2013 OL and Borges Offensive Play Calling
Now with Lewan coming back, Brian and others have made some predictions for what the line might look like. My question for some of the more knowledgeable posters is what type of line and play calling you would expect from Al and why some players would project to right guard vs left guard and so on. I know that with Long Michigan ran a lot of zone to the left, while under Rich Rod, our guards and center needed to get out to the second level.
With Lewan returning and Kalis a mauler, does this mean that we should expect to see runs go left with a pulling guard or tackle? Or are runs expected to go right up the gut? I'm looking for more of an explanation for what Al's offense might look like now with Devin and his lineman and what players are fighting for which positions and why. Do they need to be quick/ strong/ agile? Thanks in advance for the feedback.
January 11th, 2013 at 6:52 PM ^
Zone is very often apart of a power running game (see most NFL teams). Even the 1980's Redskins who popularized the counter/power play ran a lot of zone as well. They called their inside zone play Gut and it was their Base running play. Many times people think zone is only run by spread teams and is more of a finese run play but thats not always true. There are some great OL dvd's out there from Joe Bugel on the counter game, Russ Grimm on the power game and organizing the run game and Alex Gibbs on the inside and outside zone play. The Bugel and Gibbs tapes I think you can get on Gilman Gear and the Grimm tapes the Cool Clinic. The Bugel counter tape starts by talking about their base zone play and shows a clip of them blowing the 85 bears defense off the ball 5 yards with their zone combos.
So I think you will see some zone as well as power/counter. Most power running teams have the following plays in there playbook and run them out of mutiple formations:
Inside Zone strong/weak
Outside Zone strong/weak
Power strong/weak (fb/h kickout, backside guard lead through)
Counter strong/weak (backside guard kickout, fb/h/t/te pull through)
Then all sorts of variations off these too, whether they are blocking variations or misdirection plays. And play action passes off all them too.
January 11th, 2013 at 2:17 PM ^
I don't think Hoke and Borges are very likely to go to a zone blocking scheme next year, but we'll see...
January 11th, 2013 at 2:31 PM ^
We've been a zone blocking team. Zone reads are all zone blocked plays. The only plays we run that aren't zone blocked are power/iso which are man-man scheme. We haven't ran any trap plays or anything like that in years. So we've been a primarily zone blocking team, either way.
January 11th, 2013 at 2:52 PM ^
Michigan hasn't really run the zone read very much, especially not with Gardner.
January 11th, 2013 at 5:39 PM ^
I guess I was talking about the Denard version of our offense ala Rich Rod and Hoke year 1.
January 11th, 2013 at 2:30 PM ^
The last few years our offense was primarily a zone read, and QB power in terms of the run game. We sometimes tried to run some Iso and power stuff out of the I-formation with dismal results. I would expect we scrap most, if not all of our shotgun zone read plays. I would expect to see inside zone at TE (Wisconsin style), and outside zone plays out of run formations, mixed in with Iso's when the D starts playing the edges hard, and traps and power plays when the DL starts getting up field trying to attack our pro-style pass game. Throw in some boots to keep the defense honest, and some 3 and 5 steps drops to compliment our run game. It will be very Wisconsin looking. Obviously, we will still have shotgun for obvious passing situations, but like I said lot's of inside/outside zone runs, and power plays. Those are staples of a pro-style offense, and they're universal in how they are run. You can look up the mechanics of the plays if you are interested. The concepts are shockingly simple, and those will be our base plays. They can be run with/without a lead blocker.
January 11th, 2013 at 2:44 PM ^
Michigan ran approximately zero zone reads last year. They ran a lot of inverted veer reads with man blocking, but I don't recall them zone blocking once. Borges doesn't zone block much in his past and Hoke has outwordly said he's not a big fan of it (though most teams have a least some plays that still utilize it, and Michigan probably will too, but not many).
Michigan is not going to be an inside zone running team. They will run power, iso, counter, they will pull guards and/or tackles to get to the edge. They aren't about to switch up their whole philosophy when they have the guys they want and think can run their system. This won't be a Wisconson looking team, this team will look much more like pre-'03 Carr era Michigan (though Michigan's pass game wasn't very WCO oriented, they sprinkled some of it in)/ Steve Young 49ers type/current Stanford teams.
January 11th, 2013 at 5:49 PM ^
You just contrardicted yourself. You said we will be an inside zone team, but won't use any zone blocking. Zone blocking is a staple of any run-oriented offense. You can't run power/iso/manmanblock every play. Inside zone at TE and outside zone WILL be in our aresenal I can gurantee it. I say it will look like Wisconsin because Bielema learned it from the old school guys and made it famous at Wisconsin. And I've never seen ANYONE in college football run an inverted veer read. So I HATE when people call it that. A veer read is 2 reads, DT, DE, and if you then want to count the OLB (that would make a 3). What we ran is a ZONE READ (1 read). Denard was reading ONE defender in a zone and making a decision based on what that defender did...zone read. There is 1000 different types of zone read. A REAL inverted veer read would be reading the DE first, then the 3 tech, or 1 tech. And there is no such play...no such thing as an inverted veer. I'm sorry it's coach speak and we play a very good veer team to open the season every year so I hate when people mislabel the veer. We did run zone read this year when Denard was playing QB. We did zone block because that's what you do on zone reads. I'm sure we switched betwen zone and man blocking depending one situation. How do I know this? Last year I talked to Coach Funk at the Kalamazoo clinic for about an hour and bombarded him with all kinds of technical questions. I will be attending next weekend. I'll let you guys know how it goes. I hate to be a technical Tommy, but I'm right.
