BLACK

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ESPN



Jesse Palmer wasn’t hired because he possesses some great insight into the game. He is the face of the game because he provided a draw for ABC’s “The Bachelor”, has a TV-polished delivery, and can accentuate the game experience. There isn’t anything wrong with that in itself. Networks exist to serve their share-holders and anything that beefs up the bottom line. Whether it’s a pretty face in the booth, a skirt on the sideline, and computer graphics peppered through the broadcast, its all about selling their brand.

This isn’t even hating on the world-wide leader in sports. They do a good job of expanding the game to a wide-reaching market. Simply understand that the 24/7 information cycle exists not because of necessity (there is so much that doesn’t need to be reported or evaluated), only because it is profitable. The bottom-line for ESPN is advertising revenue, and this is the entire thrust of this post. There are 3-hour pregame shows not because there is 3-hours of content to deliver, but that is the maximum draw ESPN can offer prime content advertising slots. To entice the viewer’s attention, they have to offer different hooks; human-interest stories, personal stories, and secret matchup scheme advantages you should watch for in a game. Again, not because you are really gaining anything out of this, but they want to build on that emotional identity you are associating with.



ESPN began taking off in the mid-1990s and has expanded its exposure over the last few decades. Try to remember what ‘sports reporting’ was like in the 70’s and 80’s. Even in the 90’s, before broadband speeds of the 2000s, they were primarily content-driven. Currently, they essentially reign without competitor, serving as king-makers and breakers depending on the chosen narrative.

So when you get done viewing one of their next “specials” or “analysis”, ask yourself if you really learned anything of substance, could the statements they made hold any relevance or be validated? If the answer is “no”, you may want to question why the fuck you watch this shit in the first place.


Another way to problematize what ESPN, FOX, and the new new kid on the block VERSUS do is locate it within perspective of the cheap drama of the average television sitcom. I add "cheap" here not to be snarky, but just not to disrespect the medium of drama. But back to my point: with their various pregame programs ESPN creates a narrative mode of emplotment for viewers to latch onto and follow; in a sense, its akin to the old Soviet master plots of Socialist Realist novels that, by and large, went something like this: boy meets girl, girl meets tractor and bam we got Utopia. These make for very nice page turners and the like, the one problem being that the players in the text no longer really matter at all; they are all interchangeable because their actions as indivduals have been subordinated to the needs of the plot. ESPN effectively offers a moderated form of this narrative, but from a slightly more capitalist perspective. ESPN is not interested in building socialistic Utopias, but in feeding an infernal system of consumption with the aid of maximizing share prices and returns.

I suppose that so long we are aware of the existence this plot then nothing is too problematic. Problems arise, however, when people actually begin to believe the plot, to believe, in other words, that what ESPN is offering is not reality, but a simulacrum of reality, a shiny, varnished, troping of a well played plot. Succinctly put, ESPN reinforces the point that perception is now reality.

And to this we can add one sidebar of sorts that is directly related to the way the plot of the NFL is executed on the "gridiron," where the fuck are you George Carlin when I need you. The subordination of the game to the plot of profit in the form shares and returns is evident in the commodified, big-box way the game is played. Small roster, smaller than those of any college program, as well as some high-school programs, combined with the intensified commodification of the game via free agency forces teams to play a generic "pro-style" of offense and defense. This combined with the odic figure of the QB, the "face" of every franchise, makes it exceedingly risky to employ a system, especially on offense, that would risk injuring the hero of the NFL-ESPN-FOX story. The reason we do not see the option, the Run-n-Shoot, or a true spread in the MIZZOU sense is not because they would not work or that NFL players are too fast, but because these styles of play would force teams to re-trope themselves in a way that departs significantly from the NFL script. The option could work in the NFL; a team would just need to design itself around the option, carry four QB, an make this their identity. What's Pat White doing these days anyway...?

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RADIO


Before there was BooYah analysis, there was sports radio and the bombastic, concision-driven, dead-air killing rants of disc jockeys who troll for lulz on fan bases. The more obnoxious they could become, the greater the market share this personality could draw, and command a greater demand for advertising dollar. This type of format only exacerbated the one-liner simplicity that host and fans used. Deep and layered discussion was not embraced (boring) and inciting rivalries and spiking blood pressures is where the payoff resided. This formula, is what much of the network/Internet fan experience is founded upon. It isn’t because it is a natural course of sport appreciation, it is because that is how the game is sold to us as consumers.

Who the hell listens to radio anymore, though, amirite? It should be noted, though, that this very same cheap audience gimmick plays out daily in any medium you’re receiving sports information. This manipulative practice is what serves as the rudder in dialogue, which in turn drives the decision-making process of those selling the goods (i.e. the sports franchises).

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INTERNET




You have websites prepackaged with content selling subscriptions, run largely by individuals who have little experience /knowledge in writing or fact-finding journalism, nor especially the game. Its one thing to deliver fan-centric content such as stats and tailgating experience and impressions from the game. It is quite another thing to provide analysis of coaching decisions with absolute certainty of the outcome when you have little understanding of what is taking place on the field and no experience what goes into teaching, applying, and managing a game (coaching staff).

You don’t have to be a Michelin-rated chef to be able to discern if a meal was palatable or if your dining experience was one to be remembered. It does help my critique as well as substantiate my perspective if I understand what goes into the process of food preparation, nutrition, presentation, and how tastes are to complement each other. If I do not have an understanding of these elements, I won’t be grounded in key factors to provide objective feedback. Unfortunately, much of the ‘analysis’ by these content providers is tantamount to a steak house review where the critic clamors on about how the steak was too rare and needed more ketchup. Don’t mistake snark for being insightful.

