Rice vs. Texas (Sept. 12, 2015) Film Review

[Aaron Carrara]

Fantastic work, Bridges.

 

[joeywa]

Love this feature. Thanks Ryan. Solid.

 

[Ryan Bridges]

There's a lot to like about this play. 

Williams (LT) gets the end turned, Flowers (LG) actually pancakes the tackle in front of him, and look at that lead block by D'Onta Foreman! Foreman has about 15 pounds on that linebacker, but that's still a big collision, and Foreman just put him on his butt. If Doyle © had been able to stay engaged with the linebacker, this would have been a touchdown. Texas scored on the next play anyway. 

Oh, and as for an actual Xs and Os analysis, I've got two thoughts. (1) I don't recall Texas doing any split backfield looks with Foreman and Gray against Notre Dame. Heard's first snap in that game had Gray and Daje in the backfield, but that's all I can remember. (2) I also don't think Texas ran Lead Inside Zone against Notre Dame. It was a productive play for the Longhorns last year, particularly against West Virginia, if I remember correctly. Seeing Foreman's willingness and ability to not just block but blow up a linebacker like this is a good sign for the Texas offense. 

 

[Ryan Bridges]

Mike, you asked earlier if the offense was simpler this week. I think I've got an answer. One of the earlier gifs showed that both of Heard's touchdown passes came on the exact same play. Check out the two rushing touchdowns.

 

[TeamMayhall]

This was entertaining to read...Bridges, you're going places.

 

[Mike Roach]

Great stuff, tons of value added

 

[BevoBlake]

Between this breakdown, the recruiting chat and the new Brown Bag, Horn Sports has been on fire this past week. Love it.

 

[North Texas Golfer]

Okay, just one minor complaint. Quit calling him Bridges. His name is Ryan 

Really good stuff Ryan!

 

[Ryan Bridges]

One of the longtime complaints about Watson was that he seemed to think inside zone read was the only read play in existence. I've said since early last season that for the offense to reach its potential it had to get the quarterback involved in the run game in a variety of ways. Here's a perfect example:

It's the end of the half so Rice is light in the box, but you get the idea. This play is Lead Power Read. Heard reads the defensive end to determine whether to hand off to the back running outside or to keep it himself behind the pulling guard. This play and variations of it were probably something like 50% of Heard's high school highlights.

I really, really like what Norvell is doing with the offense as a whole. The insane part is that this play and the others we've featured so far were already in the playbook — this wasn't all installed in a week — but Watson didn't use any of it. 

One other thing, though. Watch Perkins, the right tackle. I can't watch that without laughing out loud. 

 

[TeamMayhall]

Perkins looks like he ran into Deebo..lol

 

[Aaron Carrara]

Perkins looks like he ran into Deebo..lol

 

[TeamMayhall]

Lmaoo Aaron!

 

[Ryan Bridges]

This is from Jay Norvell's opening monologue from his media availability on Tuesday:

"There's a difference between running plays and running an offense. We want an offense. So we want things that play off each other. We want to know the strengths and weaknesses of those schemes. And then we want to know what the adjustments are if they heat us up or give us problems with it. You can't run everything and know all those answers."

Here's a set of plays that illustrate what he's describing. Each is run from a 3x1 formation with the same route concept to the trips side.

To the trips side, the No. 1 (count from the outside) receiver runs a go route, No. 2 runs a quick out route, and No. 3 runs a "stick" route. Depending on what the defender inside of him does, at the top of his stem he can either stop and turn toward the quarterback or he can turn outside and run away from the defender.

To the single-receiver side, the receiver runs a slant and the running back runs a swing. 

Now let's make sense of this. First, Heard is probably counting defenders on the trips side. Because Texas is outnumbered, he's going to ignore that side.

With that side eliminated, he can focus on the slant/swing combination to the boundary. He needs to find the flat defender and avoid him.

That's not too complicated, and the real beauty of it is that you can make tiny tweaks that don't change much for the offense but stress different parts of the defense. For example ... 

The receivers line up the same way and run the same routes, but notice that the running back has switched sides. That's because Texas is about to run a run-pass option (RPO). 

Inside the tackle box Rice has five defenders for Texas' five blockers. That's not good for them. Someone who is not in the box is going to have to help out, and it's the defender in the yellow box. If he plays the stick route, Heard can hand off on inside zone; if he comes inside, Heard can throw the stick route.

The possibilities are almost limitless. Later in the game Texas lined up in the same formation they used the second time but they pulled a guard and ran power. In the first example, you might throw the swing route enough that the corner gets impatient and tries to jump it, in which case the receiver can run a "sluggo" (slant-and-go). 

There's one other, very subtle element that gives me some confidence that Norvell knows what he's doing. Look at who the No. 2 and No. 3 receivers are in the first example:

Now look at what happened in the second example:

Daje Johnson and Andrew Beck switched spots. Rice noticed and changed the coverage. In the first example, the corner stayed with No. 1 while the "Kat" covered the out route. In the second, they were anticipating a quick throw to Daje so they ran a trap coverage that resulted in a de facto bracket on him.