January 11th, 2013 at 6:15 PM ^
No where in my post did I say we were going to run inside zone, and I don't think we are going to run much if any inside zone runs. So I don't think I contridicted myself. Zone blocking is totally different then man blocking. Zone read is zone blocking, not man blocking which Michigan did exclusively the last two years. I'm not sure what you're watching or coaching but it's very different than what most call it. The term "inverted veer" read refers to the play where Denard reads the playside DT, playside DE or second level LB that is flowing to stop the outside run from the RB, it uses power blocking, not zone blocking like you're saying. Yes there are different people you can read, but it's not zone blocking, it's man blocking and most typically power blocking. That is a quite common phrase that has been used by many people to describe that play. I'm not sure you know what zone blocking is or what man blocking is.
Michigan will not, I repeat, will not be an inside zone running team, and I never said they would be. They may run it once in a while to catch the other team off guard or switch things up based on defensive alignment, but they will man block much more than zone block. This isn't Wisc or the Colts with Peyton Manning. The main type of blocking done by Michigan is and will be man blocking for the forseeable future. The "zone read" reads the backside end with the RB going one way and the QB the other, that's the common term. Zone read has zone blocking. Michigan didn't zone read.
You either don't know what you're talking about or your football vocabulary is very different than most coaches. I'm a coach too. Magnus is a coach too. There's a reason both of us are saying you aren't correct in this situation, because according to most people (including coaches) you are very wrong. Watch the QB read plays again, you will consistently see one or two O-linemen pulling around and man blocking, not zone blocking.
January 11th, 2013 at 6:55 PM ^
January 12th, 2013 at 9:48 PM ^
January 11th, 2013 at 2:44 PM ^
January 11th, 2013 at 2:53 PM ^
Your definition of the zone read differs from mine.
January 11th, 2013 at 3:27 PM ^
on the Clowney/V Smith beheading...let's not run that again. Great, thanks.
January 11th, 2013 at 3:48 PM ^
January 11th, 2013 at 4:11 PM ^
That's what kills me, is that so many people didn't even watch the game, all they saw was that damn clip. So many people don't realize what a great job T Lewan did on Clowney for most of the game, except for just a few plays...and even this play wasn't Lewan's fault, it was a miscommunication.
January 11th, 2013 at 4:16 PM ^
Either way that play was called, Kwiatkowski should have at least touched Clowney. Whether it was a double-team with a Lewan or a straight-up down block, Kwiatkowski totally whiffed. That's more on the TE than anyone.
January 11th, 2013 at 4:43 PM ^
...but even if he had gotten the call at the line,do you think that a he had much of a chance getting a push on Clowney regardless? Based on the game so far, that call was going to yeild zero yards at best and I think Borges should have been more carefull/creative to continue the momentum swing.
January 11th, 2013 at 4:45 PM ^
How will Borges call plays?
He'll line the team up in the I and run either:
A) Play action pass in which the QB turns his back to the line.
B) Run power.
C) A quick pass.
I think the veer is dead but hopefully we'll be MANBALL enough that we can run power on third and short instead of doing it with spread personnel on a critical down against a hated rival.
It's going to be awhile before I forgive Borges.
January 11th, 2013 at 5:56 PM ^
1. Inside zone at TE
2. C gap power
3. ISO
4. Outside zone at TE
5. 3 step West Coast
6. 5 step West Coast
7. Inside trap (See Harbaugh and the 49ers everytime they play the Lions because of our terribly undisciplined DL play)
8. BYU 2-back pass game. Look it up. Lots of guys stoled it and incorporated it into the gun, but the BYU 2-back attacking pass game was killer in it's day. And we'eve seen Hoke come out in that old-school 2 back formation already.
and to the guy who told me it won't look like Wisconsin..every run oriented team runs the same run plays. It just depends on which ones they favor. Do Stanford and Wisconsin look the same, no but they run all the same plays. Stanford favors pulling guards and power plays, Wisconsin favors zone plays. But, I gurantee the players on each team know ALL the basic run plays whether they be zone, power, iso, man/man playes etc. Because EVERY heavy run team runs the same plays, save Midline option teams.
January 11th, 2013 at 6:20 PM ^
Will they have inside/outside zone as part of their package? Probably, yes. Like you said, there are only so many run plays. But it will be far from a staple. Michigan will not run it much, and I'm not wrong here. They will run much, much more man blocking as they have the past two years. I'm very familiar with all the things you listed above, you aren't above my head on this. I'm just not sure you actually watched Michigan play the past two years because you seem to be heavily confusing man and zone blocking. You seem to be unfamiliar with the coaches philosophy in their blocking style. I can promise you that the O-line does know both types of blocking (you keep listing power, iso, so on and so forth, but those are all types of man blocking), but I can also promise Michigan practices man blocking significantly more than zone blocking because there isn't enough time to practice both significantly. That is why teams are typically prodominately one or the other, because the techniques, reads, etc. are very different.
January 12th, 2013 at 11:43 AM ^
Ugh. Its not the "undisciplined" DT play that makes that trap work so well against the Lions. When you're running Wide 9 all kinds of traps open up.
Which they are willing to give up because the pass rush trade off is supposed to make it worthwhile. Pass D is a heckuva lot more important then rush D in the NFL.
January 12th, 2013 at 11:48 AM ^
Don't know why anyone hasn't mentioned pulling Lewan by himself to his *left*. Line up a TE next to him, have the TE downblock and pull Lewan into space. Nevada runs - or did run it anyway - this from the Pistol to great effect.