This will regrettably come across as a stern rebuke of fan-sites on the Internet. It is not meant to be such. They serve a purpose to heighten the fan experience and provide an inclusive support network (at a price?). This piece was intended to provide some perspective of how much of the information is being filtered to the consumer, who in turn shapes the discourse of college/pro football. This isn’t meant to disparage bloggers, either. I would argue that their perspective remains the most relevant and should be the least tainted of sports reporting. The danger lays in their attempts to mimic the ESPNs of the world with pseudo-analysis via clichés, gibberish, and rhetorical logic. These bloggers (network employees included) are often times fresh out of college with the crux of their understanding of the game founded on video games, junior high playing experience, and other cardboard analysis from cable television. It is what it is, let the consumer beware. Pump the brakes on serious analysis of coaching decisions, especially when they concern what programs should be doing behind closed doors or on the field of play. Nowhere is this more apparent than in evaluating the passing game. The fan-analyst will only see ‘bad calls’ and ‘good calls’ if they don’t factor in coverage vs passing concept, protection, concept progressions, and player execution. This is why a majority of sites will stress the run game so much because it can avoid much of the vagaries of passing the football. This insecurity / lack of confidence in subject matter contribute to the retardation of a critical response.



Also, understand the psyche of the single-minded sports fan (the people delivering the content). Emotions run high and each contest is seen through the lens of immediate gratification and pride. Living paycheck to paycheck isn’t a sound plan for financial security and neither is the rabid game-to-game evaluation of a team. As we say in coaching, “it is never as bad as you remember or as good as it seems. Watch the film”. What worked, what didn’t, film puts it all into appropriate perspective.



So what is the purpose behind this tangent? Simply to evaluate statements proffered by these mouthpieces. Don’t accept them just because they feel good, but challenge them (“why is this statement true? What is the counter-argument and what other factors are involved?”). THAT, truly is what the game of football is about. It isn’t about absolute answers, it is about presenting challenges, evaluating solutions, and determining through an economy of resources (time, athletes, odds, knowledge, etc ) what the appropriate response should be. The further you get from the field, the easier the game appears. In a game that elicits so much emotion, this is a petition for dispassionate understanding of what you’re consuming.

** UPDATE - so it's no surprise that both ESPN and the NFL are strong supporters of the obnoxious SOPA legislation
http://gizmodo.com/5870241/presented-without-comment-every-single-company-supporting-sopa-the-awful-internet-censorship-law

I wasn’t quite sure if we captured the premise of the Iowa State lesson of schematic concision well enough in the last post.  Admittedly, it was an off-the-cuff editorial to a climactic match.  I also wasn’t sure if we have done a complete enough job to date on stressing the simplicity of concepts within an offense (hemlock has tackled this exceptionally well in previous posts), particularly as it relates to Noel Mazzone this fall.  Yes, we get that Arizona State has underperformed this season and Erickson will likely be gone at the end of this year (though it is a shame, considering how explosive their offense has been), but I don’t believe that discounts the value of learning what is working with Mazzone.

With this in mind and to serve as a type of sidebar edification on the matter, we’re “reposting” an exchange offered by hemlock and I on COACHHUEY (explaining Mazzone’s system).  So not to break the flow of dialogue (or require any actual work on my part) I’m leaving the posts as-is in the sequence they occured .  Hemlock’s thoughtful prose and profound commentary is in gold, while my rambling gibberish is in diarrhea green.

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** I realize some of the video (through Vimeo) hosted here is hard to come by.  If you are not aware of how to rip flash already, I’ll direct you to use Firefox and download the video add-on.  Start a video, then enable the download (and its yours).

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Noel Mazzone is Noel Mazzone. He has always been 1-back. What he's doing in Arizona, is essentially what he's always done, having evolved it through the years.

It IS zone-read, but its all controlled/filtered through a systematic way of horizontally stretching the defense, while at the core being vertically orientated (zone-read, F swing, Stick/Snag/Scat/Drive/Shallows/Verts/and tons of screens). There is an efficiency in his application (which is what we've been writing about) that is worth exploring (certainly doesn't carry near the amount of stuff Air Raid teams currently do). It isn't necessarily the plays themselves, but how they're packaged together and used as punch and counter-punch diagnosis.

How he teaches "the offense" is evident in what you've seen with Threet and Osweiller. They are lightening quick in throwing 3-step and 5-step that appears brutal on defenses (they know exactly what they are looking for based on the concept and process through it all).
I would resist calling Mazzone's offense an extension of the pro-single back. If the source of this thought is Mazzone's stint with the Jets in the NFL then I think it a little off. Too me it's evident that Mazzone went to the NFL not to make that his final destination but as a sort of intense sabbatical in that he went there to see what that game had to teach him. I think his goal was always to get back to the college game.

Brophy and I are going to be writing more about the offense in weeks to come, but here are few things to keep in mind: Mazzone wants to stress the defense's perimeter fulcrum. Watch the USC game; I don't think I have ever scene such transparent objectives in my life; they are constantly trying to widen the defense. When they widen the edge their inside zone game become effective, but you need to remember that it's not a real rugged zone game; they don't do combos and stuff; its only effective if they have one on one matchups. But stretching the defense horizontally also helps his vertical game, because it transforms zone into man.


