[Patrick Barron]

For many reasons I loved Harbaugh’s offensive game plan against Ohio State. He knew Ohio State well, knew his players better, and nearly made up an entire massive talent gap between the two teams with coaching alone. One minute they’d be in super-wide splits and running up the gut, the next play they’d be in super-packed goal line, fake a handoff to Hammerin Panda, and slip a TE for an easy touchdown. Next drive they come out in a split-backs right out of a Bill Walsh playbook, plus a bunch of spread.

Ohio State ran a pretty basic defense; at this point they’re just churning through five-stars Calipari-style, and giving them a basic Quarters/Cover 1 system with one or two checks based on alignment. But Michigan’s offense wasn’t anywhere near that level last year. So Harbaugh pulled plays from every offensive tree, whipsawing the OSU defense between dramatically different concepts until he found a few that the Buckeye checks made wrong. Was it complicated? Well yeah, they practiced this stuff all season and emptied the drawer for the Game. Did it work? Brilliantly.

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THE SETUP

One of those successful attacks was a packaged play they broke out to save a 1st and 17 in the shadow of their own endzone early in the 2nd quarter, then twice more during an important drive down 24-20 in the 4th. But before they broke out the big gun, they scouted it.

Prior to that play they ran a jet screen to Evans on the field side that converted a 3rd and 11 to 1st and goal by catching the cornerback in man waiting too long to react to the jet motion.

A little later Michigan ran their slot (Crawford) in jet motion from a 2x2 wide TE look, and noted how Ohio State reacted:

Both throws went to the jet man, and now Michigan has seen the two ways Ohio State plans to defend it: an under front against odd formations, an over front for even ones, and slanting the line in the direction of the jet.

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THE PLAY

Now it’s the 2nd quarter and Michigan comes out in a similar thing, except instead of a second tight end in the formation there are two running backs: Higdon standing next to O’Korn, and Evans opposite and behind. Evans jet motion to the field against an under front, pulling the LBs away from the boundary. But this time Michigan’s running a pin and pull in the other direction.

I am guessing he found this on some Auburn film because it’s got Malzahn’s fingerprints all over it: jet motion, backside reads, pin and pull. It worked all day, and I think it’s because Michigan noticed how Ohio State defends jet motion and planned to punish it, and OSU never got to change it up because there were a million other things Michigan was doing. Here it is later against an over:

There’s a lot going on here so let’s break down the components.

1. Michigan aligns in a standard shotgun 3-wide formation with two receivers (SL and X) to the field, and the TE to the boundary.
2. McDoom (13) goes in a jet motion, ball is snapped when McDoom passes the quarterback.
3. The three receivers are running a bubble action, O’Korn reads the reaction of the receivers side (purple zone) and may have the option to throw the bubble if Michigan has numbers.
4. Line call uses the old Vince Lombardi sweep rules on the frontside: pin what you can pin and pull what you can’t. Backside is zone blocking.
5. Backside DE (orange zone) left unblocked, is optioned (QB keeps if end crashes down).

Granted those options could be entirely for show—Ohio State isn’t a naturally aggressive defense. Whether or not it’s a run-pass option, like any sound defense Ohio State had practiced how to take away the field side options and force it down to a running play on the boundary. It just so happened that’s exactly what Harbaugh was hoping for when he ran that…

[After the jump: the Jets]

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JET MOTION

The reason it works so well both times is because of how OSU adjusted their run fits to the jet motion. Almost every offense uses motion, especially jet motion, because it’s a great way to mess with the defense. Jet motion with an especially fast dude you don’t want to have the ball in space is even better because the idea is usually not to actually outflank the defense, just to make them think you’re going to outflank them.

When you see McDoom bolting, the first thing that comes to mind is “holy shit what if that guy gets all the way over there and I’m late to the edge!” Every defender who sees that is naturally already imagining the jet motion guy out there, even if by the snap he’s not even past the box.

The thing is it could be either: the offense could be outflanking you with that jet guy, or they could be trying to get you bugging out to one side right before they change directions and attack the opposite edge. Or they’ll have a post-snap option to do either.

So you’ve got to have a plan to stay sound versus motion, and there are a few of them to pick from. For one-high defenses like Michigan’s if keeping your matchups is important to you, you can have everyone follow his man (Travel), or if you’ve got less specialized players it’s easier to just have everyone change jobs (Roll).

The latter is probably common response to jets because nobody gets stuck in traffic on the way and most teams don’t want to get stuck with their hybrid space player in the deep zone—Michigan has been known to do it against teams with less than spectacular deep passing games. Either way you haven’t really changed your run fits:

And that’s important because you’re trying not to overreact to the jet and become unsound.

However when you jet against a Quarters defense it’s going to do a little more to them because their coverage expects to play the two defensive backs to each side against the two receiving threats to that side. How Quarters teams deal with this varies based on what they trust their personnel to do. Some bring down the backside safety and convert to Cover 3 over it. Other times they’ll treat the jet man as a player out of the backfield and let the Star (hybrid space player) deal with him, while the cornerback takes on a linebacker role.

