erick all tiny viking

I did this with the defense previously, and finally got around to the offense. Bear with me, Excel Geniuses, as I struggle to make the vlookup to index(match) transition. A lot of the lessons were discussed so often in the UFRs that it's not worth going over them again. Split Zone was their base running play, and they struggled all season to find appropriate counters for what defenses prepared against it because the natural counter for it—QB keeper on zone read—was not something they could get/were coaching(?) McNamara to do. The officiating got me all house-stompy again. Hassan Haskins was a steely-eyed missile man. Anyway this exercise is about finding things that were new.

Favorite Plays?

They were a Power and West Coast sorta team, which is to say, pretty Harbaugh.

From the above alone you might say they probably didn't go to their counters enough. Later in the season they started taking more shots downfield at Roman Wilson, who rewarded them for it. Their RB and TE deep routes were also astonishingly effective for how little they were deployed. Even adding all the sacks, dropback passing was one of the most effective tools in their bag. Play-action wasn't used very often—Gattis seemed to prefer working RPOs into the short passing game rather than just fake something.

They were evenly split between power and zone running earlier in the season but leaned on power more as it went on, and mostly ran off their tight ends regardless of what the offensive line was doing. That wasn't a bad plan.

I tried to identify individual heroes but the OL winning their battles varied game by game. Haskins was the constant, rarely getting less than half a point on any carry, and often hurdling fools downfield.

All told the breakdown was 50% called runs (for 5.65 YPC, +0.2 EPA/play), 37% called passes (7.94 YPA, +0.3 EPA/play), and then 6% play-action, 6% run-pass options, and 2% screens.

[After THE JUMP: You won't believe which player was super duper clutch on passing downs, except you will because you read the UFRs.]

Formation Notes: UGA plays with a “Jack”—a small DE that I counted as a LB even though he sets up on the line, like below. The offensive formation here is what we call “Fritz.”

This from UGA is “Nickel Odd”—it’s like “Split” but with the DT at a perfect 0 technique. On Michigan’s side, Erick All’s split is what I’ve been calling “demi.”

Substitution Notes: Once again trueblueintexas has us covered. McCarthy rotated in until McNamara went on tilt and JJ finished the game, which works out to 46% McCarthy. Haskins got the start but the other two RBs got more run. All got most of the TE work as Michigan used more spread sets, which got Sainristil on the field more than usual and plenty of work for Henning. Andrel Anthony got on the field after but more often than Daylen Baldwin.

Hat: Instead of new “WRDIS” acronyms each week, from now on when a play didn’t work because the other team MADE PLAYS we’re going to recognize that with a tip of the hat, shortened to “Hat.” Hate hat.

Label Notes: Reminder that I’m combining all scores (except QB) in the charting. p=pass pro, y=YAC, c=catch, b=block for RBs, and route=route. It might be more than one or an odd number, in which case the higher one goes first, so if you see something like “Wilson(+3croute) that means Wilson got a +2 for a difficult catch and +1 for running a good route. Capital letters in the formations refer to skill positions: R=RB or tailback, S=superback (2nd RB), Y=inline TE, F=off-line TE, X=split end (WR on weak side), Z=flanker (WR on strong side), H=Slot.

Formation Notes: Michigan spent much of its day in Gun Wk Z Tight, which is just Twins but a WR tight to the line instead of a tight end, then mostly ran to the backside of this. As you can see in the same clip, Ohio State broke out a Bear front that I called Hurricane in the charting. The number after is how many safeties they left high, e.g. Hurricane 1:

Substitution Notes: Trueblueintexas had the snap counts. Six McCarthy snaps. Line was Hayes-Keegan-Vastardis-Zinter-Stueber the whole way (no Filiaga). All got the most important snaps but was still a little lame and Schoonmaker closed it out with Honigford and two Selzer snaps.

[After THE JUMP: Anyone who tries to make you feel bad about reveling in this is a sad person who never has to be listened to ever again.]