SB Nation User Blog: jtthirtyfour

Protecting Prince, Brehaut, and Craft

jtthirtyfour — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:42:02 -0000

Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

I haven't re-watched the Arizona or Oregon State tape yet - that's what I really wanted to take a look at - so I'll update this when I get ahold of copies of those two games, since I believe we ate about 4 sacks apiece in each of those games. The below is only for SDSU through the Cal game.

I believe that offensive success begins up front, so I put together some cutups of common pass protection schemes used by UCLA over a few games. Norm Chow is a former offensive lineman, so you know that he understands the importance of the OL.

Gap vs. Man vs. Combo

Pass protections generally fall into two categories: zone or man, just like run blocking and coverage. Just like those there are also variations that combine the two. Gap protections have linemen responsible for a gap, and works well against defenses that like to stunt and twist. Man protections work well when you want to make sure that your linemen are blocking linemen, and your backs are blocking linebackers, instead of vice versa. Combo protections involve several linemen using gap principles and several using man principles.

At the top is an example of a 5-man protection that uses man principles, with the tackles locked up on the defensive ends and the interior linemen responsible for the 3 defenders. Generally they will "zone" those three defenders but it usually works out to the RG taking the DT and the C/LG picking up the NT and the LB if he rushes. The offense has 5 men in the route with 5 OL to block 5 rushers.

Next is a 6-man gap scheme where the line "slide" protects to the left, the TE releases, and the back replaces him. The problem is that you occasionally will end up with a back blocking a DE. Another problem is that the back cannot really get out into the route with this type of scheme - if you run a 6-man slide protection scheme, you will have only 4 men in the route, as if you release a back you will have a hole in your zone...the guys you decide to leave in have to stay in.

Combo protection at the bottom uses a half gap/half man system with the back reading linebackers. In this example, the offense locks up the LT man up on the DE. After the gap in the defense (red dashed line), the OL will slide protect away from the call side (right). There are 4 linemen to pick up 5 possible rushers. However the back will "check" the LBs and pick them up if they come - if not he can get out into the route on a "check release". If M comes and S drops, he can pick up M; if S comes and M drops, he can pick up S, and if both come, he will pick up the innermost guy, M. In this case the QB has to be aware that there are 5 possible defenders that could threaten the right side while he only has 4 potential blockers - if both M and S comes he needs to know that he has to get rid of the ball quickly as the back will be looking to pick up the blitz from inside to out (inside = more immediate threat).

Above is a good angle that shows Stanford running combo protection against us. We have 7 immediate threats and they have a max of 6 potential blockers; one must be accounted for by the QB's "hot" read (probably Ayers with something to the TE). We end up rushing only 4 with a stunt and they end up protecting with only 5, the bare minimum.

Note that 4 Stanford OL (LT to RG) step laterally to their left at the snap, while the RT moves backwards to block Korey Bosworth. We run a stunt against the "gap" protection side, and it gets picked up as no one is chasing defenders around, they are all covering their gap. Gerhart steps up callside, "checks" Kyle Bosworth and Reggie Carter, and sees them drop back, and then releases into the flat. Their QB sees that neither LB on the other side blitzes, and has some time to dump it off to Gerhart.

5-man: Man

This is the protection that I used in the example above for man. You can see the tackles seem to backpedal fairly quickly to set up the pocket, the interior linemen form a wall in the middle. This is usually used with some kind of quick-breaking concept and with some kind of short option like a swing route available in case the defense rushes more than 5. In one of the clips at 0:18, Richard Brehaut takes a sack when Oregon rushes 7 and UCLA has 5 in to protect. There is a quick option available, double slants to the left, but it looks like there was a predetermined read to throw to the right side as he doesn't really look that way. It looks as if the back had run a flatter route to the sideline then Brehaut would have been able to hit the hitch for a first down at the 5-yard line/the back in the flat (I put the blame on Brehaut for taking the sack earlier, but looking at it again I believe I was wrong the first time and it was just a sloppy route).

5-man: Gap

This doesn't really seem like it would make sense - if you slide the offensive line to one side, who is going to pick up the backside defender? UCLA has run a few plays where they pull a guard to the backside off playaction to pick up that guy, but during the first couple games they used this form of protection with a straight slide off playaction to the callside, and just left the backside guy unblocked. They dealt with it by sneaking a TE or back into the flat, essentially "blocking" that guy by making him wrong by either chasing the back off the PA, or chasing the QB until the QB just tosses it above the guy's head. I haven't seen it lately - Prince ran it at least once for the TD against Tennessee, but mostly it was Kevin Craft, especially against Kansas State.

6-man: Combo

This is the protection explained above. You will notice half the line "gap" protecting, usually just a tackle or sometimes the tackle/guard blocking man on to the callside. The back will step callside, "check" the LB, and then release or block (in these clips he is usually releasing - will explain below). In most of these the back just leaks out a few yards past the line, underneath the linebackers as a check down, and we've seen some completions to these guys as the QB is about to take a sack. In the first clip, the Vols rush 4 and we have 5 to protect. The right side looks like a man concept as they chase the stunt and the left side looks like they are gap protecting - the stunt is the thing that leads to the sack/fumble, as the players chase rather than play gap. In the 2nd clip it looks like the TE does a little check/release, or it might be pre-determined.

6-man: Gap

This is the gap protection explained above, you have 5 linemen sliding to one side and the back picking up the backside. One point to note is that the back often ends up blocking (or trying to block) the defensive end, and it doesn't work out that well sometimes. I did not think that our backs looked that good blocking, in general, but the blocking on some of these plays just looks really bad...you will see some of our guys diving at their feet and some whiffed blocks. However, the protection is solid as long as guys make their blocks. The only downside is that you have 6 guys blocking, 4 guys in the route, and if they only rush 3 then you have 3 guys blocking air, while they have 8 to cover 4.

7-man: Combo

This protection is just like the others except that you will have 7 men in - either the TE or another back, with a second back reading the linebackers. I have a couple examples of what looks like the "check" release by the back, although it is hard to tell what is predetermined and what is "read" - but it looks to be what I think it is.

However, there are a few more plays where it looks like a combo protection up front, but the back does not release - a few of these are against a defense only rushing 4. This protection seemed to be pretty common, as on a lot of the games I have seen we have blockers standing around not really doing anything. The steps and body language of the backs on these clips make me think that the back is not reading backers and is only looking to block the most dangerous man, on the one at the end, he isn't even looking at the LBs, he is looking to help out against the DE and is too late to react to the (delayed) blitz - there are 7 in the protection, they rush 4, and we take a sack. In this protection, our backs have not really looked good, so I don't know if it is a scheme thing (being asked to look at the DE 1st) or just poor reads and blocking by the backs.

7-man: Gap

Just like above, here is the cutup of 7-man slide protection. On the first clip, you can see how important it is to maintain these gaps, as there is a pretty big one between the C and RG that Tennessee shoots through. 62 is stepping the right way but staring at grass. In the second, it looks like 51 steps too far to his left, squeezes his gap too far. In some of the others you see 7 men blocking 3 rushers, and only 3 men out in the route.