The thing to remember is this too: they really only carry a few concepts every game, especially in their dropback package. More later...
The thing to remember about their zone game is this: it's bang or bust; if they don't win their individual matchups the play goes no where. Think about some the idiotic comments that Rod Gilmore made the other night. It asked why on second and ten did Mazzone run what he described as an "inside handoff" that went for nothing. Well, it was the right call for the front; they had the numbers to win but simply did not on that play. I like to think of it as "scat" zone. I know that sounds odd, but it's not an inside zone in the Alex Gibbs, Eliot Uzelac sense.

In a lot of ways I think that Mazzone is reviving some old things that Purdue did once upon a time. Think of how he motions his backs; it reminds me of how Purdue, WAZZU, and for that matter Miami of yesterday all motioned to empty as a way of stretching the defense's flanks in order to create windows underneath, but also to put backers and backs on virtual islands.

Also, think of how they use the bubble. People talk about the bubble as an extended hand off, but most teams really do not throw it well enough for it to be considered their stretch or wide zone play; not the case with ASU. I don't think I've seen a team that can run bubbles with the back, from 2x2, or 3x1 as effectively as they do regardless of the look. In a sense, the bubble is one of their plays that they feel that they can run versus anything to make critical yards, regardless of whether the defense knows what coming or not. Their third scoring drive the other night that came of the Vontez's pick was built almost entirely of of bubbles in one form or another.
Chris is right, there is nothing radical about what their doing. We will cover this in a post later in the season, but the one thing that they have done better than just about anybody is to accelerate the speed of their vertical game; when their on their game they throw verticals just as fast as quicks.
Yeah, in a sense it really is just that - big on big; they never really get to the second level; basically, its the back's responsibility to make the backer miss, which is what happens when they get big plays out of their zone game.

In terms of packages they carry, if you watch them closely they basically run four concepts from 2x2 and 3x1: Snag; 4 Verts, Y Cross, and Drive or Shallow. Not a huge Smash team in the conventional sense; when they hit the corner its coming off their 3-man snag a lot.

That said, they do tag the backside with a number of different combos, such as double post, post corner, Dig choice, etc.


Its really about an Economy of Concepts

If you're horizontally stretching a defense and emptying the box (to run.....and run easy) I suppose it isn't necessary to mash and bang with getting vertical movement on IZ and working combos (still not sure if I swallow this just yet) them running IZ will blow your mind ("wtf are they doing!?!") if you're accustomed to how IZ is traditionally run out of 1 back.

I would say that Alex Gibbs' one-cut rule is central to the success of the play in for Mazzone's back because of the nature of their scheme, which in part why the back aligns on the QB's heel rather than simply adjacent to him as he does in other zone gun schemes, such as Northwestern's, for example.

 
To build on Brophy's point, motion is used here in much the same way as it was used back in the day at Wyoming, Purdue, WAZZU, etc. Yes, it definately clarifies the read for the QB in that it tells him right away which side of the field he's going to work, especially in the Snag game, but it also is a way of putting extreme pressure on the number four to that side, the defense's fulcrum. It's another way of "controlling" this guy and making sure that he is out of the box, that he does not become a 1/5 player in the box.


Though most applications of ASU's offense are pretty basic in each game, the quirks against Oregon would be apparent for most coaches. Whereas most 7-man front defenses, Mazzone can pretty much give his quarterback a very clear picture. With Oregon's nickel/dime (2/1 DL) the picture was extremely cloudy with linebackers and safeties dropping into overhang positions. The heavy use of motion in that game was a product of getting Oregon to declare what they were truly running (where the safeties had to be.....and would the out-leverage themselves from helping their corners against the larger receivers). On the swing, it would primarily require the safety to make the stop because they were playing a heavy dose of C5 and rushing 4 or fire zoning and rushing 5.

What is interesting for coaches, was how Mazzone's system could adapt to it without losing it's shit. Facing something that was as different and that could get into and out of box threats pretty easy (from depth), ASU didn't have to do anything outside of themselves to handle it. With so many defenders outside the tackles on each snap, Oregon really was daring them to run inside and how ASU was hammering the flare/swing to open up the inside. If they threw the swing, it was going to have to be a safety to stop it (leaving X/Z pretty much 1-on-1) . I didn't find many times where Oregon didn't bring 5 every down, so it made the dig/shallow read pretty easy (either the WLB/MLB was widening for the swing or were both dropping to hook) .

What should be interesting for COACHES is not what they are doing but how they are processing the information on the field. Just by segmenting the defense, picking on one particular defender they can make some pretty safe assumptions on where everyone else will fit and who becomes the best ball carrier in that situation.


I think what we have to remember is that all spread offensive systems strive in some way or another to displace defenders and in the process place an inordinate amount of structural stress on the defense's force or alley players. Whether it's RichRod's spread option or Noel Mazzone's version, both offenses are really trying to hammer on a defenses adjuster backer, which in most 2 hi looks is going to be the sam, at least most of the time. RichRod does it with the Zone Read and Zone Bubble, as we've seen in the excellent talks that Brophy has posted on the blog. For Rich, it's really about trying to make sure that the adjuster never gets into the box, he's the guy they need to control. Mazzone too wishes to attack the adjuster, but his objectives are little different; yes, he wants to run inside zone, but, as Brophy noted, it's really more about identifying the defense's anchor player in order to diagnose not the scheme in general, but more importantly, the defense's individual matches, which, if you think about it, in the era of match-zone is more important than ever.

