Why the naked bootleg isn't working

MGoBlog has been railing against the use of the naked bootleg/waggle that Michigan has deployed a few times this season, and for good reason: it hasn't been very effective. Brian has chalked its lack of effectiveness up to teams being unconcerned with Michigan running from under center. But after seeing Minnesota defend it, I think there's another reason it's been suboptimal: no matter where Michigan is running from, the quarterback is always more of a threat.

It's in the third quarter and Devin Gardner has already been put into the game. Michigan is marching down the field when they get under center. Brandon Moore is lined up as an H-back. Minnesota is in its 4-3 formation with a safety pulled into the box.

Michigan is running a naked bootleg, which means that there won't be a blocker for Gardner once he rolls out. As such, Minnesota's weakside defensive end is unblocked. Moore will pull across the formation and head to the flat as a check down.

A moment later and Gardner has turned his back to the weakside to for the play action. The Minnesota defensive end isn't heading toward the handoff. Instead, he's playing contain and getting upfield with Gardner.

As Gardner fakes the handoff, Moore has pulled across the formation and headed to the flat. The defensive end is keying on Gardner.

As Gardner turns, he's staring down a defensive end and will scramble for the most impressive four yard run of the season.

The most disappointing part of this play is that the handoff would've worked. A few screens up, you can see Stephen Hopkins entering the B gap as a lead blocker. If Gardner hands the ball off here, Toussaint has nearly a clear path to the endzone. Instead, Gardner turns into an unblocked defender.

The reason there always seem to be defensive ends in the QB's face on these plays is that Gardner and Denard are both far more dangerous than any of Michigan's running backs. So when a defensive end finds himself unblocked, he's already been coached to stay with the quarterback, whether it's under center or in the shotgun versus the zone read. Honestly, the only way to make this play effective is to actually hand the ball off more. Michigan is trying to get teams to cheat from a formation that they don't have a base play. Here, you can see the hole created in the run game for Toussaint despite never getting the ball.

Now whether or not running more from the I to set this up is a smart offensive strategy (Michigan would have to play from a formation that they are statistically less effective from) is up for debate, but if Michigan starts running out of the I formation more often, this play will be more effective. If Borges really does abandon the I formation running game entirely, this play will be removed from the playbook as well.

Change to commenting system

Since the season has started, the site has been getting a lot of comments, many of which are anonymous. Fortunately, anonymous posting hasn't been an issue: there are no flame wars being carried out in the comments and no one is really trolling. However, I do like to interact with commenters and when you have 5 Anonymous posts, it becomes difficult to have a conversation. It is because of this that I have begun using the Disqus comment module.

The primary concern is whether or not people will have to login to comment. The short answer is no. Disqus allows you to login via Facebook, Google, Twitter, and a few other major platforms, if you want. You are also able to comment as a Guest. To do so, you need to supply an e-mail address (which won't be shown anywhere) and name. This will allow us to have more coherent interaction (hopefully).

If people really hate the system or comments start to die off, I'm willing to revert back to the old default system. I'm hoping that won't be the case, though. Any comments or concerns about the new system can either be discussed here or, as always, e-mailed to me at BurgeoningWolverineStar@gmail.com.

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.

Counter draw mailbag

Last week, I received this e-mail about Michigan's deployment of the long-awaited speed option

I imagine you've already got this one in the hopper, but I'd like to see a picture page on the speed option that went for the long TD. It is a counter to the zone read, right? What I mean is, when we line up with Denard in the gun and Vince Smith to his left, the zone read would have Smith go right with Denard having the option to keep it and go left. With the speed option from that same formation, the play goes right, which I think has to give us a numbers advantage since the D has to account for the potential of Denard keeping it on the read option and going left.

My response was fairly simple: It's not a counter, necessarily, but it is another play that is based from the same initial setup. To wit:

I'm not sure that the speed option is really a "counter" (in a football sense) for anything. On a lot of those QB lead draws, Denard follows his RB (see, for example, the QB Oh Noes where Denard follows his back who acts as a lead blocker). This is, however, a variation of the QB lead draw, which will keep defenses guessing and force them to play fundamentally sound defense. The real key now will be how Borges tweaks these play calls. Making subtle adjustments to these QB lead draws/speed option/etc. are what keeps a defense guessing and, hopefully, guessing incorrectly. So if he can establish one or two more plays that begin with Denard following his RB to the playside, Borges can put in place plays like those QB Oh Noes that catch defenses cheating.

(This is not a complex concept. A while ago at Dr. Saturday, Chris Brown showed how Brian Kelly begins all of his passing routes with vertical stems so as not to tip his hand to an opposing defense. This is the same basic formula applied to the passing spread.)

As we saw multiple times against Minnesota, Borges added another wrinkle to this structure with a counter draw. Ohio State used the same play against Michigan last year to devastating effect and it was one of those plays that had everyone asking why Rodriguez hadn't installed it in the Michigan offense yet. Enter Borges.

It's the first quarter on Michigan's second drive. The Wolverines are in a three-wide look with Mike Shaw to Denard's left. Minnesota is in a 4-3 over front.