7-man: Sprintout

This isn't covered above but I threw it in there as I saw it a handful of times, mostly with Kevin Craft. It is basically like the 5-man gap protection above except that you have a back to hook the edge rusher and allow the QB to sprint out. With this protection you are basically eliminating the backside WR, unless you are in trips to the sprintout side. Both times it looks like UCLA runs a smash concept, high-low on the flat defender (who is also threatened by the moving QB.

8-man: Combo

Looked to be a form of combo with double TE and the back in, I saw it at least twice vs. Cal, and I believe both times they only rushed 3 or 4. There are only two WRs in the route and both times we ran streak/dig, once off of PA and once off a flea-flicker.

Thoughts

There is more than what I have here, but these seem to be the big families. One thing that stood out to me was that we seemed to favor the 7-man protections, with all 7 men staying in to block (ie, back not check releasing). As I said before, a lot of times this results in 7 guys blocking 3 or 4 rushers, and 3 guys running routes against 7 or 8 defenders. Running 7-man protections is a deterrent against blitzing; most defenses will not really blitz much against teams that show a lot of 7-man protections as the odds of making it to the QB are lower. However, if teams aren't sending guys then your WRs are going to have a much harder time getting open and the QB is going to have a tough time finding somewhere to go with the ball.

I wouldn't necessarily say that we need to put more guys out in the route and block with less; there is a time and a place for each protection. I think we've done a good job of mixing it up, but when we block with 7, then we should never be taking a sack - the first two clips of the 7-man slide scheme from the Tennessee game show their guys getting too close to Prince, when they are only bringing 5 and 6. Against Cal, we block with 7 and they bring 4 and get the sack. In some other clips, you see some pressure on the QB, causing him to move around a bit. He shouldn't have to worry about this, or reading a "hot" rusher, or paying attention to a blitz in a 7-man scheme; he has to spend more time worrying about where to go with the ball since he only has 3 options. So I think from the offensive line standpoint there is some merit to the argument that we sometimes just get out-talent'ed against some defenses. A lot of it is technique, which is coach-able - using proper footwork and leverage, so it is something that can improve right away, But from a scheme standpoint, it doesn't matter what kind of protection you use, if you need to commit an extra guy or two, or if you need two guys to block one player, then you will be in trouble.

The UCLA Passing Game Under Norm Chow

jtthirtyfour — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:57:54 -0000

Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

I don't buy the argument that the scheme is too complicated for our players to understand, or that our players lack the talent to run them. I took a look at the three tapes I have, the losses to Stanford, Oregon, and Cal, and put together some cutups of the most common passing concepts that I saw.

A few observations:

The offense vs. Stanford looked a bit different than what we used against the other two teams - Kevin Craft was running the show at the farm
If you boil things down there are only a handful of concepts, and these are things that are common all over football
It seems that we have had a lot more blockers in on passing plays lately - a lot of "max protection", a few times there were only 2-man routes, with 2 TEs and a back in to block (8 man protection). I think that goes to show you that even though the offensive line has improved, we are still paying the price in terms of protection to keep our QBs off their backs - on that handful of 2-man routes no one was really open.

All-Curl

All-curl is pretty universal - here is a clip of the New Orleans Saints running it - if you've played Madden you're probably familiar with it. You basically have three curl routes over the middle and two routes towards the sideline to spread the defense - the premise is that the outside flat routes cause the defense to widen, opening up space in the middle. So far we've run it out of 5-wides, with 2 WRs just sitting in the flat and the three curl routes over the middle. Watch this video of Rick Neuheisel speaking at a high school coaches clinic in Arizona when he was the head coach of U-Dub. The link to the video should begin at the 4:30 mark, if it doesn't, then fast forward as that is where the QB reads begin.

If the defense only has 4 defenders underneath then there will be someone open - its just a matter of the QB starting on one side, and panning across until he finds an open "window" or a man that the defense doesn't pick up. I don't think that this is a particularly complex read to make, and Neuheisel does a great job explaining it - I have a hard time believing that UCLA student-athletes are struggling to pick up these reads from two great teachers. Again, if you play Madden/NCAA you can probably pick up this read in a game or two.

Double Slants

Double slants is also pretty common from high school to the pros. On one side you have two slant routes, on the other you have another concept, generally curl-flat (curl by outside WR and flat route by inside WR). The read is fairly simple as well - not a progression, but just reading one defender and figuring out where to throw (if A happens, throw to player 1, if B happens throw to player 2 - that simple). Generally pre-snap the QB looks at the defense and decides which side he will throw to and which flat defender he will read. Against this look it looks like they just read the "W" backer - if he jumps the outside slant then the inside guy should be open for a few yards. Otherwise they throw the outside slant. If they drop a safety down, and there is an extra defender underneath, they might instead throw to the right, read the "S" backer, and throw curl-flat to the other side of the field.

Screwed up with the video, there are some repeats towards the end. But notice that most of the time, opposite of the double slants are the TE going to the flat and probably a curl route/vertical route - one clip, Prince throws to Austin on a streak, he turned the curl vertical. Some of them you will see sort of a "smash" look opposite (see below).

Smash

Another common concept, just a 2-man route with a high-low combo against a flat defender. In it's most basic form you have a curl route underneath a corner route. If the defender sinks deep to defend the corner then the curl will be open, if he jumps the curl then the corner should be open above his head. One wrinkle that comes with Chow is that he uses what he calls "oblique stretches" to create these triangles in the defense - rather than stretching a defender vertically (the traditional smash) or horizontally (the all-curls and the double slant) he introduces a 3rd receiver that stretches the defense another way. UCLA has run this variant of the smash concept a few times, you'll notice that they use it opposite double slants a bit as well - probably against a certain look they will throw double slants, and against another they will use the oblique smash.

This is a play I've seen a couple times, where they motion a receiver in as a wing, and run smash with the back on a flat route. The motion man runs a little curl, the TE runs a corner above him (a smash combo, only inside the numbers), and the back is in the flat as the oblique stretch towards the sideline to create this triangle. The flat route widens the defenders, opening up space for the smash to work. In this video you'll see a 2-play series against Stanford where we ran what looked to be a "switch smash" - same thing, except that the slot WR runs outside and takes the curl, and the outside WR runs the corner. On the first play it looks like Morrell Presley, the "switcher", turns his curl upfield by mistake, judging from Terrence Austin's reaction. However UCLA comes right back with the same concept the next play and gets a big gainer to Austin.

Towards the end of the video you see a play that I noticed a few times against Cal and Arizona, what looks like a double smash, with the WRs in tight. One is the dropped TD to Nelson Rosario against Cal, where the corner might have been adjusted to a post route.

3- and 4-Verticals

This is an Airraid staple - when Texas Tech beat Texas in 2008 they used it to get down the field on the final drive, including the game-winner to Micahel Crabtree. It's also very simple, you release three or four guys in vertical routes, the concept being that teams that play one, two, or three safeties deep often cannot cover everyone, and with route adjustments you can make the defense wrong every time. For example, if there is a safety deep middle, you can bend the route to hit the seams rather than the middle. If there are two deep safeties, you run your middle vertical route down the middle. If the corners bail deep, then some teams have their WRs break down into a post-corner-curl-ish route near the sideline. If it is man coverage down the sideline and you cannot beat the defender, some teams will run fade-stop, and the QB drills the ball into the back of the WR, as he turns around right before he gets there. This is what Crabtree did on that final play against Texas.

