourth time, but then run something very different for an easy TD. Y-Stick Pass Concept The Y-Stick Pass concept is relatively new as far as concepts go, but also fairly common. A staple within most West Coast Offenses and Air Raid Offenses, it provides the QB with simple reads and can attack both man and zo...