Ohio State rolled the first time:

The second time they used a travel variant where they essentially leave the backside alone and put the boundary safety (B) in man against the motion guy while the CB converts to a safety. I say “essentially” because if the jet guy gets outside the slot receiver now the jet man is the #2 receiver and part of the Quarters match, while the motion safety converts to man on the slot.

The thing is all of these shifts are likely to mess with their run fits. Quarters’s selling point is you can play with a nine-man front, which can free up the linebackers to focus on interior running lanes. But watch what happens to the backside of this front when the Z motions:

Now your cornerback is the edge of your defense and the nearest linebacker is three gaps over. So Quarters defenses often teach the line to all slant toward any backfield motion that crosses them, entrusting the linebackers to stay home on the backside so the DL can still play their gaps aggressively.

That’s a much more sound way to play, keeping your linebacker outside and protecting them against those meaty linemen. Also the trap is set. Let’s watch Schiano step in it.

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PIN N PULL

Here’s the first play again:

With the “Z” actually Chris Evans starting like an H-back, Ohio State’s frontside has already rolled down before the snap. The SAM linebacker (#35 Chris Worley) runs up to the line of scrimmage outside of the tight end, and the cornerback, with no receiver to worry about to that side, is also up on the line. They still have a safety back there to help them, and a middle linebacker to clean up any messes.

Then comes the jet, and sure enough the line is slanting, turning moderately difficult downblocks into easy OL victories.

The nose slanted into perfect position for Bredeson to seal him; he’s dead. The SDE (Sam Hubbard) here was supposed to get into the B gap, but there is none, and because he’s slanting instead of heading directly upfield he’s got no chance to interfere with Kugler’s pull; guy is useless on this play.

Two guys have a chance to make an awesome play though. The backside tackle lined up inside of Juwann Bushell-Beatty and JBB can only ride a bit of shoulder toward the play—it’s enough. Also the SAM (Chris Worley) is supposed to win this—an under front against Trips is strong because a backside run puts you directly into that unblocked edge guy. But the slant made him into basically an SDE covering a C gap, and Worley is kind of a hybrid safety who get get pushed around when blocked, and McKeon can just seal him and ride—the guy still makes a valiant effort to get upfield but McKeon’s push is enough to get Higdon by.

Mason Cole caught the cornerback trying to set the edge. That’s a wee little dude against a left tackle, and wee little dude can only dive at air as Higdon scoots by.

Ruiz got to release downfield, and the jet action pulled the middle linebacker enough that Ruiz had a chance to harass there, but the freshman got hung up for no reason on Bredeson’s guy for a sec, so Kugler has to use himself up there. The playside safety took a false step from the jet action too, though, so Higdon can stiffarm that puppy to the ground and turn 10 yards into 35.

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Now let’s watch the second play, with Ohio State in an Over formation and rolling just two guys instead of their entire back seven:

The secondary’s reaction this time is again fine: they have 3 on 3 for the McDoom jet action. Also the 4-3 front and using the cornerback as their overhang safety has fixed the issue with the wasted DE, while not moving the linebackers means there are two able to help on the backside of the play.

But still the slanting reaction to the jet motion is winning all-important battles up front, allowing the pullers to get out in front and get square on the linebackers reading them. Michigan has blockers for everybody until the cornerback, who’s 20 yards deep and still a teeny guy. Two blockers for two guys is a win for the offense, and it’s only kept down because the MLB (Tuf Borland) ably took Kugler’s cut attempt, and Bredeson’s kickout attempt on Worley had to be converted to a seal on the other side, making Higdon cut around it and giving time for Borland to close and the rest of the defense to rally. It’s still 7 or 8 yards on 1st and 10.

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So…try it again? Sure.

This is back to the Evans look, and Ohio State is back to the Under front. The bubble now is creaking open…

…as OSU was much more careful about their shuffle, keeping the boundary safety on his hash and only moving the MLB a little bit (the Star still moved to overhang Crawford in the slot with the field safety moving with the jet motion).

But the under front also means it’s once again that wee cornerback (Denzel Ward) and SAM (Worley) meeting the pullers after the slants come and the downblocks seal them. Worley is still checking that TE gap that Hubbard is slanting into though, Ward is backing up a bit as if he too is expecting to chase down a run that goes inside. So it doesn’t, and Cole blasts Worley out of the play right before Kugler arrives to escort Ward to the Michigan sideline, and there’s again a huge gap. Worley falls at Cole’s feet and manages to grab at Higdon’s after a 9-yard gain that was about to meet a safety at the first down marker anyway.

Note the timestamp: Michigan was running this just two plays after the last one. And even though Ohio State had seen it already, they’d seen so many other things that day that they never adjusted how they defend it. (Note: Penn State did).

There’s been a lot of complaining, some justified, that his offense is too “complicated,” a sort of false slider that someone wishing to find fault can turn to because it’s hard to argue without diagrams and such. In this game Michigan’s players didn’t seem to have any problem keeping up—their biggest problem until the last interception was the quarterback missing wide open targets he was throwing to. But Ohio State’s all-star defensive coaches never got this fixed, and it very nearly cost them The Game.