This is probably the most complex of the bunch, if you incorporate all the different adjustments vs. different coverages. However I didn't see it nearly as much as the others. They are all against Cal; hard to see the deep coverage but on the first one down the middle, you can see the safety #29 slide off to the right/top of the screen, leaving the middle open. On the next to Rosario, it looks like a fade-stop adjustment as he us unable to get behind the cornerback. On the next play they run the same play and it is the interception that sealed the loss - sure you've seen that one before. Cal runs 2-deep, the receivers beat their defenders this time and continue down the field.

Final Thoughts

I don't think scheme or playcalling has been a problem. I don't think that any of this stuff is complex - aside from teaching the adjustments to the 3-verticals stuff, I wouldn't see a problem teaching it to high school quarterbacks and skill players, it is basic stuff. Most of it is just reading one concept, often just keying one defender to figure out where to go with the ball. That's the simplistic view, I know that there are places to go to when they blitz certain guys, and "peeks" at certain backside routes, but the main point is that guys are not looking all over the field at five different receivers running all over the place at the same time and trying to decide where to go.

I don't see Norm Chow as a brilliant offensive mastermind in the sense that he has come up with crazy pass concepts, the stuff in use today has all been around for awhile and you will see it all across the nation. I don't think that his offense is super-complex. I think the genius of Chow, or any other coach, is the way that they implement it - Mike Leach and the Airraid guys incorporating their unique style of throwing "balance" out the window and committing 100% to the pass, and practicing like an option team with the core of a few concepts, for example. I've never been to one of his talks, but from what I have heard he is great at understanding defense and how to attack it - most press box coaches are, that's why they want to be up there. I think he is great at figuring out what a defense is trying to do, and making the micro-adjustments like tagging a route (like that post in the end zone vs Cal off the double smash look) and packaging concepts together (ie, double slants married to smash).

However understanding how to get guys in the right places to attack a defense can only go so far, I think that the problems continue to be the basic stuff - blocking, tackling, penalties, catching, throwing accurately, etc. I think that this is less a talent issue, or scheme issue, or playcalling (I don't really buy the complaints about lack of blitzing and stunting by defense at Arizona, either, but that's another day), and just one of teaching and preaching fundamentals everyday. Most of the greatest coaches - Wooden, Lombardi, Bear Bryant - were not scheme guys, they just focused on the basics, and that is something that does not take 3, 4, 5 years to implement, or something that is dependent on the talent left over from the previous coach - it's something you can start to work on today at practice.

Yards/Play through the first 6 games. In this chart, "short" = 3 yards and below, "medium" = 4-7...

jtthirtyfour — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 18:47:55 -0000

Yards/Play through the first 6 games. In this chart, "short" = 3 yards and below, "medium" = 4-7 yards, and "long" = 8 and up.

Averages don't look all that bad but keep in mind that a play is only successful if you get enough yards, ie a 3 yard gain on 3rd-and-2 is good, a 6 yard gain on 3rd-and-7 is not.

Breaking down "the details" of the UCLA defense

jtthirtyfour — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:49:21 -0000

Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

Like everyone else I was surprised by this quote by Coach Rick Neuheisel.

"I understand their dissatisfaction, especially given the 3-0 start and that things were turning [around], and so on and so forth," Neuheisel said. "All I can tell them is that we're going to keep working at it. "It's too long and too hard a story to give all the details, and frankly I don't think they'd understand all the details. We have to keep working at it, no excuses."

I am kind of curious as to what he means by "understanding all the details" so I took a look at the tape from last Saturday's game against Cal. Keep in mind that I'm not an expert and that I do not know what's really going on in the meetings, pressbox, or the sideline - just taking a look and speculating on what's going on based on what I see from our defense.

Basics

Defense is more than just running to the ball, you need to have structure. Lou Tepper wrote the bible on linebacking awhile back that had a nice metaphor of a defense "closing the door".

Here is a diagram of how it looks - you have an outside door post (labeled "Force"), an inside door post (labeled "Spill"), and a "Fill" player that closes the swinging door. Anything up the middle gets tackled or "spilled" laterally, anything outside gets "forced" back inside. On the backside you have "Contain" guys responsible for cutbacks and reverses. Some coaches use different terms but this is how I learned it. UCLA's defense has often lined up like this, usually with Akeem Ayers as the 5th man on the line, Reggie Carter as the "M", and Kyle Bosworth as the "W". Notice that with "W" flowing over top of the center it opens up a bubble on the backside - the safety usually drops down on run away from his side to contain in an under front.

Being Aggressive

The way I learned defense, linebackers need to figure out which way the run is going, and aggressively "press" the line and fill a gap in order to make the tackle or "spill" the run laterally towards the force player, who will force him to cut back or dance, giving the fill player time to clean up. If the run goes right it should look like above, if it goes left, maybe the defensive end becomes force, the safety becomes fill, and the two LBs press gaps to the other side. Here are some clips of solid reads by the linebackers (in my opinion), with that backside safety dropping down as the 8th man in the box.

The first two are from a great defensive afternoon during which we won 13-9. On the first play, the two LBs (freshman Reggie Carter and Christian Taylor) press and Dennis Keyes drops down to play the backside, on the second one it is Horton. I'd like to point out Carter in the last two, as he is aggressive and presses the hole.

By comparison here is a reel of plays were our linebackers are not nearly as aggressive. The first one is from the 2005 Cal game (you will need to rewind a few times to catch this, but watch #41 and #9). Havner #41 and London #9 are the LBs. I think that LBs should shuffle in tandem, to maintain original spacing - you see 9 and 41 shuffle to their left, but then 41 stops, chops his feet, appears to be waiting. I think that if he had continued left he would have made the tackle, but instead he is blocked - one Cal lineman blocks two of our guys - and the result is a big hole and a big run. I am not a fan of defenders being hesitant and waiting to "catch" ballcarriers, I think that there should be fast flow to their responsibility, fill the gap and trust in the other 10 guys to do their job as well.

In the 2nd clip you see 51 chopping his feet as well, waiting for Verheen to break through the line - he makes the tackle but it is about 4 yards downfield. He had help to his right, so I am not sure why he hesitated. Again, I don't know the scheme, but my guess is that it has something to do with that. there was a blitz on and maybe he was responsible for two gaps. In the 2nd and 3rd clip, you see the same thing, a lot of lateral movement by the LB but nothing upfield. In the last, he kind of shuffles around a little like he is just trying to mirror the back rather than attacking any specific gap.

