gattis effect

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.]

Let's be positive today! After the 2019 spring game I was pretty high on the Josh Gattis offense because I believed it was going to continue to build upon the things Michigan's offense did well in 2018. It took half a season, and a dumpster fire of an opponent, but this game we finally got to see some good stuff from the rest of the Harbaugh era, with Gattis's good stuff added to it.

So one play Michigan ran quite successfully in 2018 was the Pin & Pull. First let's go back to 2018 and remember how the base pin & pull play works.

1. Pin any and all frontside defenders set up inside of your frontside blockers.
2. Kick out the edge defender with your first available puller.
3. Provide a lead block by pulling the first next available blocker from the backside.
4. Cut off backside pursuit.

(Reminder you can pause with [spacebar], slow it down with ←, or speed it up again with →).

The center has to make the call on how they're blocking it, based on where the nose is lining up and whether the backside guard can get to him (just needs enough for a cut block). The other thing that can happen after the snap is the defense could be swapping who's in what gap, which changes who blocks whom. You could also arrive to the edge and the edge protector is hanging out behind the line of scrimmage, or just hiding beside his buddies. If you're coming for a kickout, and the defense has no interest in an edge, by all means, oblige:

That's the play. This was a good gainer for Michigan last year for two very good reasons:

1. It matches Michigan's personnel. We have very large interior linemen for the pinning, because we have some agile and highly skilled guys for the pulling. Remeber #CesInSpace from the offseason? They often run this to the right, which gives Bredeson the dirty duty of reaching a DT with a cut block, gets Ruiz and Onwenu pulling in space, and gives the TEs and Mayfield a leg up on their blocks.

2. It pairs well with our base rushing offense. Pin & Pull aggressively attacks the frontside of the formation. Michigan's base zone read/arc zone read/split zone/belly running game attacks the backside of the formation. Thus opponents will playcall and prepare a lot of stuff that attacks backside runs, e.g. the scrape exchanges that Army was running. Slant into it? Doesn't help you unless you've got some incredible get-off, because the OL is already expecting to make the blocks you're slanting into, and now the linebackers you shifted backside are also out of position. Blitz the backside? Waste of a linebacker. Have your linebackers blitzball interior gaps? Ha, you're just getting them trapped behind the wall of block-downs.

The one big problem with this play is that weakside linebacker. It's a long-developing play, and not every team is going to be as bad(-ly coached) at linebacker as Illinois. That guy has no blocker, and everything from the pullers to the backfield action are telling him which way the play's going. Even the backside guard the WLB should be reading is aggressively getting to the frontside. Sure, a Rutger or Illini might just stare at this then fritz out, but Penn State has a 5-star future All-American there, Michigan State LBs memorize Michigan's tendencies before they learn their defense attorney's number, and Ohio State has a DC and LB coach who were inside Schembechler Hall last year.

[After THE JUMP: Let's get rid of him then]

Last week in this column I talked about how the changes to Michigan's running game under Gattis seemed to be mostly about adding a read to it. One week later, at least among fans who know the first damn thing about Army, we're all grumbling about about how Michigan reversed the gains of their Gattisization by dorfing the reads.

To be sure, there were plenty of plays where Shea (and one where McCaffrey) had a keep read and handed the ball off. It's also pretty evident—despite what Harbaugh said in the presser—that Patterson was playing hurt. Also later in the game Army knew Michigan wanted to avoid passing and started bringing their cornerbacks on blitzes off the edge.

However, on re-watch, I noticed a lot of other plays where the DE crashed but Army was really taking away both options with what's called a "Scrape Exchange." Maybe showing these plays, what Army was doing, and what Michigan could have done in response, will ease some of the whinging?

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1. What's a Scrape Exchange?

It's a defensive "paper" call to the "rock" of the zone-read option play. Essentially they're flipping the jobs of the two backside guys, having the DE crash inside while an LB loops into the spot the DE formerly occupied.

The win for the defense is the green (i.e. the B gap) block in this diagram. The offensive play is designed to get that block accomplished with a tackle releasing on a linebacker. By exchanging jobs, the defense wins the block and can force a read right into it.

I covered this a few years back when we were meeting Don Brown, and again when Iowa adapted to Michigan's Pepcat package (and Microsoft still included their full video editor with Windows). Unfortunately something on our site is breaking the links to old images at the moment, but you can probably get the gist just from the video with the Bear vs. Shark song on it.

[After THE JUMP: We have the technology, but do we trust it?.]