Picture paging Notre Dame's final score
[Ed-M: Gord morning. No it wasn't a dream. Read this. Also: AIIIIIIIIIEEE!!!]
I was curious to see what Mattison dialed up on Notre Dame's last score, to see what he was trying to accomplish and what went wrong. Here is what it looked like:
If you count Michigan and ND's players, you get to 10: there must be another WR at the bottom of the screen, covered by Troy Woolfolk. Michigan has everyone near the line of scrimmage, but the call is actually a Cover 3 and they will rush three defensive linemen, leaving 5 players to play the short zones:
I think that Woolfolk's assignment is the deep third at the bottom of the screen, but thanks to ESPN we can't see him. Here is what the defense looks like right after the snap:
You can see the three rushers, four of the five short defenders, and two of the three guys trying to get deep.
Notre Dame is going to run the following play:
Floyd is in the slot, and is presumably Rees's main target since it is third down and they need to convert (although it is obviously four-down territory).
The result of the play we all know.
(The play starts at 2:24)
I don't know anything about football beyond watching and reading mgoblog and smart football, but I think the idea of the call is this: by putting all our defenders close to the line of scrimmage, to bully ND into checking into a play that involves a quick pass (remember it's 3rd and 5). Then you rush 3, flood five players into the short zones, hopefully allowing you to break up the pass or make a tackle before the first down markers. The problem was that Rees didn't force it to Floyd, who was covered by Jake Ryan; instead he threw long, and Woolfolk and Marvin Robinson don't cover Theo Riddick.
I think that Mattison's call was sound; either Woolfolk or Robinson should have had Riddick (although it's hard to be sure since we can't see the whole field on ESPN's feed). The problem is, as Dr Saturday and Chris Brown of Smart Football pointed out,
September 11th, 2011 at 8:56 AM ^
Its a good thing they blew the coverage as quickly as they did......Denard needs at least 28 seconds to engineer game winning drives and the defense only left him with 30. Close call...
September 11th, 2011 at 4:14 PM ^
Actually, he needs 21 seconds. He got rid of seven superfluous seconds on the first play.
September 11th, 2011 at 10:55 AM ^
We are likely to see gamesmanship like this throughout this season and until the talent level is NFL ready. The heart of that call and this post was that this was not cover zero which is in stark contrast to the 2009 call that Forcier shredded.
Mattison is a master. I'm so happy with him. He attacks, disguises coverage and takes chances. We all need to take the headsets off and watch this season roll. What started in recruiting has borne out on the field. We got D.
I don't mind Martin dropping back in coverage on a 3rd and 3 either if it means interceptions like Kovacs had or flat out plays like Hawthorne made. You have to take the bad with the good. That said I'd expect more conservative calls where Michigan can win on talent in the coming weeks.
What defensive player would not like to play for Michigan at this point. Alabama stuffed PSU but did so with 8 likely extremely high picks in coming NFL drafts. Mattison is going to make these guys the best possible players they can be. You see that in plays like this where he asks them to cover like Ed Reed.
Thanks for the picture pages.
September 11th, 2011 at 9:48 AM ^
Yet still there are some lesssons to be learned on both fronts. In order to get to the elite level, this team has a lot to improve.
September 11th, 2011 at 9:52 AM ^
It tricked ND into scoring too fast. We outsmarted Kelly just like we did Weiss the two previous years.........
September 12th, 2011 at 9:20 AM ^
Kelly coached ND last year, not Weis.
September 11th, 2011 at 9:53 AM ^
I've watched this play over and over again (don't know why I'm so infatuated by it). Robinson hauls ass upfield right at the snap, so he seems to be in decent position to visually pick up the streaking Riddick. What I can't see is if he initially bit on something that made him momentarily lean to midfield. I can't see any ND players coming across the middle, though, so this shouldn't be the case. The other half of the field seems well-covered. So is this simply a great example of a RPS-type situation where ND has the perfect seam route called to exploit the Robinson/Woolfolk coverage (and a good immediate check-down by Rees when he notices Floyd covered)? Did Woolfolk pass Riddick off to non-existent safety help too soon (no other WR was in his zone)?
I think the "D" call overall was great...Floyd's little hitch was smothered by Ryan, and everything else was well-blanketed. I would have preferred Robinson playing off the LOS to cover the deep routes more efficiently, but I guess his first task was to sell the all-out blitz in this situation.
I can't wait for the UFR for this game. There will be plenty of plusses and minuses for all!
September 11th, 2011 at 9:55 AM ^
Thank you for this. I saw a lot of complaining about this call but I agree it's correct.