I am not sure why this is going on. One possibility is that players are simply just trying to do too much. You can't tell a player he has to be aggressive but also hold down backside contain. Maybe the scheme is too complicated...I'm a believer in simplicity, being able to rep a handful of plays or defenses and being able to execute them. Players need to be confident in order to be aggressive, they need to be sure of where they need to step and how to react against different looks. A great defense is one where you see all defenders react in unison because they were all keying the same thing, took the same steps, and did what they were supposed to do. In the second video it seems like our backers are just taking short, choppy steps but not really gaining any ground in any direction - they are not really moving at all, just bouncing around until they get blocked - I don't think that this is something that is supposed to be happening.

Staying at Home

This has been documented already by the 93-yarder by Jahvid Best, so I'll just roll the tape.

In the first clip, I see the DE and the LB take the same angle inside, and both aren't able to react in time when the pitch goes outside. Not sure who has contain, but neither of them get there, and the corner is unable to get off his block. I'm thinking that the LB should have been on top of that but it is hard to say. On the 2nd clip it is just a handoff on a zone read look, and the DE looks to play it well - can't ask him to defend the QB and the RB, and he takes the QB, respecting that threat. The LB, however, looks like he was caught inside as well and tries to spin out of it and doesn't make the play. I don't think that he had to slide inside like that, as if the back had chosen to cut inside there would have been another LB there to make the tackle.

Coverage

I was mainly looking at the run defense but this play caught my eye - its the long TD pass to Jahvid Best. I just remembered looking at the photo of Best running down the sideline with only Bosworth chasing him and was wondering how and why a player wearing #54 ended up trying to cover Best down the sideline.

Here is the play in question. Cal lines with 2 backs, 1 TE, 2 WRs, and runs playaction to the FB with Best sneaking down the sideline. On this play we do have both LBs press aggressively, although the line shows pass and the guard pulls to the right. The safety also reads run and flies down. From what I could tell, it looked like quarters coverage, which is a hybrid coverage - man with some zone principles.

Quarters is strong against the run as the safeties are looking to fly up in run support. The corners are locked up on #1, the outermost WR to each side. The safeties are reading #2 - in this case, the TE to the right and the first back out of the backfield to the left. If #2 goes vertical then the safeties have them man up, otherwise they are looking to double cover #1. If #2 gives them a run read (ie, TE blocking, back playaction) then the safeties will fly up. The OLBs are looking to carry #2 or #3 into the flat.

Back to the play, you see #54 play the run, back off, turn around, and chase Best down the sideline. I'm not so sure that our coaches would ask Bosworth to carry #2, Best, through the flat and vertically downfield - it's a lot to ask. The safety to that side never seems to even look at #2, he just turns around to chase #1 once he realizes that it is a PA pass. Seems to me that Best should have been his man, but again, I don't even know for a fact that it was quarters coverage and what the individual responsibilities were.

Final Thoughts

Tackling, playing smart and disciplined football, avoiding penalties, and staying at home are the obvious problems that need fixing, you don't need to break anything down to see what.
I noticed the lack of aggression by the LBs, the tendency to shuffle around and "catch" ballcarriers, which reminded me of our 2005 defense and really confused me.
You need to know your assignments to be confident and you need to be confident in order to be aggressive.
I think that Reggie Carter seems to have been absent from our defense the past few games, as he does not seem to be in on many tackles anymore.
I think that he is being asked to read something, or play more patiently for some reason.
I didn't mention Sheldon Price but when it looks like he is asked to be that "outer door post" in run support he seems to have trouble maintaining the "doorway".
Brian Price is a beast, there was one play in there where he basically had 3 guys trying to block him and still managed to influence the play.
Playing an offense that lines up spread out like Arizona might actually help us. Maybe if there isn't as much traffic in the box our guys will be able to make the correct reads and react accordingly.
I don't think stopping the run is as simple as "playing 8-man fronts" and "loading the box" - that's basically what we are already doing with our front, and you saw what happened when we were in quarters, a virtual 9-man front.

Breaking Down the Arizona Offense

jtthirtyfour — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 21:58:29 -0000

Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

Coaching

The Arizona offense has connections to what the Texas Tech Red Raiders run, as well as the Oklahoma Sooners - both teams are run by a Stoops brother, who both went out and hired someone from the Hal Mumme coaching tree to run the offense. Not a whole lot recognizable names on that list outside of coaching circles, but there were some great offensive minds on that staff. Oklahoma had Leach in there, followed by Mangino, both who left to head their own programs, but the Sooners still have some residue from those two guys. Sonny Dykes spent a year at UK before leaving to Texas Tech with Mike Leach and ultimately ending up in Arizona. I was only able to get a copy of the game against Washington so all of this data comes from that contest (play-by-play down, distance, run/pass, and gain info copied from ESPN.com).

Splits

Their one difference is that Arizona uses wider line splits than normal, like other Air Raid and spread teams. This forces the defense to align wider than normal as well, opening up gaps on the inside. It can be easy to bust a long gain up the middle if you are able to hit a few blocks, as the edge players often are too far to make an impact. This also gives the defensive ends a longer distance to travel to reach the quarterback and wider throwing lanes when you do pass. The drawbacks are that it is tough to perform some of the combo blocks required in the zone running game, and your linemen are often asked to block man to man in pass protection without any additional help. Here's a comparison of Washington and Arizona's line splits from that game.

Trends

Arizona didn't really run the ball well against Washington. The bulk of their runs came on 1st and 2nd down, but even so they were about 65% pass and 35% run. However they use a lot of screens to their wideouts to get the ball outside quickly. Only time they really started to run the ball was inside the red zone and on the goalline. I could crank out some charts but there isn't really anything interesting there, their passing game is picking up more yardage per play than the run game, and they pass almost twice as much as they run.

Run Game

The Arizona Wildcats don't do much different than many other teams in the Pac-10. They have their base of inside and outside zone just like everyone else. They also ran some power and counter out of their 2-back set from under center a couple times in this game. Here is something that is a little unique to them, their "base" run play, just simple man blocking, get the guy across from you, and have the guard fold down behind the center and pull through (although they ran it with the back on the other side). Nothing fancy or complicated but with wide splits it can work for a good gain. Their running game was not a huge part of their offense vs. Washington, but they looked capable of moving the ball on the ground.

Passing Game

Arizona's passing game was about 30% short game, 30% medium and deep passes, 30% screen game, and about 10% playaction, although they favored the short and screen game a big more than the rest. I couldn't really see the routes develop downfield because of the close camera angle but here are some diagrams of some of their main concepts - this is stuff that is fairly common, and a lot of it has roots in the original Norm Chow offense he ran at BYU. Off the top of my head, I saw them run "mesh" a few times, a lot of double slant stuff (or slant with a whip route on the outside, couldn't see on TV), a lot of "drive" (which falls under the shallow cross family). When they went downfield they ran "smash" and what looked like deep cross (a Norm Chow staple). Don't really have any good looks at that stuff because of the camera angles on FSN.

Screen Game

Arizona's screen game is pretty simple as well - they have two basic screens to their receivers, a bubble where a slot receiver takes a flat angle towards the sideline and catches the ball over his inside shoulder, and another one where the receiver takes a step off the line to face the QB and wait for the ball - this one is a little slower but the linemen often get into the action. I think Arizona treats these as their run game, as even if you are aligned properly they are often still good for several yards. These screens can usually be shut down if you have enough defenders out there - if they have 2 WRs, you need 2 defenders or else you will be in trouble.