As the ball is snapped, Denard and Shaw both take a step to their left, much like they would with the QB lead runs. However, Taylor Lewan is starting to pull around to the backside of the play.

Denard takes another step to his left but Shaw stops and will begin to head in the opposite direction. As you can see, all of the Gophers' linebackers have keyed on the QB lead play. The defenders are all flowing to the strongside of the field.

As Denard hands the ball off, you can see how out of position Minnesota's defenders are. They've all sold out on the QB carry and have flowed out of position. Lewan is continuing to pull to the weakside of the play where he will be a lead blocker. He is about to engage and double the weakside DE, which I think is the wrong play. If he turns the corner and heads upfield, he likely blocks the only defender capable of tackling Shaw.

As Shaw turns the corner, the weakside WR Jeremy Gallon flattens the Minnesota safety who has come up to defend the run. Lewan is flattening the weakside DE. You can see the legs of the final Gopher defender in the top left of the image. If Lewan heads upfield to block him instead, this is a touchdown.

Minnesota 2011: Where the playbook gets wonky

Minnesota 0 - #19 Michigan 58

One of the reasons Dave Brandon cites for hiring Brady Hoke was his defensive mindedness. He even referenced it when comparing Hoke to Bo Schembechler (!) during the Minnesota game. After the initial hire, I investigated the veracity of that rational:

Though Hoke has a reputation for being a defensive-minded guy--one of Dave Brandon's biggest selling points for him--Hoke's defenses have consistently hovered anywhere between middle-of-the-road and completely terrible. The early returns from his head coaching jaunts are understandably poor: he was taking over two historically bad programs and had lots of building to do. What's most disturbing is Ball State's continued incompetence even four and five years into Hoke's tenure...

The general takeaway here is that Hoke's defenses are not something to build your team on. Despite their ability to create turnovers (+17 in 2007!), his defenses do nothing exceptionally and, on average, are near the worst in the country. Any attempt to chalk this up to strong competition is easily dismissed when you look at their strength of schedule (which also hovered around the weakest in the country).

Arguments can be made that this is Greg Mattison's defense--which historically have been a significant upgrade from those that he inherited--rather than Hoke's, but regardless of who this can be attributed to, it's clear now that for the foreseeable future, the defense will be what this program intends to hang its hat on.

Caveats apply for this game: Minnesota truly is the worst team in the FBS. They were starting a freshman quarterback who was in over his head. And the skill position players lack the ever-important "skill" that is so preferable for that personnel. This was, however, the first shutout since the Carr years--even crash test dummies Delaware State were able to put points up against Rodriguez's defense. For all of the (mostly regrettable) This Is Michigan posturing, this game felt like a Michigan football game against a significantly inferior opponent: smothering defense that played near flawless football and executed exactly how they were supposed to.

There were no blown coverages that we look at on film and say "They'll get that ironed out during the season." There were no glaring weaknesses that could be exploited, either. Michigan put in their backup quarterback in the third quarter and found playing times for the likes of Richard Ash who, but all accounts, has no business being on the field this season. With Borges making the proper offensive adjustments and largely scrapping his traditional playbook to accommodate the skill set of Denard and Co., and the gawdawfulness of the Big Ten, forget anything I said preseason. Michigan's new ceiling should be recalibrated to account for the obvious upgrade on the coaching staff and their Little League schedule in the Big Ten. Michigan has a real chance to have a banner year this season.

Bullets

• Al Borges ftw. The changes that he's made to his offense are nothing short of revelatory. It's clear that he understands offense, not just his offense. The way he tweaks his schemes (in this game, the use of the QB stretch counter, which I'll picture page this week) is the most clear indication that this coaching staff is not only intelligent but will be successful over the years. Borges has found the offense's strengths and opposing defenses' weaknesses and exploited them.
• Greg Mattison makes me hate Rich Rodriguez. If only Rodriguez hadn't completely screwed up his defensive staff, this team could've been something really special this year. Though Borges is doing well with this offense, it's still a downgrade from Rodriguez's spread and shred. But Mattison has turned what appeared to be a bunch of underachievers into a really solid defense. Alas...
• Denard looked much improved. His accuracy was certainly better in this game, which may have been a result of the operation he recently had on his throwing elbow. But it is also likely due to a tweaked offensive structure. We didn't see Denard taking shots downfield in this game, and most of his passes were short hitch routes and simple reads. We'll see if this is sustainable against a defense that isn't a smoldering crater.
• Vincent Smith now has stats in the "Quarterbacks" column of the stats page. Borges had fun in this game.
• Blake Countess might not be mirage. He appears to be a young cornerback that can, like, totally cover people. This is a good thing going forward.
• Roy Roundtree is officially a non-factor in this offense. This doesn't really surprise me (he's not an outside receiver and he doesn't have the shake from the slot that some of the other guys do), but it is disappointing after his year last season.

Next week
Though Michigan nominally opened the Big Ten season against Minnesota, well, no. Next week's game against Northwestern will be the team's first real conference test. With ongoing injuries to Dan Persa, that game suddenly looks a lot more winnable.