run defense

Michigan cheated against Maryland. I don't mean they broke a rule, or broke a non-rule that their rivals suddenly convinced their conference commissioner is a rule for the purposes of upending their season. I mean Michigan was stealing a player from their run fits for most of the game, essentially playing 10-on-11 up front to have a safety stay high doing nothing of particular interest. It wasn't the first time they played like this, nor are they the first school to play like it. Nor is there any great mystery why they've been playing like this. Not when we've spent all season calling it "Playing Ohio State."

Here we are on the first Maryland play from scrimmage and Michigan shifts to a Tite front.

Even though Maryland has only two potential pass threats to the boundary Rod Moore is high over that side. Junior Colson is in the wide space between the RT and the slot receiver. If Maryland wants to pass against this they have 3v4 defenders to the top and 1v2 defenders to the bottom, at least until the RB declares a side. That leaves just five defenders committed to the run, four if you factor the LB (Barrett) on the bottom hash has a pass zone.

[After the JUMP: Light boxes, heavy men.]

This was boss by James Ross. Read on to find out why it was pretty cool of Mattison too.

In football everything old tends to become new again. In last week's article on the Saban pattern-matching defense I alluded to how Alabama tried to use the same strategy Virginia Tech had against Ohio State, and got "85 Yards Through the Heart of the Southland" in their face. However Michigan had some success last year defending this same stuff from a base alignment. So I thought I'd explain how.

Tech refresher

A quick refresher on what "3T" and "2i" etc. mean: A "technique" is the place a defensive lineman lines up relative to the offensive linemen:

When we say Willie Henry is a perfect 3-tech, it means he's good at doing things that you would do if you're usually lining up on the guard's outside shoulder.

They are numbered more or less from the inside out, but it gets confusing from having amalgamated many different coaches' terms for where a defender's hat starts. Like how a baseball diamond can comfortably accommodate all four sexual acts you knew of in 3rd grade, but once you're deep into high school extending the analogy leads to a lot of weirdness and disagreement.

Notice that there aren't names for lining up directly in a gap; you want your lineman to be "covering" (lined up in front of) someone to some goodly degree because in any scheme delaying an offensive lineman from getting downfield is a win for the defense. This will be important in a bit, but first let's talk about what OSU does.

Meyer's Base

By now I figure you know what the zone read looks like. Meyer does zone—and did so a lot more with zone guy Tom Herman at the helm than the heavy power stuff he ran at Florida—but at his heart he's still a Manballer. He manballs with the read-option…

…and he Manballs with regular old Power O from his spread sets. Here's what that looks like:

This was the same running game they used to pound defenses to death with Carlos Hyde, using the constant threat of Braxton Miller loping around the backside if you attacked that by crashing the middle, and dangerous vertical threats running downfield if you activate your safeties against it.

If Brian had UFR'd this I imagine he'd ding Glasgow –2 for getting blown five yards downfield by the double (and the refs for Mone getting held but that rarely gets called). Bolden had to watch for a backside cut but his path to the ball was blocked by Glasgow. The hold meant Mone couldn't fight off his block to stop the puller from getting into the lane, and Ryan can only pop that guy to restrict the hole.

But back up; why did such a good running offense need a hold and a good NT getting blown off the ball to gain its yards? Michigan made this hard by having two defensive tackles lined up over the guards. If Mone and Glasgow could hold their ground, Ryan and Bolden have a chance to stop this for a minimal gain. Two plays later they would, and it goes back to what Virginia Tech is doing with the old Bear.

[After the jump]