On this play Arizona runs a bubble off zone read action. The defense does have 2 guys out there to defend it, but the linebacker is a little slow to react and isn't able to make a tackle on what could have been a 2 or 3 yard gain (#40 does redeem himself later on in the game on an amazing play, though...see below). The Wildcats run this off zone read action, although they don't run a lot of zone read. Some teams like Michigan actually have their QB read the backside guy, decide between handing off, pulling the ball out, and then throwing the bubble screen or running - but I think Arizona is predetermining where the ball will go at this point. It does force that linebacker to hesitate a bit before running after the bubble, though, as he has to respect the chance that the QB will pull the ball and run to his side off the zone read action. Diagram doesn't show it but they ran it to the wide side of the field to give that guy a bit more distance to run and the WR more room to work with.

Arizona runs their hurry-up offense immediately after that gain of 21 and comes back with another screen to the wide side of the field, this time they line up 4 WRs out there and Washington only really has 2 guys out there...if not for a missed block on the "S" backer it may have been a big gain as well. Below is the video clip.

Tempo

The two plays above are run back-to-back, in the Wildcats' up-tempo speed. this is at the start of the 3rd quarter as they try to get something going. They will switch up their tempo throughout the game like several other spread teams. Against Stanford, they stayed in their up-tempo offense for the entire second half, and had a slightly ridiculous offensive performance.

The Wildcats' coach hinted Saturday that the team may rely more on the no-huddle Saturday against UCLA, and in future games. Stoops said: "It looks like we're moving more into a spread offense."

For the extreme example, watch Auburn or Oklahoma play, as they will sometimes take the tempo to ridiculous speeds. At the root of it, Arizona doesn't do anything too complex, but I think that tempo is a little thing that can make a huge difference. Going into a quicker tempo prevents other teams from subbing players and may cause them to align out of position - you see defenders still moving around at the snap, Arizona caught Washington in a bad look on the second play, and it could have been a big gainer. Even if guys are out of position a few feet, that can be the difference between a 3-yard gain and a 20-yarder - see the almost tackle about 4 or 5 yards downfield on the first screen. The quicker pace may also hurt some teams that are not in as great shape - you tend to make a lot more mistakes when you're tired. Arizona ended up running about 85 plays against Washington, well above the average of about 60 or 65 for most teams - 20 extra snaps = a lot of extra chances and opportunities to gain yards/score.

Thoughts

I think that this week will be especially important to make tackles and smart decisions on defense - Arizona tries to get its receivers in space with the screen game, which is about a third of their offense - guys on the perimeter need to be able to get off blocks and make solid tackles. I didn't pay attention to individual players but Arizona receivers have always been able to run. Our guys need to make sure that they are aligned properly and aware of what is going on, or else it could be a tough day on defense. Bottom line is that Arizona does not run anything far out there, nothing crazy - they have their handful of simple base plays, they rep the hell out of them, they will tag a play when they see an adjustment to be made...the Air Raid is basically just the option game through the air. You just have play smart defense, have your head in the game and know what your assignment is.

Here's a bonus video clip of the end of that game - lucky play, tough loss for the Wildcats, although I'm not so sure the ball didn't touch the turf.

Neuheisel On 4th down

jtthirtyfour — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 03:33:10 -0000

This is a follow up to Nestor's article about going for it on 4th down.

First, already talked about going for the FG with a 4th and 2 at Cal’s 6 yard line. When it was pretty clear that Bruins needed TDs instead of FGs, CRN decided to play it safe.

Second, we saw the same situation play out again later in the third quarter when with a 4th and 3 on Cal’s 28, Neuheisel again went with the Donahue mindset of playing it safe and going for three.

Third, this is where probably many will not agree with me but I will share it anyway. Jahvid Best’s 93 yard run I thought was the game changing moment that pretty much decided the outcome of the game. However, the pivotal decision in my mind came right before UCLA punted in that second quarter. Bruins had 4th and less than a yard to go on their own 46 yard line. Up until that time Bruins were doing all right on offense (actually we had a decent day on offense against a slightly better than average defense yesterday). Anyway with a less than a yard to go and down by only 7 (14-21), Neuheisel took the safe route (the Donahue one) and decided to play for field position by depending on Locke’s leg. Well Locke did boom one (for 46 yards) but it didn’t do much good as the D got obliterated by Best in the subsequent big play. What I am saying here that’s the kind of moment when Neuheisel instead of playing by the conventional Donahue rules, could send his signal to rest of his team that he had enough trust in his young talent and offense to go for less than a yard.

Strongly recommend this whole 4 part article to anyone who has time and is interested in football strategy....anyway, the summary of it is that they calculated the expected points from each yard line, ran some probabilities of conversion percentages on 4th down and field goals from every yard line, as well as the expected points from punts. NFL data but the probabilities for NCAA ball probably isnt too far off.

I was North Campus but even I could follow and crunch some numbers (ie, read a graph), so all of you can understand this. I went ahead and figured out how these decisions played out according to the probabilities. Here are the three charts that are used.

4th and 2 at the 6-yard line: The expected point value of a field goal at the 6 yard line is about 2.2, maybe 2.3 points (3 points - almost guaranteed field goal from that range, minus 0.7 points, which is the expected points you will give up when you kick off following a FG). On the 2nd chart, a 4th-and-2 attempt at the 6 yard line will usually net you about 2.8, 2.9 points, factoring in the probabilities of converting that as well as the expected points for having a first down at the 4 yard line and subtracting the expected points that you would lose if the other team took possession on the 6-yard line. You can see here that having a 1st down backed up deep in your own territory actually gives you negative expected points, so if you go for it and fail, it's not all that bad to cough up the ball deep into Cal territory - Cal is more likely to give up points down the road if they take possession backed up that deep (obviously, there are always exceptions, as Jahivd Best proved, and these are just odds). In this case, according to the numbers, going for it is a wiser decision.

4th and 3 at the 28-yard line: The expected points difference here is a little closer. A FG from that range will probably net you about 1.2 points (probability of converting a FG from that range, subtracted the EP for the other team receiving possession after the score/them receiving possession 7 yards behind the line of scrimmage on a miss), while going for it looks to be about 1.5 or 1.6 expected points. A little closer this time but going for it still looks to be the wiser decision.

4th and 1 at the 46-yard line: Here you go to the expected value of punts - factoring in the average distance of a punt from each yard line, and the expected points the other team will have from possessing the ball at that yard line. From the 46-yard line it's a little less than 0, maybe -0.1 expected points. From that distance the average is about 30 yards, giving Cal possession at their own 10, where their expected points for that drive is 0.1. If you look at the 2nd chart, the highest blue line is 4th-and-1, where the expected points are better than any other distance. At the 46-yard line, it's about 1.1 expected points to go for it, clearly better than the value for a punt. Again, this is a better decision according to the odds.

