Purdue had an interesting approach to Michigan's running game. Rather than throw bodies at the problem like Illinois, or throw bodies at the problem and get their asses handed to them for the second year in a row except this time at home like Ohio State, Purdue decided to take a mixed approach: add an extra hitter, but try to disguise where he was going to be.

Here's the part you may have noticed: Often before the snap, the Purdue DTs were quickly shifting their fronts. One of the purposes of this was to try to draw a false start (they didn't). But there was more to it than that. The Boilers were trying to disguise their attacks so Michigan wouldn't be able to pick out oddities before the snap and adjust their schemes to take advantage of them. Let me show you.

This is a run in the 2nd Quarter that got stuffed because Michigan set up for one blocking scheme and then didn't adjust on the fly when Purdue shifted the line late.

Power runs are brutal to observe on film so we'll go to my standardized color scheme:

• Purple: Blockdowns.
• Orange: Kickout.
• Green: Lead blocker.
• Blue: Running back, free hitter(s).

Here's what Michigan thinks they're getting before the shift.

Zooming in on the point of attack, Michigan wants to block down to the WLB, sealing both DTs with their guards, while kicking out the edge with their center and swinging Loveland around as a lead blocker. The hope with Counter is always that the defense will see your running back start moving to the opposite side and start shifting that way, creating a wider gap to run through.

Even before the snap however, Purdue does the opposite. Here's what Michigan really gets:

The only difference is the DTs moved over. Don't bother trying to parse out where everybody's going. Just look at the mess they've made of the point of attack. How're we supposed to run through that?

[After the JUMP: Another angle]

Kindly, Fox had a replay of this one so we could try to figure it out.

They come to this replay *after* the DTs have shifted to (our) left. Note what it's done to both of the guards. They're supposed to be blocking *down* on those two DTs.

The blocking plan isn't going to work unless they make an adjustment, or Purdue has those guys slant back to where they were before. Now, on the backside, Zinter recognizes this and becomes a puller just to get around this guy.

Problem solved, at least on the backside. On the frontside pulling isn't really an option. Ideally Hayes and Keegan can combo through that DT and still get to that WLB, #37, on the right (the MLB, #20, is not their concern—he is to be left for Loveland to block when he arrives to lead through the gap). That looks like it's going to come off at first. The DT off the snap is essentially even with Keegan, and Hayes is in position to give that guy a pop and move down to the WLB. That's what it feels like is happening up to this point.

But then the DT, #58, fights his way through Keegan just as the WLB hops over towards the point of attack. Now we've got a problem.

#58 has gotten through the blockdowns. He's now standing in the gap with Keegan behind him. Hayes and Keegs might try to switch dudes at this point but Keegan doesn't really have an angle on the WLB anymore—that's why Michigan was trying to get to that guy with a tackle in the first place. Also there's a someone new in the box.

And that DT makes the tackle.

So what happened? Simply enough, Purdue hopped their tackles over at the last second, after Michigan's blocking was set. This could have been dealt with by the OL making a play—get Keegan in position and have Hayes blast that DT until he's in a spot where Keegan can control him before Hayes moves down to the WLB. That's a big ask, a big play, but it's doable.

Another question we might ask however is what was Purdue giving up by flipping their DTs a gap over? Wasn't that going to leave a cutback lane or something to hit? Could Michigan have an adjustment for that? Well yeah, and in fact Michigan hit them just a few minutes earlier. On this play Purdue shifted late to the frontside, which was unfortunately once again the side Michigan wanted to run to.

This time we're going to watch what happens to Hayes, because he's the one put in a bad position by this.

The rest of this is workable, but how is Hayes supposed to get a downblock on that guy?

Answer? He doesn't.

But Ron English was being crafty, showing different looks to make his defense a harder target to hit. With #21 sticking with Ronnie Bell, Purdue's box above was a lot lighter than usual, and Edwards was able to get down to the safety.

But remember I said they weren't going full-on-balls against the run like Illinois and Ohio State, but they were adding an extra guy to the box? Well, going back to our first play, that's this guy:

That's Jalen Graham, Purdue's hybrid space player. That gap he's in was what was left open when the two DTs shifted over. He has left the FS and cornerback to fend for themselves to replace the space left by the rest of the front concentrating on the gap Michigan likes to run to. If Michigan did try a cutback, they're dealing with him at the line of scrimmage.

RPOs and short passes underneath the soft CB over there would take care of that Nickel in a modern spread, at least long enough that he can't bother the running game. The difference between the run that the DT stuffed and the one where Michigan was able to create the lane on the backside was that WLB. In the first play, he's shuffling over, getting into Hayes as soon as he can. The reason he can do that is a cutback lane is getting closed off by the hybrid (N) instead. On our second play, the WLB had to be the guy babysitting a cutback himself, and got sealed by Keegan.

So that was Purdue's game most of the day: adding a guy to the box late and shifting fronts around so Michigan's blockers would have a tough time getting their preferred lanes blocked up correctly. Sometimes they were shifting linemen late, other times they were blitzing their LBs into interior gaps to become de facto DTs. There were still ways to defeat it, and Michigan did indeed manage to get it blocked up quite often. But the strategy proved successful for much of the game, since defeating the front often just delivered the running back to that free hitter. Michigan was forced to use a bunch of play-action passing to take advantage of the secondary that Purdue was borrowing extra material from. JJ was up for it, but that was a fair gamble to take for Purdue.

But Michigan found another way of dealing with it. Remember, you can defeat anything in football three ways:

1. Play assignment football: Have so many checks and adjustments, and execute them so perfectly that you can turn any look into what you want it to be. This would be Hayes and Keegan comboing through the DT to the WLB anyways, or planting the DT outside and moving the gap they attack inside by one.
2. Call something that takes advantage of where they're weak. Like play-action with a pass where the HSP or safety just came from.
3. Make a play.

These are not mutually exclusive strategies. Sometimes, for example, you can call a play that delivers your back to that extra defender in space, and then watch him burn. The one super long run by Edwards was delivering him to a cornerback tasked with edge defense, but that one was so obvious you don't need to see it again. This one…this one was special.

Here you can see an example of the blitzing, as the WLB is coming right for the Zinter/Barnhart gap at the snap. Barnhart blows him out, but there's a DT in the next gap and Zinter can't get that guy planted under Olu before Barnhart has to move on, so that blitzer ends up about as free as DT #58 in our first example.

Once again, Purdue has delivered a free hitter to the box to make up for aggressively attacking what they thought would be the frontside. The difference this time is there's a little more space in the gap because JJ was threatening to keep the ball on an Arc Read. Loveland saw #96 get so far outside and kicked him for JJ's handoff read. Now Edwards and the HSP have a nice big gap all to themselves. The thing is, Edwards is a much better football player than #6.

So that would be a #3.