In a sense, it shows how motion is being used again not so much as a way of gaining mismatches and what not, the offense's general scheme already takes care of that, but of diagnosing what it is that the defense is doing. So, in a way, it just shows how we are coming full circle with the spread. Motion that was once jettisoned is now coming back as a tool for identifying a defenses seams and stress points.

Also, as was noted above, motion is not used blindly by Mazzone. In the Missouri game they hardly used motion because MU is fairly straightforward structurally; with Oregon, however, it was necessary.

Last season, Arizona State was, at least in terms of wins and losses, a very average team. After all, ASU won on six games, two of which against FCS teams. But for anybody who watched ASU play last year, it was clear that they were, perhaps, the best 6-6 team in the land. I saw them play live at Camp Randall against the Badgers and remember walking away from the game with two thoughts: 1) This team will get better as the year goes on and they will peak in November; 2) Their offense is really neat and will undoubtedly be the subject of much scrutiny in the offseason, assuming, of course, that they get it down.

Undoubtedly, ASU improved, and without question, it was due primarily to the great strides they made mastering Noel Mazzone’s new offensive scheme. In the ensuing series of posts leading up the start of the new season I will discuss in some depth the nuances of ASU’s offense. While one of my aims is clearly to shed some light on what I believe are exciting advances in the passing game, another one of my goals is to discuss the offensive thought of one of the game’s most innovative, but frequently overlooked, offensive thinkers, a coach, who, if things bounce the way they should this year, could very well end up the next HC of the University of New Mexico – Noel Mazzone. So while I will definitely talk about what Coach Mazzone is doing at ASU now, I will also provide a detailed sketch of the evolution of his offensive thought over the years, from his years at TCU of the old Southwest Conference to the Jets of the NFL.



First, I think it would be helpful to provide a little immediate background to his current position. Dennis Erickson hired Noel Mazzone after the conclusion of the 2009 season. He replaced Erickson’s longtime friend, Rich Olson. Erickson’s decision to hire Mazzone represented a change in his offensive thinking, for while Erickson has always been a spread one-back coach, he was always more of a vertical stem, option route guy who, by and large, never invested much in the type of layered, over-under schemes for which Mazzone made his reputation.

Why Mazzone?

I guess the first question that needs to be asked is: What is so special about Mazzone’s offense that it merits such close scrutiny. I mean, sure, it was extremely effective last year, put up tons a points, even more yardage, and was, overall, very exciting, but isn’t it just another spread offense? Undoubtedly, all of this is true, but there are some differences in Mazzone’s approach that are clearly worth studying, not because they are necessarily better than those practiced by other coaches, such as Mike Leach, Tony Franklin, or June Jones, to name only three, but because it shows how spread football is progressing by returning to its origins.

Protection:
In general, most pass-heavy spread offenses employ man protection schemes. This is not something unique only to Air Raid teams, but the vast majority of single / empty spread offenses. There are many reasons for this, but one of the main reasons, I believe, is that the rise of single and empty environments coincided with that of the fire zone. To appreciate this we need to have a little history in regards the development of slide protection. Generally speaking, sliding as a means of protecting the quarterback came into vogue during the early 1980s as a way of dealing with inside and outside pressure to the quarterback’s blindside with a single move. In a sense, sliding away from the call was a way of narrowing the quarterback’s field of vision, making it so that he would not have to worry about unexpected pressure by an inside backer through the “B” gap or number 4 flying off the edge.

By and large, sliding was how most one-back teams protected during this period. But there have always been some issues related to stunts and games along the front that posed some real problems for slide teams. In particular, any type of stunt that crosses the face of the center, regardless of direction, threatens the integrity of the protection, in part, because of the kick-slide technique upon which the protection is predicated. (Matt, I’m thinking here of dogs, but of specific stunts, like the “t-chain” in which the 3 and the 4I or 5 slant the A and B gaps respectively with the shade ripping off their backsides into the opposite C) This type of movement exposes the twin problems of “depth” and “center” of the scheme; for unlike vertical set man teams, and I’m not just talking here about Air Raid programs, units that slide gain very little depth and separation from the defensive front after the snap. Consequently, any quick horizontal movement across the line’s fulcrum, the center, takes advantage of center’s compromised base, that is, the side to which he steps in order to combo on the shade with the adjacent guard or post on the one technique while keeping an eye on the stacked backer. While on paper that step may seem inconsequential, it places the center in a compromised position from which it is difficult to play catch up with any type of hard crossing action. For this reason, many one-back teams began to rely more on vertical set man schemes that enables the line to gain depth in order to “sort” and dissect the pressure as it comes.


Without question, I think we can see why coaches, especially in recent years, chose to pursue man schemes, that while requiring more tweaking on a week to week basis, nevertheless, at least until recently, offered more tactical leeway for the players themselves, as well as more strategic flexibility for the coaches in terms of maximizing the number of people they could release on any given play. I bring this up because with the advent and development of fire zone packages, sliding became increasingly costly in the sense that in order to protect the QB teams were forced to limit the number of receivers they could release on a given route, which, if we pause to think for a second, simply plays into strengths of any fire zone coverage by eliminating the very receivers for which any five man pressure scheme fails to account.