However, football isn't math, the odds are only odds. We punted, backed Cal up to the 7 yard line, where their expected points are actually about -0.5, or a positive 0.5 for us. In reality they scored 7. The odds don't always play out but they are the averages of what is expected to happen. Obviously there are going to be different depending on your team and players - Kai Forbath isn't getting 1.5 points on a field goal from the 28, he is getting almost guaranteed 3 points every time (minus 0.7 on the ensuring kickoff, the EP of Cal for getting the ball at the 27-yard line) because he does not know how to miss.

However I do think that we should have gone for at least the first and the last situation, short-yardage deals where the odds of converting are slightly higher (see the gap between 4th-and-1 and 4th-and-everything else on that middle graph). For what it's worth here is their graph of what to do/not do on 4th down, based on these findings. Here is a graph that has all three of the above ones merged, you can clearly see that there were higher expected points at the 6, 28, and 46 yard lines for going for it (colored lines) than kicking (black line). Interesting to note that 4th-and-2 is almost always a better decision than kicking from anywhere on the field, and 4th-and-1 is always a better decision, according to this data.

There's a ton of reasons why you don't go for it on 4th down - at that site they write about how people fear potential loss rather than prospective gain, even though a punt is considered a "loss" it doesn't really feel like it, while a failed 4th down does and is rarely considered a "good call". If you miss a FG that's a loss, but it's the kicker's fault - it was still a "good call". Job security is probably another, a guy like Pete Carroll is not getting fired anytime soon so he can afford to be more aggressive on 4th down. Going for it and not converting in a national championship Rose Bowl game that you end up losing would have fans calling for your job with almost any other coach. I feel like if Neuheisel had gone 0-3 on those 4th downs we'd be saying the other thing.

Addendum

Here is some more reading from the site (great insights into the game if you have time) on the topic of 4th downs in “no-man’s land” – area where you could either attempt a long field goal or a short punt – again, NFL statistics, but I don’t think that this matters as much, more of a general coaching thing.

On 4th down from identical field positions, coaches tend to attempt FGs more often with shorter distances to go and punt more often with longer distances to go. For example, when kicking on 4th and 1 from the 32, coaches went for the FG 100% of the time. But when kicking on 4th and long (7+ yds) from the 32, coaches went for the FG less often—80% of the time.

Interesting, that for something that does not matter at all if you punt or kick a FG (distance to go), there is still a mental effect on the decision. I’ll just copy since I can’t really say it better than they did. In 4th and 1 they kicked the FG about 85% of the time, compared to only about 65% of the time, from the same yardline.

It’s as if teams with 4th and short feel like they came so close that they really want to come away from the drive with points. And teams with 4th and long feel more resigned to giving up the hope for points, preferring to pin the opponent deep in his own territory. Any other theories?

The closer you are, ie, a 4th-and 2 near the goalline, coaches may feel that they need to at least come away with something. I went back and checked the drive charts for those two FG decisions – both were 50+ yard drive that started in our own territory. Maybe if we had started these drives as a result of a turnover, in Cal territory, we would have gone for a 4th down or two, as you would feel as if you hadn’t invested as much in the drive and would be more likely to gamble at the end. Studying field position vs. 4th down decisions would be an interesting study.

I think, NFL or no, that these statistics and numbers show that there is definitely a mental component to making these decisions, that it’s the result of either by the fear of coming away with no points, the perception of greater risk, pressure from fans and media, conventional norms, poor play by the offense, etc rather than simple probabilities and expectations of success. However I don’t think that going against these numbers automatically makes the decision “bad” – these other factors do exist and they do need to be taken into consideration.

These may be statistics from NFL games but I do believe that there are many of these “mental roadblocks” among most coaches at any level that prevent them from rethinking the norms – teams have been punting on 4th down for a century (even though it was a different game back then, when offense were not rolling up and down the field), so coaches tend to punt on 4th down when it would appear that this may not always be the wisest decision to score points according to the long-term odds.

I think that punting for field position is valid in cases, as in games where your offense isn’t moving well (a throwback to those old days when punting became the wisest decision).

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on Jeopardy

jtthirtyfour — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:46:33 -0000

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on Jeopardy

Breaking Down the Cal Running Game

jtthirtyfour — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:06:22 -0000

Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

I took a look at the Cal run game for the Oregon and USC games and put together some clips. Both games were blowouts, so Cal abandoned the ran fairly early, but I just wanted to take a close look at what they do. Cal's consistently been one of the top rushing teams in the Pac-10 under Tedford, but they have expanded a bit in recent year. I believe their OC came from Utah last season, where they used a more wide-open approach, and I think it shows on their run game.

From the two games I saw, I wasn't really that impressed with Kevin Riley (although it was against two good teams). Between that, and our defense giving up 200+ to Oregon and close to that number against Stanford, I think that the run defense will be an important point on Saturday.

Here are some numbers:

Play	Carries	Yards	YPC
Direct	4	16	4
Draw	1	-2	-2
Zone (Inside)	9	36	4
Toss	1	8	8
Option	1	2	2
Zone (Outside)	6	17	2.8
Power	14	61	4.4
Reverse	2	24	12
Zone (Total)	15	53	3.5
Wildcat (Total)	6	26	4.3

You can see the popular schemes for Cal are their zone game (inside and outside) and their power game. Don't know if they had it last year, but against USC I saw them with a Wildcat-"lite" package that is not all that different from what they already do.

The last time I really took a look at Cal was when they had Marshawn Lynch, and their power game was a key play for them. They seem to have gone more to a zone scheme this year, as the bulk of their power plays that I charted came at the end of the Oregon game when they were just running clock with their backups.

Power

As I said, Power used to be a staple of the Cal offense. Seems that they prefer zone now (see below). Cal runs several variations with different blocking depending on what kind of look they get and how the defense plays them, but the basic idea is one player to kick out the end man on the line, and another to lead through and clean up the linebacker.

Here's two clips of them running power against Oregon as well as the diagram below.

Here is another diagram against a front that Cal might see from UCLA (it was one that we used against Stanford when they lined up in a similar formation).

You have the FB kicking out the strong backer, the TE taking on the defensive end, a double team on the DT with one guy sliding off to the backer when he threatens, and the guard pulling through to pick up the middle backer. They may change up a few things depending on the defensive look...sometimes they have their FB kick out the end, send the TE to the backers, have the guard pull and lead through on a different guy, etc, but the concept is the same. I couldn't find my copy of the 2005 Cal game but I remember Marshawn Lynch doing well on this play against us.

Zone

I broke down some zone last week for Oregon and there isn't much different, except that Cal is running it from under center. The one difference is that Cal doesn't really try to sell much of a fake with Kevin Riley, so they usually have a guy blocking the backside defender. Usually they will just send a guy across the formation to pick up this backside defender on inside zone, which usually breaks from hole to backside.

Here is Javhid Best running inside zone off a fake end-around look. The wing runs across the formation and picks up the backside defender, and sure enough the run cuts back for yardage. Reverse action aside, USC runs this exact same series, as their QBs usually aren't a threat to run either - they will often run playaction off this zone look, leak this backside blocker into the flat, and throw it to him.