What does that tell the offensive coaching staff? First, that Rice is committed to taking away Daje, so don't try throwing that out route.

But second, it tells them Rice is focused on eliminating Daje at the expense of covering the No. 1 receiver out there, Burt. The biggest weakness of the coverage in the second example (usually called Palms or 2-Read) is exactly this route combination — No. 1 vertical, No. 2 to the flat — because when No. 2 stays short, the strong safety is responsible for covering No. 1 deep. That's a difficult enough assignment without the receiver running a 4.59 laser-timed 40.

The Longhorns didn't have the opportunity or the need to take advantage of this later in the game, but Norvell and the rest of the offensive coaches were certainly aware.

 

[Ryan Bridges]

There isn't a good block on this entire play, and Gray still would have turned it into positive yardage if Caleb Bluiett had even touched the strong safety. 

Perkins can't get to the weak safety (not really his fault), Vahe lets a 3-technique cross his face, Doyle gets pushed two yards into the backfield and forces Gray's first cut, Flowers just sort of gives the middle linebacker a pat on the shoulder, and Williams can't stay engaged with the end (he was expecting more help from Bluiett). 

Gray's gotten some flak from fans — myself included — but watching again he's actually running well IMO, making nice, quick cuts in traffic. He's just not getting any help from the line. I'll probably post some positive examples later.

Also, it'll be nice when Heard and John Burt, the receiver on the bottom, have the experience to recognize that boundary corner blitz. A quick throw to Burt would pit him one-on-one in open field with the weak safety.

 

[Shannon Kelley]

Finally, the pressure gets home and Texas' defense gets off the field on 3rd down ... only to come right back out. 

Two Rice receivers go vertical, one runs an intermediate crossing route and the third (bottom of the screen) runs a curl. Texas runs a pretty well-disguised weakside overload zone blitz. The lineman at the top is Ridgeway, and if he'd kept the right guard engaged Peter Jinkens might have had his second sack of the season. The center then picks up Ridgeway. It's really not until the left guard lets Paul Boyette go to help the left tackle (I'm not sure why) that Texas truly threatens the quarterback. 

The replays aren't good but it looks as though the quarterback didn't step into the throw. Whatever the case, the ball sailed straight to Jason Hall. Now just hold onto the football. 

Thanks for the film breaks. I will say this should have easily been picked up by Rice. All this looks like (without having an end zone view) was an odd front scrape blitz from the boundary. Rice has 6 to block 5. All they had to do was bump the ID'S to Mike and Will and leave the Buck backer to the back and they would have been fine. Instead, they ID the Buck and Mike which leaves the back to block Sam and Will which do not come and are out in coverage. Rice actually takes their number advantage and throws it away, by sending the back away from the blitz to block no one...However, the pressure was still good, hurried the throw of the QB, of which (hurries) cause turnovers. Good call, but I do believe this was more about Rice NOT being sound and less about the pressure that should have never been there, if blocked correctly... Thanks

 

[Shannon Kelley]

There isn't a good block on this entire play, and Gray still would have turned it into positive yardage if Caleb Bluiett had even touched the strong safety. 

Perkins can't get to the weak safety (not really his fault), Vahe lets a 3-technique cross his face, Doyle gets pushed two yards into the backfield and forces Gray's first cut, Flowers just sort of gives the middle linebacker a pat on the shoulder, and Williams can't stay engaged with the end (he was expecting more help from Bluiett). 

Gray's gotten some flak from fans — myself included — but watching again he's actually running well IMO, making nice, quick cuts in traffic. He's just not getting any help from the line. I'll probably post some positive examples later.

Also, it'll be nice when Heard and John Burt, the receiver on the bottom, have the experience to recognize that boundary corner blitz. A quick throw to Burt would pit him one-on-one in open field with the weak safety.

Great break...However, all this is, is a simple zone read, where they are running it into a blitz with the 9 tech pinching, thus the give is taken away, as well as the keep. Bottom line, giving it was his only choice. The biggest problem, is Gray deciding to bounce this all the way back. He should have tried to stay play side A gap, at the furthest, play side B gap, and get what he could. This is a great clip showing not to allow a bad play beat you twice. Live for another down..The defense wins sometimes too.

 

[Ryan Bridges]

Great break...However, all this is, is a simple zone read, where they are running it into a blitz with the 9 tech pinching, thus the give is taken away, as well as the keep. Bottom line, giving it was his only choice. The biggest problem, is Gray deciding to bounce this all the way back. He should have tried to stay play side A gap, at the furthest, play side B gap, and get what he could. This is a great clip showing not to allow a bad play beat you twice. Live for another down..The defense wins sometimes too.

Absolutely. This run really stood out to me because it's really evident that Gray is trying to force things. I could be way, way off base, but he's the player I thought of first when Norvell mentioned some guys needing to be unselfish and play as a unit. I've never seen or heard anything to make me think Gray is a selfish player, but he's frustrated — he clearly was after Notre Dame. This is his last year to impress NFL scouts and once again he's getting little to no help. I'd be pissed off, too.