You know the one. It's the play in the Fiesta Bowl, right after Mazi Smith was gifted a free 3rd & 2 sack and fell down instead, where Gemon Green blitzed from his cornerback position and nobody got over the receiver.

This play was driving me nuts, so much so that I've been stuck on it in UFR for four weeks. I think I know what went wrong, if not who specifically was at fault, so I thought I would draw it up then get it out of my brain.

The trick to finding out where the fault happened is to figure out where the extra material went. Since they're in zone, we're just looking to see if anyone's zones overlapped. And…yep:

On the top you have Mike Morris dropping into the same area that Colson is, and Moore coming down to the same area Colson is. Having two guys stacked there makes sense—there's a first and second level to the zone concept. Three means somebody's in the wrong place. The first suspect is Colson, because he's really close to Morris.

But there's more than a linebacker out of zone here, unless you think Michigan wanted a linebacker covering an All-American receiver? It makes more sense for Colson and Morris to be bracketing an in-breaking route from TE#12, with Colson taking the hole and Morris the curl/flat zone. Colson may be a little low in his zone, but that's not exactly unheard of for him, and he's still on top and inside of the TE.

It doesn't make sense to have a safety there as well, however.

[After THE JUMP: What were they thinking?]

So Colson is released with a warning to get depth on his drops, and the focus of our investigation turns to Rod Moore. It doesn't help his case that of TCU's three vertical routes to the field side Moore is taking the same one that Colson is supposed to be under.

Moore's attorneys may argue that he was watching the QB's eyes and always planned to get on top of the slot receiver's vertical route.

This would suggest some kind of split coverage where Moore only showed Cover 3 then was dropping into Quarters. In that scenario, Q.Johnson is supposed to stay over the bottom WR because he isn't part of the coverage over the 3-man side, and it's all Q-Jo's fault for actually running the thing they were aping.

I don't buy it. I think they're in a Cover 3 or a match system related to it, and that the safeties thought the front had flipped the coverage. Let me explain, and to do so, let's review what a basal Cover 3 might look like.

"Rip" and "Liz" are Saban terms for (the defense's) right and left. They're calls for which way to rotate the coverage, so that all the zones get taken care of without always tipping who gets what zone. They're also used to respond to how much material the offense has on either side. You typically want to rotate in the direction of more threats. This gets your curl/flat defender moving down into all the WR traffic, and your all-important deep middle 1/3rd defender running toward all the vertical threats to the overloaded side.

The big tell that a defense is in something on the Cover 3 family tree is when one safety is coming down and the other is flying up to a middle zone. Usually (not always) the safety coming down is that side's curl/flat defender, and the safety bailing high is the middle 1/3rd guy, leaving the cornerbacks to the outside deep thirds and the linebackers to the hole zones. Some extra defender, an OLB, hybrid, nickel, or even a DE might get the curl/flat zone on the backside.

In our busted coverage, safeties Rod Moore (#19) and Quinten Johnson (#28) are rotating like they have a Liz on but the rest of the team is dropping into the zones they would occupy in a hypothetical Rip call.

The wrinkle of course is that Gemon Green is blitzing the backside. So there ought to be a backside defender taking what would be Green's zone. Here's what I *think* the coverage was supposed to look like:

This isn't exact—it's probably more of a pattern-match with Michael Barrett (#23) responsible for the RB since there's no curl/flat responsibility on his side. It's also not a win—by getting into a Rip call when three receiving threats are on the defense's left side, they're not in great shape to defend the three vertical routes over there. Junior Colson (#25) would have to convert to man defense on the Y, Moore get over the top of the H, and Will Johnson (#2) stay on top of Z. It's not ideal, but then you're not asking for ideal; you're creating a weird "Amoeba" coverage look that's meant to confuse the quarterback long enough for an unblocked corner blitz to hit him.

Let's test this theory. Here's the entire pre-snap sequence:

TCU lines up in a 4x1 formation, and something comes in from the sideline. As Michigan gets lined up, TCU's quarterback sees something and moves his RB to the boundary side. As the RB flips you see Colson take out his mouthpiece and communicate to Barrett. Barrett is in the middle of saying something to Green, then turns around and gets the message from Colson that the RB switched sides. Nothing in there indicates a switch of the call.

In fact you can see Harrell even point at Green, and the entire DL slants upwards, meaning Green at least has the same call as the rest of the front.

Meanwhile let's look at how the safeties were reacting pre-snap. They begin on a level with each other, and are watching the running back.

I'm keeping the spotlights in place so you can see how each guy moves about. From their even position, Q-Jo starts to shift toward the boundary and step back a yard.

This makes me think Quinten Johnson is cheating over Quentin Johnston, the TCU wide receiver on the bottom (I know, it gets confusing). That would also be a correct thing to do if he had the correct call. Quinten (the safety) then starts cheating the other way—like he's setting up to head into a middle high third zone.

Interestingly, Moore at this point notices Q-Jo moving around and signals something to him. I'd like to think it was "Hey, dumbass, get outside, your cornerback is blitzing, remember?"

But I actually think Moore was confused as well, and is instructing Q-Jo that the running back flipped sides. In other words the safeties are telling each other it's a Liz call, with Moore rotating down and Johnson responsible for the middle high third. Starting staggered as they are in the frame above is a sign that they plan to convert the two-high look into a Liz rotation. Indeed, Q-Jo's first reaction as he sees the OL get in a pass set is to get his hips facing the three receivers to the top and start getting depth.

And Moore waits a beat for the fake handoff, but he's actually stepping down inside the 40 yard line after the mesh point.

That's some clearly Liz-like behavior.

So what happened?

My guess is Minter tried to defeat a TCU's 3x1 look by bringing a Cover 3 fire blitz with a cornerback coming, and his safeties just got the calls wrong. Last time TCU was in this setup (the first snap of the game), they ran a Sonny Dykes bog standard slot fade. If that was the call again, Will Johnson was actually in a good position to be on top of it for an interception even if he was technically supposed to be over the outside receiver. Either Duggan doesn't see Johnson dropping over it, or he does and while his eyes are over there he doesn't see Gemon Green coming until it's too late.

Here's what I'm guessing Minter thought he was calling, versus what he thought he was calling it against:

You can even see in the All-22 that Will Johnson is kind of cheating over the H, expecting his route to get towards the sideline.

#2 the CB on the top

It's cute, but also another thing his players could potentially screw up. It's possible for safeties to get the wrong coverage rotation on any play, not just the cute blitzes, sure. But when we talk about how the way Michigan wants to run complex coverages that demand savvy veterans, this play may be a good example of that. If you've been out there a long time, and know your Rip/Liz calls and RB flip checks without thinking, you can add a wrinkle like "Hey, in this coverage Quinten is the cornerback and Rod is the middle safety" and not miss it. Rod Moore has played a lot and Q-Jo has been around a long time so it's not excusing them, but I don't think it's a stretch to say the weird coverage might have been a contributing factor in getting the safety rotation call wrong.

Unfortunately, in Q-Jo's case it was the third time in his career (PSU's fake punt, the long pass at Rutgers last year) that he was glaringly responsible for a big swing play. That he got as far as he did without recognizing the mistake can't help but contribute to the growing sense that he's unlikely to figure things out before one of last year's freshmen does. But when I break down what happened, that assessment is too harsh. Moore was supposed to get them in the right call, and might have been victimized as badly or worse had Q-Jo gotten over his receiver and that tight end got open over the top of Colson.

Anyway, I think I'm ready to move on to the rest of UFR now. Well, for now.