And this is what makes what Noel Mazzone is doing so interesting, because unlike everybody else, ASU is very much a slide team, and one, mind you, that has hardly any issues with protection. Now, before getting into the nitty-gritty of his protections packages, let’s briefly consider why Mazzone chooses to slide. Mazzone’s reasons for sliding are simple and can be traced back to his days at Auburn. In a word, Mazzone wants the QB to focus on one thing and one thing only: THROWING TO VOIDS. That is to say, Mazzone does not want, in no uncertain terms, for the QB to be concerned with what the defense is doing; the QB’s sole job is to focus on delivering the ball. And what’s interesting about this is that because his goal to get five players out as much as possible, Mazzone, in a sense, seems to want to make it schematically impossible for the QB to bring another blocker back into the formation, and his way of doing so is to make the QB feel protected by securing the side of the field to where there is no grass.

I know that the above statement seems somewhat strange, but it really is keeping completely with the old Hal Mumme maxim of throwing the ball to the grass. But in order to appreciate this point and its import to how Mazzone slides today, let’s say a word or two about basic slide protection.

Below is basic slide protection, or what ASU today calls “ACT,” versus what I like to call “country stack,” or your garden variety 42 or 44 look.

So, working from right to left, this is what we have:

RT: Man on
RG: Man on
C: Linda call to the Mike stacked over the shade; post on the shade with the guard
LG: Set with the Center on the shade
LG: Man outside; key Will backer for possible Joker call.
RB: Key Sam to Adjuster/Strong Safety; responsible for most inside threat.
QB: Throw the Void (this is not Hot; more on this in future posts)

Now, I think the fundamentals of this protection are all fairly self evident. If the tackle senses that number four is going to come, he will make a Joker call, which will, depending on whether it’s an even or odd front, trigger either a three or four man slide to that side beginning with the first uncovered lineman.

Generally speaking, this scheme is fairly stable in that the line slides opposite the back in order to secure the QB’s backside thus making the side to which the back is checked to the call side, regardless of how many receivers are deployed there.

But what happens if the scheme, regardless of whether there is a back behind the line or not, is essentially an empty one with no check release? For all intent purposes, this nothing really changes for the line, with the exception that now the front side tackle has what amounts to a duel read in that he must eye the Sam backer and be ready to pick up the nearest inside threat, thus making the adjuster backer the sole responsibility of the QB.

As noted earlier, one of the strengths of this approach is its stability, the fact that the QB know from the very beginning that his backside is, at least in principle, secure, thus placing everything else firmly within his immediate line of vision. But this has also been one of the scheme’s greatest drawbacks, especially in the wake of the fire zone craze, because DC’s could always set their fronts, stunts, games, and fire packages to the back’s call, making moot, in effect, the very purpose of the slide itself.

Herein lies the beauty of Mazzone’s innovation, one that I believe, at some level or another, reflects the influence of the Hal Mumme, Mike Leach, and other Air Raid coaches: rather than simply slide away from the back, Mazzone freed his line to slide to where the defense was on the field, which is another way of saying, away from the grass and towards where the defense had the potential to deploy the most people.

On the surface this sounds odd, but it really makes quite a bit of sense, because across the football field there are really only three generic types of zone pressure: boundary, middle, field. Moreover, most teams, as well as conferences, for that matter, especially at the college level, usually have signature pressure packages and preferences. For example, both the Pac 12 and Big 12 are heavy field pressure conferences. Despite the fact that boundary pressure is easier to disguise, most programs in these conferences prefer to fire it up from the field, so this is where their defensive numbers are going to be. Below are two diagrams, the first offering a global perspective, the second illustrating how ASU slides to the numbers.

This is your standard field blitz from a three man front. There are different ways to package this concept, but the nuts and bolts of it are pretty simple. For the same reasons, it should be easy to see where the defense is putting its numbers. If we count the nose, we get six players to the field, leaving only five to the boundary. Yet if we were to employ a standard slide here away from the back, it immediately becomes evident that we would, in effect, be protecting away from the threat. But as the diagram below illustrates, ASU’s answer enables them to account for this with no difficulty.

So, rather than have his line slide into the boundary away from the pressure, Mazzone has his guys slide into it with a four man slide that not only seals off the interior paths of pursuit to the quarterback, but the edge as well, leaving the boundary tackle to ride the end out with the back checking inside out from Mike to Sam.

The one question that remains, however, is whether or not the frontside is now where the back ends up or his original position? Simply put, the frontside remains the side of the back’s original alignment. Now, I recognize that some may say, and rightfully so, that doesn’t this defeat the purpose of slide protection; after all, the reason coaches slide is to secure the backside, right? My answer to this is that that the secure side needs to be the side from wherever the pressure is coming from; it is senseless to protect the QB’s backside if there’s more grass there than there are jerseys with numbers on them.

Concluding Remarks:

In closing, I think it’s necessary to note that a vertical set man scheme is just as up to the task as sliding. Why, then, does Mazzone slide? In addition to the reasons outlined at the beginning of this piece, we should consider the place of the drop-back game within the whole of his offense. One reason Mazzone continues to slide is because of the extent to which his quick, screen, and zone games are integrated into a near seamless whole with his dropback package. In essence, Mazzone views these not as separate aspects of the offense, but as protective extensions of his core passing game. And by “protective” I mean that they tie so well into his slide protection scheme not only tactically, that is, how they appear to the defense, but also, and perhaps more importantly, pedagogically for his offense’s players. So, from a global perspective, provides Mazzone with a flexible way of protecting the QB that also enables the other central components of his relatively simple, if not reductionist, yet incredibly dynamic offensive system.