Wildcat and Direct Snap

Cal has shown a direct snap look as well as a Wildcat in their last game against USC (the two aren't the same). The direct snap plays they showed against Oregon and USC mainly involved snapping the ball to Jahvid Best and letting him run - nothing fancy. It worked once against the Ducks because someone missed a tackle. They also tried to get fancy and run a sort of counter-type play out of the direct snap, but they didn't get anywhere with it. The TV announcers were talking about this being their "Wildcat", but I don't agree - it's just a direct snap to your great athlete and letting him work.

As far as the "true" Wildcat, Cal's version isn't full-grown yet. Not sure if they just installed it for USC week, but they didn't really seem to be all that comfortable with it, and just used it on a few drives late in the game. For those of you who didn't get to see the original Wildcat as run by Darren McFadden and the Arkansas Razorbacks, the Wildcat is three main things:

Unbalanced line - providing a different look to align against, tilted towards the speed sweep side
Fly motion across the formation - immediate threat to the outside
An athlete to receive the snap - this is the most obvious trait and the one that gets pointed to first
Series-based football of plays that complement each other

Here's a clip of Cal's Wildcat in action

Notice anything? The line is doing the same thing as they did above with the inside zone. Send the wing to the backside to pick up the end man, zone block frontside, and have the back take a direct angle looking to break from hole to backside. Once again, Best breaks backside for yardage. They run their same basic running game out of Wildcat - zone and power. Here they run inside zone with Javhid Best at QB and fly sweep action, diagrammed below.

It's almost exactly like how they run zone from under center, except that they have a fake to the motion man and line up a little differently. They use an unbalanced line, but USC treats it pretty much like a normal 21 formation, they line up in an under front, and probably would have made the tackle for a short gain if Cal hadn't gotten an extra block by the umpire. SC rolls their safety down on the backside in their under look, and he's responsible for those runs to the backside - ref just gets in the way.

I respect the true Wildcat series, which can be a fundamentally sound and legitimate offensive package if you are able to teach it and implement it completely. I think it is one of those things where you need to be either all in or all out, just like the option - running it once or twice a game isn't really going to help you as it takes a lot of repetition to master.

If you take a few components and use them to provide a different look, as many teams (including probably our own) are doing, then I believe that it is just a gimmick, no different than a reverse play. Not a bad thing, as it provides one more look to align against and defend - the more things a defense believes you are capable of, the better. But I don't think that you are going to be able to get consistent results until you fully commit.

I'm not sure how much time our defense is spending on this - it is possible that Cal has used their bye week to implement the whole series and some new tricks - if so, we might have a challenge defending it. However, seems like a lot of work to coach and rep something that doesn't really complement what you are already doing.

Prince vs. Brehaut

jtthirtyfour — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 19:09:07 -0000

If you like numbers, here are the relevant stats from ESPN.com

UCLA Passing
	C/ATT	YDS	AVG	TD	INT
K. Prince	13/25	81	3.2	0	1
R. Brehaut	5/10	64	6.4	0	1
Team	18/35	145	4.1	0	2

UCLA Rushing
	CAR	YDS	AVG	TD	LG
K. Prince	8	22	2.8	0	12
R. Brehaut	4	-24	-6.0	0	0
Team	33	66	2.0	0	12

At first glance it looks like Brehaut had a much better day...same completion percentage but Brehaut had double the average.

The rushing stats are basically the sacks and scrambles..I know Prince had at least one designed option for a few yards and 2 QB sneaks for nothing, so if you take those out, you get 5 carries for 20 yards. Brehaut did not scramble, those 4 runs are sacks. So if you add (or subtract) the rushing numbers from the passing yardage and lump in the carries you get the yards per pass play.

UCLA called 30 pass plays for Prince, for a total of 101 yards = 3.37 yards per play.

UCLA called 14 pass plays for Brehaut, for a total of 40 yards = 2.86 yards per play. If you read the other post I put up with plays charted for 4 games, the average was about 4 yards per pass play, so both were sub-par on Saturday.

The reason Brehaut's average is much lower is that he took 4 sacks compared to the one that Prince took, even though Prince was in for about double the pass plays.

Brehaut looked good throwing the ball at times, but so did Prince - both were able to throw the ball when there was no pressure. However once Oregon began rushing 6 or 7 things changed - those sacks really stand out to me though, basically a sack every 3 or 4 plays.

Kevin Prince

On this play below you can see UCLA has two separate concepts - double slants to the bottom and a high-low on the top. Keep this play in mind as Brehaut runs pretty much the same thing at the end of the game. Oregon rushes 7 this time - they don't cover the WR at the top of the screen, and man up against the double slants (a great man-beater). Prince has 6 guys to block 7 - there will be one "hot" defender who is unblockable, but Prince recognizes it and hits Austin on the slant.

Video of two plays - on the first, Prince has a blitz through the middle, and hits Moline out of the backfield on an angle route to set up a first down and the goalline series. He had a WR on a dig over the middle at the goalline, but it looks like he sees the blitz and hits Moline underneath (hard to tell though). The second is the play diagrammed above where he hits Austin.

Richard Brehaut

This play is almost the same as the one where Prince hit Austin on the slant over the middle (above). The TV announcers make a big deal about how the TE was open in the end zone, but he did also have the slants open on the backside, where the blitz came from. It's a similar look that Prince got, although in Brehaut's defense, the back released on a route instead of blocking, so he had 5 blockers for 7 defenders. It's not exactly a fair comparison, but it was a similar route concept down the field, similar look from the Oregon defense (off-man on both WRs, blitzing 7, wide open middle of the field), and Prince was able to deliver while Brehaut did not. If you watch the video above, Prince was given much better protection while Brehaut had a man in his face almost immediately. Prince takes his drop and get the ball out, while Brehaut drops, sees the blitzer, and steps up instead of throwing.

Here is the video of two plays (video is screwed up at the end but you can get the point). On the first you can see a play where Oregon sent 5 and Brehaut had Austin over the middle in the area vacated by the blitz, although it looks like Brehaut was supposed to read something else and didn't see the blitz coming. He takes a sack and an ugly fumble. The second is the play diagrammed above.

Again, it is really easy to pick on the kid and point these things out. Not to say that Brehaut did not look good against Oregon - I just don't think that Prince looked all that bad. I think that he was more consistent and looked better under pressure. Neither guy got great protection throughout the game, (looking at the tape, some of our backs were blown up when they were asked to block), but I think that Prince looked better when Oregon brought the blitz. Brehaut looked great when he had time to throw, but this isn't 7-on-7 passing league. The fact that Brehaut took 4 sacks in only 14 plays is a pretty big deal to me, those actually add up a lot, especially when your offense isn't rolling up and down the field.

Playcalling

jtthirtyfour — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 23:13:26 -0000

Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

may be in the minority here but I'm not really upset with the playcalling over the past few weeks. I had UCLA's plays charted for the SDSU game, and went ahead and copied in the basic play data for the Stanford, Tennessee, and Oregon games from ESPN.com into an Excel sheet I use for scouting, and cranked out some charts and numbers to take an objective look at how UCLA's offense was really doing.

Here's a good article that ran in the New York Times awhile back that discusses applications of statistical analysis to football and how the Patriots have capitalized. There are plenty of variables to consider in real-life situations but I still think that the main points hold water.

Belichick also sticks to running the ball on third down in short-yardage situations, while other coaches pass reasonably often to try to surprise the defense. According to Aaron Schatz, founder of the sabermetrics-inspired Web site FootballOutsiders.com, Belichick's strategy, though predictable, is well warranted by a careful analysis of the risks and rewards involved in using it.

Following in James's footsteps, Schatz employs a metric known as defense-adjusted value over average, or DVOA. It takes into account that not all yards gained in football are created equal -- that, for example, gaining 5 yards on third down and 4 is more beneficial, on average, than gaining eight yards on third and 10.

Since they've been winning, the Patriots have always been receptive to statistics and research methods, and they found out in this case that being conservative in short-yardage does pay off. If you run playaction on 3rd and 1 and the tight end drops the pass or the quarterback overthrows him, the result is no different than the coach calling for the back to slam into the middle of the line for no gain. However the perception in the first case is that the call was good, it was because QB or the TE screwed up. In the second case, the call was bad because it did not work, even if someone missed a block or the back misread the hole - the coach takes the blame for being conservative. The perception may be that being aggressive pays off, but if you take a look at the numbers then I don't believe this is necessarily so.

Yards/Play

Passing - 4.18 yards/play, rushing - 4.35 yards/play

Those numbers should already throw up a red flag...this is different than the official NCAA statistics because I counted sacks as passing plays and logged interceptions as negative passing plays as well. The passing average is low because of all the incomplete passes, picks, and sacks we have been taking. Throughout these 4 games that I charted (keeping in mind I may have made a few mistakes copying the data over), UCLA actually averaged more yards each time we called a run compared to each time we called a pass. For comparison, teams like Texas Tech and Houston average about 8 yards/pass (unadjusted for sacks/picks), and the teams at the top of the rushing rankings average about 5-6 yards a pop. Here is a chart that breaks down run and pass vs. gain.

UCLA is pretty close to balance, don't have a chart or the numbers off the top of my head but I believe they were slightly tilted towards rushing (maybe 55% to 45%?). I charted the SDSU game completely because I wanted to get a feel for what we would be doing this year, and I didn't really notice any major tendencies - pretty balanced and diverse performance that game. Anyway, you can see that the first two categories are negative or no yards, which is what has happened most of the time we've dropped back to pass. The "under 4" and "over 4" are the plays that went for 0-10 yards and the bulk of them were runs, and as you get to higher gains you see more passes. I don't have any breakdowns for other NCAA teams to compare against but it seems to me that the "risk" of passing is greater than the "reward" of the big plays at the other end, if you look at the big picture of these four games. It's not like the passing game has been able to consistently pull off gains of over 20 yards, the numbers are almost even between running and passing for those big plays.

Down and Distance

Here's a breakdown by down - pretty much what you'd expect, a little more running on first down, even on 2nd and 4th, and pass-happy for those 3rd downs.

Here is the same data separated by down and distance. What surprises me is how little UCLA has run the ball on 3rd and short - if anything, I think the gameplan needs to be more conservative on those, keeping in mind the New York Times article at the beginning and the fact that about half the time we drop back to pass we either get no yards or take a loss. Don't have any data on this, but from what I've seen we haven't been great picking up those 3rd and shorts with the pass.

Field Position

Finally, here's a chart on field position. As you'd expect, a lot of running at the goal line (those runs were probably all from today against Oregon) and when backed up. Otherwise, fairly balanced. Goal line is defined as inside the 5-yard line, there's only a handful of plays on file but I'll admit that we could mix in a pass or two, but I still believe that running the ball is the better option for us at this point.

Playcalling

As far as playcalling is concerned, I don't really believe in the idea that you need to call certain plays in certain situations to become "less predictable" - if there is a notion that the "correct" play call is playaction on 2nd and short and go deep, because it is less predictable, isn't that predictable? In my opinion playcalling is not as important as things like preparation, planning, adjusting, and actual coaching...If you boil it down, playcalling is basically just a giant game of rock-paper-scissors. This might get a little weird but I think it's the best analogy I have heard about playcalling (I didn't come up with this).

If you call rock and the defense calls scissors, you score a TD, if they call rock as well you maybe pick up a yard, if they call paper then you get sacked. All the scouting, preparation, statistical analysis can help you with the probabilities of whether they will come out with rock or scissors when its 3rd and 1 inside the red zone, but in the end its just educated guesswork.

Now, maybe you call scissors three times in a row, and are really tearing through their paper calls. Then you figure they will switch it up and call rock to defend your scissors, you can out think them and call paper. Or maybe they will just stick to paper - in that case you'd be screwed. I think some people out think playcalling - in this situation, or in rock-papers-scissors, you're almost better off just picking randomly - there's no real right answer. The correct offensive play is the one that works against the defense that is called. The only way to get a real advantage is to "cheat", which teams do with audibles, formation checks, coverage recognition, option football, etc - figuring out what the defense called and then adjusting to make them wrong. If you call paper and see that they threw scissors, you then switch to rock to take it out, or adjusting your blocking scheme to work against scissors.

Of course, football's a lot more complicated than that, there are situations where you know that they are going to come out and run spacing on you when it's 3rd and 4 because they've done that in every single tape you have on them and you see them out in trips bunch, and you can call your defense to stop that. This is when playcalling is important. But those situations are few and far in, so I think that for the rest of the game, there isn't really any "bad" playcalling - bad calls are just the ones that don't work. The job of the coach is to just have an idea of what to expect, based on situation, and the look they provide the defense, and to send in a play that they believe will work.

Calling paper on every 3rd and 5 isn't necessarily a bad thing - it may be predictable, but that also helps you predict what the other team will do and gives you a better idea than anything else of what to expect. You can throw paper in that situation a few times in the first quarter, figure out what their scissors call looks like, and then keep that in your back pocket until the 4th quarter when you call paper on 3rd and 5, but tag your curl route to a curl-and-go and beat their scissors call. You can't try to win the game on every play.

Teams like Georgia Tech and Texas Tech only run a handful of plays, but they rep the hell out of them, practice the adjustments, and use this predictability to beat other teams (this is where great coaching comes in - I think Paul Johnson and Mike Leach are two of the best coaches in the nation). GaTech figures out which guys are assigned to dive back, which guys have QB, which guys have pitch man, and mess with their blocking assignments give false reads so that the defense has two guys covering quarterback and no one on pitch man...the defense knows what's coming but can't stop it. On TV you see them run midline, option left, toss left, option right, counter option left for 3 yards a pop and it seems pretty conservative, just scraping by on the same few plays, until they bust open an option pitch for 65 yards and a score.

I don't think that it's so much Chow marching into a rock call with scissors in hand, knowing that he is going to get smashed...he understands defense and how to attack them, and he definitely understands the concept of "tags". The way the Oregon game went down leads me to believe that he did have this in his back pocket, as the offense started to rumble towards the end of the game when the QBs were given a chance...if not for that 21-point swing maybe things would have been different and we would have cruised to a win.