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Football is Chess: Offensive Aptitude in the Cotton Bowl

Katfid54

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Katfid54

Katfid54 8591

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I wanted to take a couple of minutes to highlight some things I noticed during (and after rewatching) the OU game.  This further supports a lot of positive indications that Herman can now rely on base-line competence from the offense and, accordingly, can set up and install wrinkles to trip up opponents.  Basically, as I’ve told a friend, Herman is smart enough and a good enough schemer that he can basically “create” an offensive touchdown or two a game just by scheming it (so long as everyone does their part).  Don’t know what I mean?  See below:

 

Play 1:  Mesh/RB Wheel to Tre Watson

You all know this play.  But let me set the scene:

Texas and OU are tied 10-10 at the beginning of the 2nd quarter.  Texas is backed up at 3rd and 20, and Ehlinger completes an 18 yard pass to Andrew Beck, setting up a 4th and 2.  Texas rushes to the line and sets up to run the QB sweep that Ehlinger would pound OU with, but OU calls timeout.

After the timeout, Texas comes out with its base 11 personnel, but OU puts in a heavy personnel package to try to stop the 4th down attempt.   OU has three down linemen and four linebackers are on the field.  Texas throws a swing pass to Tre Watson, who gets enough for the first on a lunge past the sticks.

After the first, Texas rushes to the line, keeping its same personnel package.  OU doesn’t have time to substitute.  The result?  Here’s what the formation looks like pre-snap:

Play_1_Pre_Snap.png

 

At the bottom of the screen, Collin Johnson and LJH are lined up, and they’re covered by OU cornerback Tre Brown and…. Defensive End Mark Jackson?

Play_1_Pre_Snap_Circled.png 

Herman immediately sees the gift he has been given and assumes that Jackson will have responsibility for whoever runs a route into the flat.  He’s right.  Jackson jumps Tre Watson’s flare route, looking like he almost thinks he can pick the pass off by jumping in front of it.  Unfortunately for him, Watson isn’t running a flare; he’s running a wheel.  Watson turns on the jets and runs by him.  Jackson actually commits a pretty flagrant hold here, trying to prevent Watson from abso-fucking-lutely torching him.

But to no avail.  Touchdown Good Guys.

M538vb.gif

This route combo is similar to one that Texas has had a ton of success on against OU in the past, although we’ve traditionally thrown the wheel to a slot receiver.

Think Marcus Johnson in 2013:

2013-10-1210_19_58.gif 

And Devin Duvernay in 2016:

xiX99K.gif

Urban Meyer’s playbook calls the play “mesh sit,” and draws it up like this (the below is a carbon copy of what we actually ran):

mesh5.jpg 

I would still like to see this offense run the mesh/wheel more, because I think it could be a devastating route combo with Collin Johnson and Devin Duvernay on the post/wheel portion, while big bodies Beck and LJH run crossing routes in the middle of the field.  Something like this out of trips, maybe?

trips_mesh.png

So this is what I mean when I say Herman “created” a touchdown.  We’ve had this route combo in our back pocket all year, waiting for the right time to use it.  Once we got OU to overextend itself by putting too many big defenders on the field, Herman immediately went in for the kill.

 

Play 2: Sam’s QB Stretch Play(s)

These, too, need no introduction.  Sam hammered OU all day long with the QB stretch, rushing for three scores, even when OU was overloading the field, trying to prevent the runs.  But how were they so successful?  Why did OU have no answer?

The answer, my friends, lies in Herman’s QB Power/RPO package that Texas ran against TCU.  Here’s the formation Texas ran repeatedly against OU:

Play_2_Pre_Snap.png

Look familiar?  That’s right.  It’s the same pre-snap look as Herman’s QB Power/RPO package that we ran to great effect against TCU (pre-RB motion):

Pre_Snap_Set.jpg

Why is that important?  First, Stoops and Co. have seen this formation on film and they know that Texas can successfully run a WR bubble out of it.  Here, that bubble would go to LJH.  In fact, OU is in such a tizzy trying to get lined up that the bubble to LJH probably would’ve scored on this play.  They also know that the package features a QB power look, meaning they have to keep enough bodies in the middle of the defense to prevent Sam from gashing them up the gut.  And they know that the set features a WR tunnel screen, so they cannot just pin their ears back, hoping to stop the QB run.

