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 some very large, agile and highly skilled guys for the pulling. Remember #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. When Ruiz and Onwenu collide with ends and LBs and DBs, physics happens.

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]

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Note in the diagrams above I used blue to represent the backside linebacker and the running back. Run normally, this play is a race to get the running back through the blocking and get that dude caught behind the mess until it's too late. Let's watch the Indiana play again but follow the WLB:

What can you do about that guy? Well we saw a few things this offseason from Gattis. One was an RPO that sent the running back on a flare to the other side, forcing the WLB to follow. That freed up the quarterback to play running back.

Glasgow's blitz here takes him out of the play—someone still has to go with the RB and that's McGrone.

They ran it again in the spring game for the McCaffrey touchdown, then shelved it for five games. Here's Michigan finally bringing this out for a crucial 4th down play:

For all the crap we give him for handing off on 100% obvious keep reads this year, let's give Shea some credit for playing tough here when it was sorely needed. Both Mayfield and Eubanks lost their blocks on this play, forcing Shea to have to barrel through. The reason there was no help coming to reward those defenders was the play design, and the Illini play-call that was expecting something on the other side:

The WLB has to go with the running back, and now there are no defenders to wear blue.

Gattis in spring also ran this as a slant RPO, slanting a receiver behind that backside LB to hold him there or give up an easy pass. Note the receivers are also running slants, which with the flare creates a triangle read to that side requiring three defenders. That too can mess with the WLB, and also holds the overhang safety to that side.

Another thing Gattis tried to deal with that WLB was to combo the backside tackle to him, using a zone read to win back the extra blocker they're using for the operation. Again, we have an example from spring; this caught a playside slant/scrape exchange combo, which did the job anyway by turning the backside end (Vilain) into that unblocked backside scraper you're worried about.

Pin & Pull enthusiasts can also learn a thing or two about how they change the blocking based on where the DL lines up. With a DT lined up where the center can't get him, the RG has to block down instead, freeing the RT to be the kickout man.

This too got shelved since they ran it twice against MTSU, until they ran it twice against Illinois on the final clock-killing drive, both for solid gains. Both times the same thing happened as did in the spring game: they went to combo to the WLB and read the backside end, the backside end and the WLB replaced, and the one guy who's supposed to be in a position to stop this is hanging out blocked only by the quarterback's eyes. Watch what happens to WLB #35 (circled in red):

Here's a great example of how this play needs a lot of practice to run well, because how the defense switches gaps changes how you have to block it and read it on the fly. On this example Illinois "pinched" their line, bringing both ends into interior gaps and moving edge responsibility to the safety.

How well Michigan adjusted to this shows they're committing practice time to it, but really this is an Illinois problem: that safety with the edge (#30, who lost his starting job a week ago) got inside of the kickout block instead, the SAM (#5, the Washington transfer) didn't replace outside, and that's why all the yards.

In fact both instances show what happens when the guy you're expecting to kick out isn't setting an edge (maybe leave the sound off because they're talking about JT Barrett's free inch):

You can also see why playing the SAM (#5) aggressively doesn't help—he just gets caught in the wash. And on the backside you can see why pin & pull is so often successful against teams that are focused on defending that arc read package. On both of these plays you have the backside defensive end crashing, and two linebackers taking a step away from a play that's all about getting to the frontside firstest with the mostest. Watch these guys:

MLB #9 (Dele Harding)'s job here is to get playside of Schoonmacher; his step backside lets the TE get a bump on, and now Dele is trailing the play instead of making it. DE #52 (Ayo Shogbonyo) and WLB #35 (Jake Hansen) have flipped roles because of the scrape exchange. That could certainly screw with a run to their side, but all it does against a Pin & Pull going the opposite direction is totally erase Hansen while the DE buries himself in Jon Runyan, who would have had a much tougher job trying to get to Hansen.

That's anti-arc zone read behavior similar to what Army was doing, and I can't tell you how refreshing it is to finally be bringing back a play that punishes defenses for it. The zone read in this context is an excellent addition because they're running something that looks like their base on the backside for a beat then turns into something that requires the exact opposite reaction.

So...Hope?

Work those RPO slants into this, and work with Shea on taking the free yards the play design and the defensive reaction have been leaving for him, and Michigan's offense will have at least climbed back to where they were last year. Add some more wrinkles like Down G, which is pin & pull's kickout pull with zone blocking instead of a second puller, and Belly, which is a zone read except you're blowing out the backside tackle and sliding down the backside, and we'll be where we thought we were from spring. Come up with some ideas that play off of this (there are plenty) and we all get to pretend like we knew this was just Gattis growing pains all along.

I know, I know, it's Illinois and there's a long way to go. But as you descend into the BPONE, there are still things about this offense to hang your hat on. Anyone searching for reasons for despair won't have too hard a time of it. But if you want to see a perfect synthesis of Bo Schembechler's old power game, combined with Harbaugh's tight end-heavy hole punches, combined with Ed Warinner's philosophies about screwing with linebackers, combined by Josh Gattis's ideas on how to create space by removing them altogether, and executed by a senior quarterback who rescued the play from two blown blocks by running through an arm and diving head-first into a middle linebacker, watch this: