brophog

Niles size isn't as much an issue here because Shanahan cut blocks the backside so much.

Who does Louisville play this week? None of your business. :worship +1 to you.

None of that sissy soft serve stuff, either.

Tough game to predict a score. Very bad situation for them having a new staff and then dealing with the weather like this. Don't envy them there. Then add in the QB situation. That's a rough way to begin a campaign.

Franklin hasn't been with the company in some time. Cunningham is assigned to Mike Patrick this year.

I don't know what this has to do with ice cream, but I do know I've never read a book without opening it first.

I don't even know what being vanilla means. I do know it is a tasty ice cream flavor, though.

I think I understand what you're describing. Something like this: shotgun splitbacks, zone to the right. QB and left RB make the read, right RB lead blocks for QB to the backside (right side). That's just a timing issue. Florida ran those types of sets with Tebow there. You have some latitude with the timing with the mesh with the RB on the zone read that allows that second back some flexibility to come around the QB and take the appropriate angle to do various things. Depending on how you wanted to treat the WRs you could also buy a second by faking it as a pass and use draw action. Lots of little ways to make that timing work.

I love this board. You guys are already ahead of the rules committee.

The thread is starting to meander a bit for me, personally, so I'm not really sure what scenario we're dealing with. Care to elaborate on this for me?

Exactly. Not necessarily. Just like TO's option play requires the DE to commit to the QB and that SHOULD happen every time, sometimes the DE/LB in this play is going to cheat to the outside expecting the pitch because they have been burned on it over and over. At that point, the QB has to be good at reading that and realize they can cut up field and gain yards. That quote is referring to a normal zone read play with a scrape exchange by the defense. The QB could keep it, but the advantage would be to give to the RB and utilize the zone blocking. The QB is at a serious disadvantage trying to turn the corner against a leveraged linebacker one on one.

If, for example, we take the frontside slot out of a starting 2x2 set and motion him in the backfield to be used as a pitch man, then the defense has one more man to account. It may not be just one LB anymore that we have to account for on the backside. The defense could shift their linebacker front, rotate the Safety, etc. For every player in the backfield you have the potential to have one less blocker and one less man pulling someone out of the box. Because of the numbers, another way may be to not run this as a backside zone read addendum. We've introduced the zone read play into this thread, but with a video example above that is not a zone read so we need to be careful that we're not getting confused by talking about so many things in this same thread (as good as this conversation has been ). Our Michigan play above is run off of counter action, not zone. Choi is pulling on that play to help with the numbers, and laying a key block to get to the outside. It's Choi's block that gives Taylor a frontside running lane if he chose to keep it. I mention this so that anyone using the Michigan example linked above is not confused with the ideas in this conversation of branching off of the zone read, because that isn't a zone play in the video.

Exactly.

That's the point of the scrape exchange. The DE and backside LB exchange responsibilities. The backside DE crashes the line on every play, allowing the backside LB to scrape over the top and take the QB.

I'll get Al Gore right on this.

Athletes, especially at DE, can kill the zone read. The problem is that the QB portion of the zone read is a backside running play and because of that you have potential free defenders. That's how the scrape exchange works. It takes the 'read' out of the play by having the DE always come down the line, with the backside LB scraping to take the QB. It can be countered in numerous ways, but by taking the quick and dirty method of the zone read out of the equation it killed off most of the reasons that teams put the play in to begin with. What we're talking about with so many options in the backfield is being done. Oregon has used a modern day version of the wishbone. But even with the frontside zone blocking in place, the defense just keys on the heavy flow in the backfield and reads the play. The play devotes so much to backfield distraction that it simply runs out of blockers, so if the DTs can slow down those combo blocks then the backers, both front and back, have little to worry about. It can, however, make for a great passing play because you can freeze both the frontside and backside LBers so easily. The defense, in essence, just parts in the middle for you. Obviously you can throw a lot of screens and such into the play as well to create width that way. Lots of good options, but one has to be careful of them. Like any counter play, the real benefit is to allow your flow to create a number advantage on the backside for you. Adding options to the backfield, or backside receiver options, etcetera doesn't necessarily solve the problem solutions like the scrape exchange have caused for the zone read. It's biggest advantages are that it is a backside complement to the zone packages out of the gun, it's easy to install, and the reads were simple. While we can create these alterations to the play, and it is fun doing it, that's a serious amount of time to devote for any team that doesn't use the zone read as a big time part of its playbook. For most teams, that wasn't the case and as I alluded to above, that's why it's not run as much as it was.

I don't know, how much remorse is there after 'almost shot'?