 

What’s the result?  OU has to play (pretty much) base defense against this look, because they know they can get hit anywhere across the field from it.  What’s the result?  Texas is able to repeatedly gash them with the QB stretch play, because (unlike TCU’s response to this formation), their defensive end is lined up INSIDE the tackle, and their outside linebacker is lined up just outside the tackle. 

Play_2_Pre_Snap.png

The result?  They can all be reached by run blocks, leaving Keaontay Ingram to kick out the force defender.

uLi2y5.gif

Fucking touchdown.

I love this sequence, because it shows a lot of maturity from our offensive staff to remember what they put on film against TCU, to self-scout and analyze how other teams will react to it, and to come up with new and interesting wrinkles to use off the same formation for successful plays in the future. 

The result of these QB stretch runs will likely be that the other portions of the RPO package open back up.  And if teams start overloading the TE/RB side, a RB counter with Keaontay Ingram is definitely in the cards.  But the coup de grace will be when we line up in this formation and run the “fake” stretch run with a pop pass to Beck.  This would actually be the exact formation and play as LJH’s pop-pass to Collin Johnson on our first offensive series, but we’ll run it with Ehlinger to Beck.  Excited to see it.

Conclusion:

Football is chess.  Your opponents study your previous moves, so gambits you’ve successfully pulled off in the past will not work in the future.  But knowing that your next opponent will watch what you’ve done previously and work to stop it can be put to your advantage, when you can exploit your opponent’s counters.

Mike Stoops fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is “Never get involved in a land war in Asia.  But only slightly less well known is this: “Never go in against a Texas Longhorn, when the golden hat is on the line!”

Now let’s go whip the shit out of Baylor.

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Katfid54

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3 minutes ago, ClubWhatever said:

Isn’t the sketched play what OU ran on their 77 yard td to brown?

Not quite, but it's a similar concept.  Brown definitely runs a wheel, but the actual play call is probably "closer" to the mesh sit than it is the post/wheel attached to a mesh.

OU has a weird wrinkle on the play, though, because they line up with quad receivers to the field side (and a RB in the backfield).  One of the WRs lined up is inelligible, and he pretends to run a bubble screen.  I would like to say our defense bites on that fake, but it really doesn't.  Instead, our defenders are generally lost on how to align themselves against this set, and OU takes advantage of that getting off a quick snap. 

OU also knows that we're in man coverage, because Boyd runs all the way across the field to try to get lined up against this set.  So the sit route runs to where he knows he can force two DBs to run into each other (knowing that they're both playing man), which frees Brown up the sideline.

shM9Kb.gif

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Machinator

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5 minutes ago, Katfid54 said:

Not quite, but it's a similar concept.  Brown definitely runs a wheel, but the actual play call is probably "closer" to the mesh sit than it is the post/wheel attached to a mesh.

OU has a weird wrinkle on the play, though, because they line up with quad receivers to the field side (and a RB in the backfield).  One of the WRs lined up is inelligible, and he pretends to run a bubble screen.  I would like to say our defense bites on that fake, but it really doesn't.  Instead, our defenders are generally lost on how to align themselves against this set, and OU takes advantage of that getting off a quick snap. 

OU also knows that we're in man coverage, because Boyd runs all the way across the field to try to get lined up against this set.  So the sit route runs to where he knows he can force two DBs to run into each other (knowing that they're both playing man), which frees Brown up the sideline.

shM9Kb.gif

That quad set befuddled our defense. OU converted a fourth down, I think, simply because they threw numbers to the field side in that formation and we didn't respond in kind.