>>> MORE FROM HEMLOCK <<<<

Since the end of the bowl season I’ve noticed a number of threads on various sites devoted to the quick game. Given the fact that we are living through the “Spread” age in football this hardly comes as a surprise. What is surprising, however, is the number of posts in which coaches speculate as to how relevant a quick game package is to an offense that bases out of the gun anyway. After all, should it not be possible to simply build your quick package into your basic 5 step package anyway, either via hots, sight-adjustments, or some form or the other of flare control?

There are six reasons why one needs to throw quick:
1. Horizontal Stretch
2. Force defensive numbers to be even in the box.
3. Force hard support control
4. Identify the leverage on the perimeter.
5. Find where the defense is not on the field.
6. Blitz control.

I think relationship between reasons one and two is pretty obvious. If you are a spread team, operating in a four-wide environment, the quick game functions as a way to structurally set the defense and to get an idea as to how the defense is going to defend the box. In a sense, your quick package should do for you what double-tight does for an ACE team in that it should force the defense to balance up, which should enable the offense to get a hat-on-a-hat in both the running and passing games. In other words, the horizontal stretch the quick game creates should prevent overloads from occurring in one form or another. In so doing, the quick game also enables you to identify the specific areas in a given defensive structure that you will want to isolate and exploit by way of the five-step game.

In the same way that one and two work together, so do three and four. If you create a good horizontal stretch and even the defense the defense will begin to play hard support, thus flattening the under coverage out, creating, in effect, more man to man situations in which defenders will, by the leverage of their technique, be in a less effective position to play good run support. In addition, this will clarify the defense’s leverage and subsequent pursuit angles.

Reason five, I believe, helps explain why the quick game is an invaluable tool: it helps identify, at early stage in any game, where defenders are and where they are not. In this sense, the quick game is tool for probing that helps an offense identify where along a broad defensive front it should concentrate its spearheads.

Blitz control, reason six, albeit important, is not, in my opinion, the primary reason one should throw quick. Yes, it’s imperative that an offense have the ability to get the ball off quickly off of a short drop, but certainly there are other tools an offense has at its disposal that can not only serve as a blitz deterrent, if desired, but that are a more sure fire way to make a defense pay for blitzing, such as screens, for example.

In a place of a conclusion, I would like to say a word or two about how the quick game figures into the historical evolution one-back offenses. I know this will sound like ancient history, but the one-back offense, as we understand it today, in the modern post-Jack Elway / Pink Erickson sense (and for those that don’t know, Pink is Dennis’ father), developed out of a desire to find an easy and economically teachable way to spread the ball out to the perimeter in order to displace defenders and open the running game. What people forget is that the passing game of the modern one-back offense, the one that Dennis Erickson popularized throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, but not the one he runs today at ASU with Noel Mazzone, revolved around a vertical stem quick game whose main objective was to create a horizontal stretch that would displace the Sam backer, create a 4-2 box, but one with a two hi shell that would enable the offense to run a power inside and outside zone running game, preferably to the low shade of the defense. So, even in its modern beginnings, the quick game was really not designed as a way to beat the blitz, but rather as means to an end for running the football.

In my next posting, I will talk at some length about the questions a staff needs to ask itself as it conceptualizes its program’s quick package.

Hopefully, this will jumpstart me a bit so that I can start fulfilling my obligations to this blog again.

Recently, on this site, as well as on others, the term “match zone” has gained a great deal of currency. There is good reason for this: without question, match zone is the defensive technique in pass coverage that is currently most in vogue throughout all levels of advanced football. No doubt because of the pioneering advances made by Nick Saban, Gary Patterson, and a few others in diagnosing the pattern combinations and route distributions that are the hallmark of every sophisticated passing game, match zone techniques and coverage concepts serve as the foundation of virtually every defensive structure. In a sense, match zone has breathed new life into the 1-Hi looks that for a while looked incapable of handling the vertical threats posed by today’s spread offenses. However, in another sense, and I will be the first to admit that I may be completely wrong here, match zone may simply be today’s Tampa 2, another knot in the tactical and strategic evolution of defensive football.

This will be short piece, and much to my chagrin, one bereft of the ever useful power-point diagrams of my colleagues on this site. My goal in writing is to play a little bit of devil’s advocate, to point out what I view as some structural deficiencies that undergird match zone concepts, and in so doing, suggest that perhaps the old way of defending space is not as antiquated and insufficient as the prevailing defensive orthodoxy of today seems to suggest.

Let’s begin by boiling away the fat of match zone. In layman’s terms, what is match zone? At its core, match zone is a man/quarters concept predicated on upon a 3 on 3 triangle with a linebacker. Now, if we pause to think about it for a second it is not difficult to see from what match zone as both a concept and technique and concept evolved, and here, I’m not simply repeating Brophy’s citation of Saban’s remarks on its historical evolution dating from his days with the Cleveland Browns. Match zone evolved out of the Banjo bracket concepts that dominated college football throughout most of the 1990s. I coached in the then Big 8 when Kansas State was making its rise in football and very well remember the aggressive Banjo concepts they used in the their under-coverage as a way of bracketing and walling off the shallow routes that were then gaining in popularity amongst college offenses. And I think we all know that Banjo is essentially a man technique played within a defined zone: defender plays his man until said man leaves his zone and is then passed off to the adjacent defender.