Yep. And in a big way it is, in terms of moving the defensive pieces around as a complement to other things. To me, if you're going to track these things then options and screens should be considered their own plays in the stat sheet because of how one goes about defending them. The whole pass/run "balance" argument is a bunch of baloney. The only reason anyone even keeps track of whether or not it is a pass play is for the sake of the rules. One can draw up the same play, and depending on the angle of the pass it would get counted as either a forward pass or a run. To the defense, it's the same play and that's what ultimately matters. How many times you pass or run isn't very important. Much more important is when, and how, and what spacing the team uses, blocking schemes, route combinations, formations, sets............those are the important things to track. The fact you can tabulate run/pass as a simple ratio doesn't mean nearly as much as me saying Nebraska will run Play X with Rex in a singleback set at a depth of 5 yards. The fact that teams that have a 50/50 ratio will usually pass on second down following a failed first down run is noteworthy, but that kind of thing is never mentioned in all of the pass/run debates surrounding the sport. The 50/50 ratio is a big global tendency that doesn't get anywhere near the level of detail one needs to prepare for that team. It's about as significant as what color they wear, tbh. That's why coaches talk about it, because it doesn't mean anything if anyone knows it or not. TO also said something else that I don't think many appreciated until later (but noteworthy to this thread), and that is how dangerous those blind hits are in the pocket vs the hits a runner takes when he can prepare to be tackled. Not so sure that's quite as true to the same extent now with all of the emphasis now on protecting the QB.

That would be funnier if Dan Young hadn't have died a few years back.

While you are correct, there is a reason you see so much less zone read now than you did a few years back. Once defenses started running the 'scrape exchange' it forced offenses that wanted to continue to run the play to add more complexity, either by changing their blocking scheme to account for that scrape or combining it with other concepts. At that point, you're back to the timing, recognition, and rep problems you mention with the option.

What's 'true option'? Someone will have to define that one for me. We're going to see it a lot and out of a lot of different personnel groupings, formations, and sets. One of the things Beck did really good last year was get a lot of mileage out of his plays by utilzing them in multiple looks. Frankly, if we get good production from the slot, and this team has the capacity to do so, the option could make that position even more dangerous. That's one of the big personnel questions of this passing era: do you substitute a nickelback to cover the slot or do you try to hedge a LB and try to protect against the run. A 2x1 set with 20 personnel (2 back, no tight) can be really dangerous with the option. You don't see much 20 personnel because most teams that run 2 back want that TE in there, but a FB against a potential 6 man front can really pay dividends. Or, for that matter, 11 personnel (one back, one tight) with a tight end that can burn you deep with an option pass. Lots of possibilities, but none of them work if you don't block the option correctly. What separates those options from being good plays to great plays are the teams that just sprinkle in an option play in those sets vs the one that spends the reps on the option play. The option by itself can play havoc with defensive personnel packages, but when you can mix it in with traditional pass personnel sets you really start to make the other guy think a bit. When you start playing with numbers in the box, you make those Safeties have to move around a lot. That kind of thinking is what has made some of the offenses that have taken hold the last 10 years so deadly. Especially in this era where base defenses have been overtaken by packages, anytime you can present one personnel grouping but do something unexpected it is going to pay dividends. EDIT: I see a great example was put up above. Thanks, The Dude.

There's no doubt Pelini has shaped this program. The question is, what does that shape look like. Is it a 9-4 program year in and year out or a program that contests for conference titles and the benefits those titles often bring. That's what makes opinions on Pelini's job to this point so interesting. The one hand can say, "this program has come this close" while the other can say "this program is still only coming this close".

This thread was going so good.........

I'm not sure how it works on your specific carrier, but the B10 network employs temporary ghost channels during the football season just to carry games on. These often don't appear until later in the week. That's not of an issue this week, of course, because this is an ABC/ESPN2 game. ABC and ESPN use a reverse mirror system so you'll have to check your region nearer to game time to find out which of those two it will be on. OUTSTANDING! Did not know it was a mirror game. Now I can relax for the rest of the week. Thanks for the info unless of course you have DirectTV and it's a severe thunderstorm and the signal goes out....but that never happens...so don't worry about it. And it never, ever happens when you travel to the bar to catch the PPV.

I'm not sure how it works on your specific carrier, but the B10 network employs temporary ghost channels during the football season just to carry games on. These often don't appear until later in the week. That's not of an issue this week, of course, because this is an ABC/ESPN2 game. ABC and ESPN use a reverse mirror system so you'll have to check your region nearer to game time to find out which of those two it will be on.