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sushihorn

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Very nicely illustrated.  Either the bubble screen or QB sweep would have worked against OU on that play.  They were desperately running the overhang defender from the field side into the box, leaving 2 to cover 3 with half the field to work with.  They STILL couldn't stop Sam after the outside zone blocking got done with them.

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Bobby_Batronic

Bobby_Batronic 1994

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Isn’t mesh a concept with two shallow crosses run in opposition to one another? Or does the “in” route on the whiteboard continue across to meet with the shallow cross front the trips side?

Nice work. Tempoing the defense after a conversion to create mismatches isn’t rocket science, but damn is it effective. Surprised OU left a DE out over a slot instead of using a TO. 

With regard to QB power I think we converted a 4th and 2 on the +30 or so where OU overloaded against the lead to the right, and we just ran power to the left with the RB crossing in front of the QB behind the pulling guard. OU didn’t look like they were aligned right either, but the announcers didn’t say a word, and I haven’t seen a replay. 

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Katfid54

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1 minute ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

Isn’t mesh a concept with two shallow crosses run in opposition to one another? Or does the “in” route on the whiteboard continue across to meet with the shallow cross front the trips side?

Yeah. The sketch is way too spread out, so it's hard to see. But that in would cross over the drag to create the mesh.

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Machinator

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3 minutes ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

Surprised OU left a DE out over a slot instead of using a TO. 

One thing I noticed was that Riley was a witch about using timeouts when we tried to use tempo in high-leverage situations where we had an obvious advantage. Good coaching.

He couldn't catch them all though.

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Bobby_Batronic

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5 minutes ago, Machinator said:

One thing I noticed was that Riley was a witch about using timeouts when we tried to use tempo in high-leverage situations where we had an obvious advantage. Good coaching.

He couldn't catch them all though.

He’s a damn good coach. I hope he doesn’t hire a good DC. 

I didn’t realize the busted coverage with Boyd trying to get across the formation and Locke buckling his chin strap while getting picked for a TD was 4 to one side. 

Was that a mirror of the 4th down conversion earlier where OU called a TO and then completed a short pass to the 4 WR side in a hole in the zone?

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sushihorn

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20 minutes ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

Nice work. Tempoing the defense after a conversion to create mismatches isn’t rocket science, but damn is it effective. Surprised OU left a DE out over a slot instead of using a TO.

OU used a timeout to get INTO 3-4.  I wonder if even contemplated using another one to get BACK into nickel.

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Constant

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29 minutes ago, Machinator said:

One thing I noticed was that Riley was a witch about using timeouts when we tried to use tempo in high-leverage situations where we had an obvious advantage. Good coaching.

He couldn't catch them all though.

We just ran outta time(outs).

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Bill Lumbergh

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33 minutes ago, Machinator said:

One thing I noticed was that Riley was a witch about using timeouts when we tried to use tempo in high-leverage situations where we had an obvious advantage. Good coaching.

He couldn't catch them all though.

It's smart coaching for that moment, but if your opponent is driving to kick a go ahead fg in the 4th and only leave you 9 seconds on the clock, you sure will miss those opportunistic TOs. 

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13 minutes ago, Bill Lumbergh said:

It's smart coaching for that moment, but if your opponent is driving to kick a go ahead fg in the 4th and only leave you 9 seconds on the clock, you sure will miss those opportunistic TOs. 

I'm about to embark on my first rewatch of the game, but if I recall correctly he was more aggressive about it in the first half.

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Bobby_Batronic

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15 minutes ago, Bill Lumbergh said:

It's smart coaching for that moment, but if your opponent is driving to kick a go ahead fg in the 4th and only leave you 9 seconds on the clock, you sure will miss those opportunistic TOs. 

I don’t think he ever imagined he’d be down 21 points with that offense  at his fingertips. 

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Treefidy

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2 hours ago, Machinator said:

That quad set befuddled our defense. OU converted a fourth down, I think, simply because they threw numbers to the field side in that formation and we didn't respond in kind.