Match zone builds on banjo by adding a number of additional elements into the mix, the most important two being a hyper-developed concept of pattern reading, or pattern matching to be precise, and the RAT, about whom I will write in a future post. For now, I will focus primarily on pattern matching. I use the term “matching” and not “reading” here not simply to reinforce Saban’s language, but because pattern matching and pattern reading are not interchangeable concepts. To match a pattern, it is necessary to first read the pattern. A defender matches an offensive players route when he diagnoses his intention; he’s then matched on him in what amounts to man-to-man coverage. This here is what I see as the rub about the very term “match zone,” for it’s really a misleading coinage, because what it is in reality is not match zone, but really match-man. What distinguishes match-zone from pure man is the way in which “matching” as a technique is integrated within the schematic structure of the defense as a whole. This is where the pattern reading aspect of match zone comes into play, the aspect that enables it to diagnose threats and cover them not simply with a lone defender, as in pure man, but in coordinated collaboration with another defender whose action’s are predicated upon his ability to read, diagnose, and match the pattern in question.

Now, I think it should be pretty clear where I’m going with this. Because defenders are taught to match the route of the receiver they by default become chasers. In other words, when defenders match a route they are in effect chasing it; defenders thus are not covering space, but rather receivers. This is why I prefer the term match man to that of match zone. The term zone implies space and area; match zone teams do not cover space, but people.

Why am I making a big deal about this? I’m harping on this because I believe that there are some profound structural issues with this concept as a whole, especially versus spread offenses. The first problem should be self evident. Since everybody is chasing in match zone the concept is suspect versus any team that has a QB that can run. A good friend of mine who coached for a long time in the Big 12, a predominantly match zone conference, told me that if Vince Young played today he’d run for over 2,000 yards. I have no reason to doubt him. With the exception of Robert Griffin at Baylor the Big 12 today is quarterbacked by kids who can chuck the ball, but who are not much of a threat with their legs. Today, if I were still coaching, I’d be tempted versus a heavy match zone team to line up in Empty a lot and run a great deal of QB draw, as well as motion a back into the backfield from Empty in order to run zone read, and later Jet.

Another problem with Match Zone is its lack of physicality. How is it possible to blast a receiver if you’re always chasing him?

Now, I’m aware that the RAT, to a degree, functions as the punisher in most match concepts, but RAT is only one player and thus one that can be identified and schemed around. I know this sounds counterintuitive, man teams are rarely ones that punish receivers on a routine basis. Here, I’m drawing on my friends insights regarding the 2006 Colorado defense. CU was a 2 shell team that played a lot of quarters, 2, and Tampa 2. They did nothing fancy except squeeze down zones and tackle extremely well. All one needs to do is to watch their tape against Texas Tech and Kansas. Versus both teams, CU aligned in some type of a two shell or four across look and pretty spot dropped the entire game. What made their spot dropping effective, as opposed to, let’s say, what VaTech did versus Boise State earlier this year, was that CU’s people were dropping and reading at the same time; in a word, they a had a keen sense of what was developing behind them.

I will conclude my remarks with some words as to how I, as Run-N-Shoot guy, would treat match zone. To be totally honest with you, I would rather face a match zone team as a Run-N-Shoot coach than a pattern reading – spot drop team (more on this formulation in my next post). Why? Pure and simple: match zone teams, especially those that are heavy fire zone ones, by and large, always end up, regardless of shell, in a 1 Hi look. I can thus tell my people to disregard the other 6 generic shells we use to categorize coverage and instruct them to focus their attention on attacking the technique of the defender charged with matching them. So, for all intent purposes, match zone takes the thinking out of things for my receivers because for as far as they’re concerned all they’re facing is man.

What is interesting about this, historically speaking, is the fact that match zone as a both a technique and concept reinforces something that John Jenkins spoke about frequently during his days with the USFL Gamblers and later with the Houston Cougars: all zone coverage eventually becomes man at some point or another. Jenkins remark was particularly on point for his own offense, because the Run-N-Shoot is a vertical stem offense, especially his variation of it. Even back in the 1990s Jenkins was teaching his receivers, regardless of coverage, to attack the individual technique of the man against whom they were stemming their route; he was less concerned with the overall scheme of a coverage than with the individual technique of a defender. The explicit goal of every receiver, even versus soft looks was to collapse the cushion and the force the defender to play man. In a way, match zone does this, but in a more economically effective way; for, the receiver does not even have to collapse the technique in order to get the match man technique he desires.

Given my writing schedule, rather than writing long posts, I am instead going to offer up shorter ones that will address a specific point of a larger topic. In the end, this may take a little longer, but the content will be the same.

In my last post I talked bit about the origins of the Run-n-Shoot under Tiger Ellison. Some people clearly took umbrage with some of my remarks, perhaps feeling that I was dismissing his work. Not so. Ellison was an innovator and we have much to be grateful to him for.

Ellison laid the foundations for what Mouse developed; his base packages, such as Gangster, Wagontrain, and Popcorn are all present in Mouse's stuff. This serves as a nice segue into what I want to talk about: How Mouse built a better mouse trap and the anxiety of influence.

Structurally, Mouse preserved the basics of what Tiger created. His version of the Run-n-Shoot from the very beginning was one predicated upon operating solely within a four wide environment. He would also make use of moving pocket; like Tiger's, Mouse's QBs would not thrown from vertical axis. But here is where Mouse started to modify or reign in some of what Tiger did. Tiger's QBs utilized a hard role. The side of the field they worked was clearly defined based direction of their role and the QB was ALWAYS a real threat to run the ball. Tiger wanted his QBs to throw downhill off the roll. Mouse did not exactly jettison this; the Go route, arguably the most famous concept of the offense, is a downhill concept that is most effective when the QB attacks the line of scrimmage, thus putting the invert player in a three way bind between the seam, angle, and QB. More on the Go later and its more limited uses today. The Go was great in the early days of the offense because most defenses operated some type of 3 shell with sky rotation. But Mouse recognized that you could not build an effective passing offense around a concept whose very strength eliminated 3/4 of the field. Mouse's solution was to control the QB's steps by numbering them and thus calibrating them loosely to QBs progression. The QB thus was still utilizing a mobile launch point, but one that enabled him to pull up under control behind the tackle, work the back side, and take better advantage of how the role moved the FS out of position. This today is still a reason why the offense has yet to take out the angle drop of the QB; defenders still tend to angle their drops with the QB thus taking themselves, even if ever so slightly, out of position.

Mouse's most important "reform" was arguably his most ironic one. By this I mean the one that seemingly contradicts the base principles of the offense itself. Mouse added structure to the offense; he defined the goals of each concept, and created a structure within which the concepts operated. Think of it in terms of poetry. We all have rhythm; it is the feel of the poem. This is what Tiger had with his stuff; what he did not have, however, was meter. Mouse gave the Run-n-Shoot a meter that structured the rhythm of the offense. Put differently, but defining each concept, Mouse expanded their creative potential. This is the hallmark of great verse. Great verse has the ability to create anew within established structures. Great poets, or writers, thinkers, and football coaches for that matter, are ones that have the ability to overcome the influence of their predecessors not simply by miming them or rejecting them but engaging directly with their creation and overcoming it through their own work, which in fact is creative criticism of their predecessors. This is what Mouse did.

Next time I will explore the mechanics of Mouse's offense.

Oh, and speaking of influence, John Jenkins followed Mouse's path in this regard. He did not just copy Mouse, but engaged with his work directly and in the end put forth an offense that was substantially different.

I want to start my treatment of the Run-N-Shoot by discussing the offense's diachronic (read: historical) development. (Please pardon some of my jargon. Much of my academic research focuses on historical writing as a type of literary event, thus I loath how "history" as a term is conventionally used) Here, in Part I of this section, I will talk a bit about Tiger Ellison's version of the offense. My purpose in doing so is not to provide an in depth account of his offense, but rather to demonstrate why it is really no longer relevant to the Run-N-Shoot as it is currently employed at the major college level.

Without question, Tiger Ellison's Run-n-Shoot was an innovative and dynamic offensive system, especially for its time (although, in some ways, especially in terms of innovation, I would say that what Dutch Meyer did was perhaps even more so). Tiger's version of the offense is predicated upon a four hot environment. And yes, much like what Mouse would later do, Tiger's offense utilized option routes that he packaged into series that would in time provide a very rough template of sorts for Mouse's system. Tiger also used motion, but not really as a means of decoding coverage, but rather because so much of what he created derived from the Wing-T. In many ways, if we were today to compare Tiger's Shoot to one of Tubby Raymond's later Wing-T teams we would find the resemblances striking. The reason for this is that Tiger still wanted to run the football, just not into an 8 man front. He also wanted take full advantage of the misdirection potential that his double-wing formation afforded him, something that Mouse would use only as a way of controlling the edge and preventing a hard end from crashing his protection from the backside.

Tiger's version of the Run-N-Shoot is still an effective offense at certain levels. In this regard, his offense really is like the Wing-T, an offense that is still very effective at the high school and small college level, but whose trap and cross buck run game is no longer feasible at the higher levels due not only to increased speed, but schematic evolution as well.

Clearly, some Run-N-Shoot purists will not be happy with these comments; especially my equating Tiger's offense to the Wing T. But I wish to stress that these comments are not intended to be dismissive; rather, they are simply predicated upon a close analysis of the deep grammar of Tiger's system.

Tomorrow night I will discuss how Mouse modified Tiger's basic structures and how in so doing he laid the foundation for the modern Run-N-Shoot offense.

Much to my chagrin I've been mostly silent since joining this blog. This is about to change. Starting sometime next week I will begin a series that I suspect will run for about six months or so on the Run-N-Shoot offense. The Run-N-Shoot has been around for a long time, but it's still one of the least understood offenses in football today. There is a certain mystery that to this day enshrouds the offense. The one thing that is certain is that it remains a source of anxiety within the football community. Defensive coordinators from time to time will dismiss the offense publicly, but if you speak to them privately they will tell you that the Run-N-Shoot unnerves them to the same extent that the triple option does. By the same token, the Run-N-Shoot is also a source of anxiety for those coaches who wish to practice it, that is, those who are enamored by the offense, but still cannot find the will to commit to it all the way.

I've been around the Run-N-Shoot in one form or another for about 20 years. I learned the offense from its founding architects and I now believe the time is right to share what I know.

As suggested above, this series will be extensive. I will treat the following topics in detail:

1. Origins and Evolution
2. Problems and Responses
3. The Culture of the Run-N-Shoot
4. Structural Mechanics
5. Teaching Route Coversions Today
6. Protection
7. Route Concepts
a. Streak
b. Read
c. Switch
d. Divide
e. Rails
f. Banjo
g. Go
h. Slide
i. Choice
j. Hook
k.Side
l. Levels
m. Quicks and Adaptations

8. Screens
9. Run Game

Each topic will be treated globally as a concept; individual plays will be discussed only within the context of specific examples.

10. Conclusions: Dealing with Challenges and Problems.