We're so thin in terms of DBs that we're playing Woolfolk with an ankle problem, a cast on his hand and bloody nose. Mattison is doing what he can to disguise the coverage and blitzes to help that thin secondary, but there are going to be times it just blows up in our face. That's why a lot of analysts are projecting us in the 7 to 8 wins category.
Personally I like Mattison pulling a lot of NFL level plays and telling the players "I'm going to treat you like NFL caliber personnel, it's up to you to rise to the challenge and make the play." I'm just going to be drinking a lot on the plays they don't rise up.
September 11th, 2011 at 2:20 PM ^
To off-set your talent deficiencies. Just sitting back and giving wide berth so they don't get beat gets you the GERG defense. This is high risk, but high reward. Our defense used to be all risk and no reward. When it has some talent, it becomes low risk and high reward.
September 11th, 2011 at 9:55 AM ^
"Free safety pro'ly should be keying 3 receiver side to see seam pass." (link)
September 15th, 2011 at 2:48 PM ^
Another key aspect of this play blowing up on us is that Robinson turned the wrong way in dropping into coverage and thus lost about two steps. He should have turned back to run with the deep route by turning clockwise -- he turns counterclockwise instead and as a result the WR is incredibly wide open.
September 11th, 2011 at 10:10 AM ^
I admit that I don't know football details, but I thought the deep portion of the field on that play was Gordon's responsibility. I say that because of the routes, the way Woolfolk played his area, and most importantly Gordon's reaction after the play. But reading your post you may be right - Woolfolk may have been the guy to drop back there.
Herbie said it great after the game - the D is going to have wild swings in performance because Mattison is having to take a lot of chances to cover for his talent deficiencies. Sometimes they work (7 TO's in two games!!) and sometimes they don't (Martin getting steamrolled while dropping into a short zone). But after the past three years (or more) I'll take it. If you're going to suck, suck being aggressive!
September 11th, 2011 at 12:21 PM ^
Thomas Gordon had a bad game but that play wasn't on him. He wasn't out there. Robinson (#3) was out there but not Gordon (#30).
September 11th, 2011 at 10:19 AM ^
The problem with that play was that Marvin Robinson was playing FS. MRob has as much business playing FS as Cam Gordon did last year (i.e. none). Marvin could be a good SS or a very good WLB but playing him that far from the line of scrimmage is a recipe for disaster.
September 11th, 2011 at 12:19 PM ^
Why shouldn't Robinson be at FS? And more importantly if he shouldn't be then who should be? Thomas Gordon who's been beat a dozen times already this season? Carvin Johnson, Furman, or another player who's seen little playing time? Robinson isn't ready to be the starter but he has good speed and can tackle. He's also had a couple of good plays already this season and has successful bracketed a WR a couple of times.
Putting Robinson back there by himself was the mistake and that's not on Robinson.
September 11th, 2011 at 10:47 AM ^
Floyd was a decoy on that play not the primary
September 11th, 2011 at 11:52 AM ^
when the slot receiver (TE) was left totally uncovered by anyone. Rees missed him and threw it incomplete deep.
Not that it affected the outcome, but these kids are still learning this D. Some of the calls are too aggressive, but they're building toward an identity. There will be many more mistakes, but hopefully improvement throughout the year.
September 11th, 2011 at 12:08 PM ^
Great analysis.
To me it looks like it's on Woolfolk. Looks like he's hangin out in his zone too close to the sideline and no one was even there. It looks like Riddick may have just been running up in the kind of intermediate area between Robinson's and Woolfolk's zones.... and so maybe Woolfolk thought Robinson had him, but, since there was no one in his area he should've come over a couple seconds sooner to make a play.
To me that looks like a mistake in judgment/miscue/miscommunication, the kind which will be ironed out and we'll see less of as the season goes on and our players get used to working together in this new defense.
September 11th, 2011 at 12:15 PM ^
There was another outside WR that wasn't seen in the picture. If it's on Woolfolk than he was being asked to cover two WRs at once. I don't think Mattison would ever do that unless he's max blitzing.
September 11th, 2011 at 12:14 PM ^
At first I thought ND just sent two players into Woolfolk's zone overwhelming him which made him choose which WR to cover and that Robinson couldn't get over to help in time but that the TD was really just due to ND overloading that side of the field.
However, I don't think that makes sense because even if the outside WR didn't run a deep route into the endzone Woolfolk would have had to stay with him anyway, since he had absolutely no defensive help near him. If the outside WR ran a deep out or a comeback route Woolfolk would have had to stay near him to prevent him just outrunning Woolfolk to the back corner. If he ran a deep in he'd have had Riddick blocking in front of him. Basically Woolfolk had to stay near enough to the outside WR that he couldn't be counted on to cover Riddick.