We actually played that quad better than they played ours.  One of the 4 is covered up and thus can't catch a pass beyond the LOS, we didn't actually wast a defender on him, though as he backed up someone came up to contain.  That play got blown for several other reasons.

I remember 1 play when we had quads, sooner had 2 guys covering our receiver who was covered up.  Mike stoops defense at its finest.  

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sushihorn

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15 minutes ago, dingleberryswitzer said:

How similar is that qb sweep to the good old 18 wheeler?   

The 18 Wheeler used  a QB counter with the backside guard and either a pulling tackle or back as the lead blockers.  This is straight zone blocking, usually with a double team on the contain man and a kick out block by the back.

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Machinator

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1 hour ago, Bill Lumbergh said:

It's smart coaching for that moment, but if your opponent is driving to kick a go ahead fg in the 4th and only leave you 9 seconds on the clock, you sure will miss those opportunistic TOs. 

Both timeouts by OU saved likely TDs for Texas. It's on the defense for not getting lined up, but burning a timeout was better than the alternative.

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sushihorn

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6 hours ago, sushihorn said:

The 18 Wheeler used  a QB counter with the backside guard and either a pulling tackle or back as the lead blockers.  This is straight zone blocking, usually with a double team on the contain man and a kick out block by the back.

I just realized that we used some of those down blocks with a backside guard pulling on a QB run.  It was on 4th and 2 in the 3rd quarter around the 12:00 mark. 

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Bobby_Batronic

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I have the 2014 playbook, Herman’s last year there, but obviously they run it.  Cool play, and probably something the coaches saw during the week thinking “hey, let’s run this if we happen to catch them in a short yardage defense after a conversion.”

60-1 Mesh is the closest thing in that playbook to mesh sit. But I’m sure it’s morphed quite a bit over the years. 

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Bobby_Batronic

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The two crossers from one side look like a very effective moving pick for the single crosser from the other side in man. In the 60-1 mesh key breakdown you can see that the QB reads the free safety to determine the coverage and then his first progression is the flat defender. Actually, the free safety generally gives away the coverage per anyway, but you can see Sam look downfield for a moment and then quickly swivel to the wheel. He was either holding the S knowing where he wanted to go or making that read.  Or so it would seem. 

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Katfid54

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2 hours ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

The two crossers from one side look like a very effective moving pick for the single crosser from the other side in man. In the 60-1 mesh key breakdown you can see that the QB reads the free safety to determine the coverage and then his first progression is the flat defender. Actually, the free safety generally gives away the coverage per anyway, but you can see Sam look downfield for a moment and then quickly swivel to the wheel. He was either holding the S knowing where he wanted to go or making that read.  Or so it would seem. 

I think he's trying to do both.  If the safety bails to the sideline, then Sam knows he can't go to the wheel route.  If the safety stays in the center of the field, Sam knows that--at worst--he's got 1-on-1 coverage to the wheel route (with that coverage almost certainly being from Jackson or an inside linebacker trying to keep up with Watson).  In either of those events, the defender is going to get roasted.  The only other possibility is that the D is playing some sort of pattern-matching defense, where the cornerback jumps the RB's route when he comes out (these are the kinds of concepts that TCU is really good at).  But OU has traditionally relied on man coverage, so Texas can be pretty confident that they're not going to get a pattern-match look on this play (especially on first down).

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Majorcholas

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2 observations about how much we have improved:

1) the first play on the wheel route out of the backfield. It’s impressive we can pull this off this year because you are losing one player from pass protection. The 5 lineman are responsible for the pass rush. We would have struggled last year without an insert from the rb. When your players are better it opens up things you can do.

2) the outside zone qb keep we have used to such great effect this year is the same thing we got crushed on last year. The board would explode with “beck sucks” and mensamoron comments. It actually works schematically and we aren’t losing one on one battles this year. Having a healthy blocking tight end has made this play and others work now when they didn’t in the past.

nice to see us able to add wrinkles and able to take advantage of outnumbering the defense. And now that we don’t suck....voila it works!

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