Virginia Tech triple option

All 2012 Sugar Bowl coverage can be found on the Bowl Game page.

As mentioned around these parts, Virginia Tech QB Logan Thomas isn't much of a runner despite having decent rushing numbers on the year. He's a big, bulky QB who defenses have to account for but not really respect in the running game. He's not going to beat you with his legs. The basic read play that the Hokies use is the inverted veer that Michigan used against Ohio State and Auburn used to win a national championship. However, they will occasionally throw in other option plays. Against Georgia Tech, they showed a triple option look from a two-back shotgun set.

The Hokies comes out in a two-back, two-wide set with an H-back to the playside of the field. Georgia Tech is in their base 3-4 defensive front.

As the ball is snapped, the fullback to Thomas' left comes in motion for the dive option. Meanwhile, running back David Wilson swings behind Thomas to be the pitch man if the QB pulls the ball. I think (?) Thomas is reading the playside linebacker who will be left unblocked by the H-back.

As Thomas pulls the ball, he and Wilson are now on the edge against one defender, the playside linebacker.

The linebacker makes a poor decision and comes up to tackle Thomas. Wilson now has a clear lane to the GT safeties.

Defending the option is hard

As a purely hypothetical exercise (because trying to assign blame in a realistic sense to anyone on the Michigan defense is silly), I wanted to look at the awesome triple option that Nebraska ran for their second touchdown on Saturday. You may remember it as the coolest fucking option play you've seen all year. You may not have remembered it so fondly if Michigan hadn't been shellacking Nebraska at the time, but rest assured, it still would've been the coolest play you've seen this season.

The play:

Nebraska has the ball on the three yard line and comes out in a basic shotgun formation: three-wide and two backs in the backfield. Michigan is in their 4-3 under formation. When the ball is snapped, Ryan Van Bergen is left unblocked:

In a typical option play, the quarterback would be reading the unblocked defensive end. On this play, I believe that Martinez is actually reading Kenny Demens. The Nebraska left guard is pulling around the formation to block Van Bergen.

The pulling guard (#77) engages Van Bergen. The slot receiver is sealing Jake Ryan to the inside of the field. Not pictured, Nebraska's playside wide receiver is trying to seal Blake Countess to the outside. This leaves Demens and Thomas Gordon unblocked. Demens is staying high rather than scraping over the play, which tells Martinez to hand the ball off.

At this point, Michigan is toast. Gordon is in space against a ball carrier and pitch man.

Duh. Touchdown.

If blame has to be assigned here, it's on Demens, but that's not really fair. The issue here is alignment and a brilliant playcall that you can't really gameplan for. But (technically) Demens needs to scrape over the top of the formation here because Kovacs, crashing on the backside of the play, has Martinez if he pulls the ball. But we're not blaming Demens for this. We're admiring how awesome this play is.

Defending Illinois' speed option

Though Michigan showed a lot of innovative blitzes against Illinois, perhaps the most memorable play from the game was one of the few times the Illini ran from their signature pistol formation. The most highlight-worthy moment of the play was Jake Ryan flattening Illinois quarterback Nathan Scheelhaase a moment after he pitched the ball, but it was the play of Jordan Kovacs (shock) that really made the defense effective.

Illinois comes out in the pistol formation they're known for. Michigan counters with a basic 4-3 under formation. Instead of running the triple option as Illinois typically does from their formation, they run a speed option to Scheelhaase's left with the H-back used as a lead blocker.

As the ball is snapped, Michigan rushes all four down linemen. Ryan reads the play and makes an incredible break on the ball. Illinois' slot receiver will try and block Ryan or at least impede his path to Scheelhaase, but because of how quickly Ryan diagnoses the play and breaks on the ball, he's able to beat the block. (As a sidenote, look at how quickly Mike Martin came off the ball. He's already beyond the line of scrimmage as Michigan's other down linemen are just standing up. Explosiveness, he has it.)

A moment later, Ryan has beaten the block from the slot receiver. Illinois' H-back (acting as a lead blocker) recognizes this and tries to slow up and block Ryan but is unable to. This play is intended to option off of Kovacs, but because Ryan is in the backfield so quickly, Scheelhaase is forced to pitch the ball too early.

Despite the H-back trying to block Ryan, he's still able to hammer Scheelhaase who pitches the ball. At this point, the running back is essentially in space against Kovacs. Martin is flowing to the play in pursuit but is initially outrun.

This is where Kovacs makes the play. Illinois' running back is trying to get to the edge of the field and away from Martin and Michigan's other pursuit defenders. As you can see, Kovacs is coming downhill at the ball carrier but he's a yard or two outside of the ball, making sure to funnel the play back inside.

As Kovacs approaches the ball carrier, he's still aligned with the outside shoulder of the running back, forcing him back inside. Though it looks like Kovacs overruns the play (he doesn't, as we'll see), that's OK because he's forcing it back to the middle where his help defense is.

Kovacs reaches out and gets a hold of the ball carrier, slowing him enough for Martin to wrap up the tackle.

If Michigan fails to do any of these things (Ryan's jump, Kovacs' contain, or Martin's pursuit), this could have become anything from a 5-yard gain to a long touchdown. But the combination of these actions helps Michigan perfectly execute the play. Ryan's ability to force the pitch early simplifies Kovacs' read. Given that Mattison has assigned Michigan's defensive ends to play the quarterback on option runs, I'd bet Ryan was coached to go directly after Scheelhaase if Illinois runs from this formation.

Kovacs is the real key, in my opinion. For the last three years, we've been treated to corners/safties/linebackers giving up the edge as they rush without abandon to try and make the tackle. Kovacs is smart enough to realize that he's in space against a running back and will probably struggle to make a play. He shows the perfect amount of aggressiveness here: engaging the running back in the backfield, but being cautious enough to maintain leverage.

Martin is able to clean up the play because of his pursuit. It helps that he ripped through Illinois' suspect offensive line, but good defenses have players that make plays like this. Martin was heads-up enough to read the play and get himself in position to corral the running back if Kovacs kept contain.

For this blog's purposes, the schemes that Mattison brings are probably the most exciting aspect of the new coaching staff, but in reality, proper positioning and this kind of fundamentally sound play is the real benefit of Mattison and Co. Chances are that last year, this play goes for a significant chunk of yardage and the team continues to make the same basic errors. In the span of one season, Michigan's defense suddenly gets it. That's all coaching. I hate you Greg Robinson.

p.s. I hate you Rich Rodriguez.

Hold the edge fergodsakes

Throughout the season, we've seen Michigan's young linebackers and defensive ends struggle to hold the edge and properly funnel running backs to the support. Logically, discipline from the linebackers was a key to success against Northwestern's offensive attack. On the Wildcats' first touchdown Saturday, they exploited that inexperience with the triple option.

It's second and six, and Northwestern is trying to respond to Michigan's opening-drive touchdown. They align with trips receivers to Persa's Kain Colter's left (EDIT: the backup QB subbed in for Persa) and are in a strange formation that I'll refer to as the Pistol T. Michigan has their nickel package on the field and is in man coverage. Jake Ryan has his hand on the ground as the weakside defensive end.

As the ball is snapped, Ryan is left unblocked. Northwestern is running the triple option here. Currently, Colter is reading Ryan and will decide whether or not to hand the ball off for the RB dive. The running back to Colter's left is swinging behind the mesh point to act as the pitch man if Colter pulls the ball.

Ryan commits to the dive play, which...

...whoops, Colter pulls the ball. The right tackle and guard are releasing to the second level and about to smother Brandin Hawthorne.

Poor Jordan Kovacs. He now stands as the only player between the ball and the endzone, trying to defend a pitch option.

He's hopeless, as anyone would be facing this scenario. Colter cuts back upfield and runs untouched into the endzone.

Blame for this play falls on one of two people--Ryan or Hawthorne--and it depends on how the team was coached. At first blush, this seems like Ryan's fault for not holding the edge. However, it's possible that Hawthorne should have scraped over the top of the play. Unfortunately, we don't know how Mattison prepared the team for this play, but given Hawthorne's complete disregard for the option, this was either a terrible read by him or Ryan should have kept contain instead of attack the dive play. I'm inclined to say the latter.

While the linebackers are young, these are problems that need to be corrected soon. Northwestern is known for their triple option, and being this unprepared (or possibly just having a huge brain fart) is not sustainable for the future. With four of Michigan's remaining six opponents (Purdue, Illinois, Nebraska, Ohio State) featuring either running quarterbacks or packages for running quarterbacks, correcting these issues will be crucial. At the very least, this acts as a coaching point for the inexperienced linebacker corps.

Michigan shows triple option (kinda)

In Brian's Minnesota game column, he speculated about the potential for the "Fritz" (sure) formation--the diamond formation with Denard and Devin Gardner on the field at the same time--that Michigan used. In particular, he wondered whether or not that would be a precursor to the introduction of the triple option. In reality, Michigan already tipped their hand with the triple option against Minnesota.

It's 2nd and 2 in the third quarter. Michigan is in their two-back set with two receivers to Denard's left and Koger lined up on the right side of the offensive line. Minnesota is in its 4-3 front with basically 9 defenders in the box.

On the snap, you can see that the weakside defensive end is unblocked like he would be in a traditional zone read. Stephen Hopkins is approaching the mesh point with Denard. Rather than acting as a lead blocker, Fitz Toussaint takes a step to his left behind Denard.

As Hopkins and Denard engage in the mesh point, you can see Toussaint swinging around to the weakside of the formation behind Denard. He will be the pitch man if Denard pulls the ball.

Denard (incorrectly, I believe) hands the ball off to Hopkins for the dive play despite the defensive end crashing down on the handoff. As you can see, Toussaint is continuing to swing behind Denard. If he pulls the ball here, Denard and Toussaint are off to the races.

This is how the play ends. Minnesota has nine defenders in the box while Denard and Toussaint turn the corner with a blocker ahead of them.

I'm relatively certain that this was a bad read by Denard, and the results bear that out. However, there's little (to no) reason to show this play were it not already installed in the offense. We should expect to see this play (hopefully with the proper read) on Saturday against Northwestern and beyond.

This is yet another example of Borges adding wrinkles to the offense to catch defenses off guard. One of my biggest complaints about Rodriguez's offense last year (there weren't many) was that there didn't seem to be enough new packages/plays installed on a weekly basis. Through five weeks, Borges has shown an increasingly diverse attack while streamlining the playcalling by removing the plays that don't work (the I formation). As the season goes on, Michigan will have an increasingly diverse set of plays that could potentially make this offense just as lethal as last year's.