That means that Robinson was probably supposed to drop deep and squeeze Riddick but Robinson had to make sure that neither Riddick nor Floyd ran a slant inside of him since there was no help in the middle of the field. So basically Robinson had to drop deep and towards Riddick while making sure that no WR cut across the middle of the pitch. That's a hard task for anyone especially when they start at the LOS and can't see the field from their normal positon. Truthfully, I think Mattison put Robinson in a bad situation. Like everyone I expected ND to go to Floyd but unless the throw was instantaneous, Rees was going to see Floyd was covered and look elsewhere and find an open Riddick. There was a chance Rees would force it to Floyd despite being well covered but Rees was starting to actually see the field on that drive. I'd say it's a RPS loss because the play call gave ND an advantage but it's more than that because ND's call seemed to perfectly fit into the hole our defensive formation left uncovered. It's like RPS -1 for Michigan and RPS+1 for ND.
September 11th, 2011 at 12:15 PM ^
Why when playing the video is there that rawk music playing in the background so you can barely hear the announcer????
September 11th, 2011 at 12:26 PM ^
Did anyone see Carvin Johnson out there last night? He played a pretty poor game vs. WMU so I didn't expect to see much of him.
September 11th, 2011 at 12:35 PM ^
Would be easier to tell with a wider shot or endzone view, but from my perspective in the endzone, this was a disguised cover 3 (possibly cover 4 to the bottom with cover 2 at the top, hence the safety opening up to the bottom of the field as he leaves the LOS).
Woolfolk has the 1/3 of the field to the bottom of the camera. If nobody attacks that 1/3, he can trail the WR, but the FS in the middle (Robinson) has post/slant responsibility. Tough, since he is sprinting with his back to the QB, but he should have attacked towards the hash more aggressively.
September 11th, 2011 at 12:45 PM ^
I have a feeling we will see the FS backpedal before the snap on this play from here on out, I'm not sure what the bottom CB was doing, but its possible he saw the WR running slightly inside and passed him on to the non-existant FS. Also, I disagree with the tweet about Ed Reed. Yes, Reed would be able to get back faster, but the WR would also be faster and the QB would be able to read it faster. Overall, its a wash. Just a blown coverage, imo.
September 11th, 2011 at 12:54 PM ^
September 11th, 2011 at 1:15 PM ^
Did Dymonte Thomas commit at the game last night?
September 12th, 2011 at 8:11 AM ^
A lot of these kids have played for three different defensive coordinators. Three different defensive schemes and two of those schemes were some wacky hybrid 3-3-5. This was the second game in a new scheme. They are going to look out of place at times. The DL's are undersized (save Big Will and Black and Martin) This is an entirely different philosophy these boys are running now. With that being said, I think the blown coverage had a lot to do with the entire team having Floyd on the brain. I think they all were expecting Floyd to get that ball in the slot.
I think that is how they gashed us for some big runs too. Martin was dropping back into coverage expecting them to throw and they actually ran the ball straight up the gut.
ND was guilty of the same thing. Denard had burned them so bad that they overloaded the box, playing with 8 men inside of it all night long. That is how Gallon got so wide open on that wheel route. Denard had broken the containment and if you listened closely you could hear the whole state of Indiana shift to their left, Charlie Weis gasp in between destroying his hoagie with extra cheese and every football player on the field yell OH SH*& at the image of him having all that room to run and one of the DB's back there forgot about their assignment and Gallon caught the ball.
September 12th, 2011 at 11:42 AM ^
Rees was given the freedom to audible at the line of scrimmage all day. He checked down to the run several times during the game once he saw Michigan's defensive alignment. This was 100% a defense that was supposed to get Rees to check to a short pass before the heat came.
This was a calculated call that would probably put Wolfork in a tough position because he needed to protect against a fade to the WR at the bottom of the screen (also a potential hot read for Rees).
I would take an aggressive play call on defense with our coverage personel in that situation.
September 12th, 2011 at 11:44 AM ^
Rees was given the freedom to audible at the line of scrimmage all day. He checked down to the run several times during the game once he saw Michigan's defensive alignment. This was 100% a defense that was supposed to get Rees to check to a short pass before the heat came.
This was a calculated call that would probably put Wolfork in a tough position because he needed to protect against a fade to the WR at the bottom of the screen (also a potential hot read for Rees).
I would take an aggressive play call on defense with our coverage personel in that situation.
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