Indiana Offensive Review and Mid-Season Analysis

"I think we thought they were going to get a little bit more run, maybe a little bit more scramble with Pryor," cornerback Adrian Burks said. "But they ended up passing the ball more, and passing it well, obviously."

"Coach Tress said this week, just joking, 'If we don't get 20 throws in the first half, we're firing coach Bolls,' " Pryor said, referring to offensive coordinator Jim Bollman. "That was just a joke, but that's what we wanted to go into the game thinking."

These two quotes, captured in the Columbus Dispatch following the Buckeyes' game against Indiana (here and here), nicely capture how OSU has matched up with opposing defenses through the first half of this 2010 season.  Opposing defenses scheme to take away the OSU running game, despite ample evidence now on film regarding the OSU game plan.  And the OSU offense says thank you and continues to run a Terrelle Pryor-centric pass offense.  And so it goes.  Indiana played a similar defensive style to OSU's previous opponents and Ohio State responded accordingly;  throwing on 26 of 36 First Half plays en route to an easy 38-10 win. 

The Indiana Defensive Plan:  How Defenses try to Defend OSU

As noted, Indiana came out with a similar defensive plan to previous opponents.  In so doing, I want to take the opportunity to discuss not only what Indiana was doing specifically, but the challenges presented to opposing defenses by the Ohio State offense and what things may look like from the opposing sideline's perspective.

Indiana played a 3-4 'super-under' defense:  putting both linebackers to the formation's strength, while sliding their three down linemen 2 gaps to the weakside.  Like other opponents, Indiana showed a 2-deep shell, but had one of their safeties 'screw down into the box' to create an 8-man front. (H/T:  Brophy).

Here is what it looked like live:

The lesson six games into the season is that, regardless of what OSU fans and commentators think of the Ohio State run game, defenses respect it enough that they are scheming to take it away.  The great thing for OSU is that this limits the coverages a defense can play.  Specifically, OSU knows that if a team wants to bring their safety into the box they are going to get some type of '1-high' coverage.  This means that the opposing defense is generally going to play Cover-1 man with a deep safety, or cover-3.  OSU's coaching staff thus has an advantage in that they can call routes that conceptually attack these coverages, knowing that they will likely see some type of middle of field coverage (MOFC) (there is a reason OSU runs a lot of all-curl and spacing).

Now, a team running a MOFC coverage and screwing a safety down into the box is in and of itself not a bad thing. for a defense  Indeed, it is a hot trend in defensive football--something that Brophy has written numerous insightful articles about that I highly recommend.    This concept is perhaps most associated with Nick Saban.  Saban's defenses play a cover-3 with "pattern matching," which at its most basic means that a defender will attempt to read the pattern combination and play man coverage in his assigned zone.  Many teams play this style of man or quasi-man.  It's an aggressive defensive style that teams like Virginia Tech or TCU with a robber have made famous.  This style of defense was best exhibited against OSU this year by  Miami.

This is well and good versus a team with a good running game and a downfield passing game.  But this is where the x-factor for OSU comes into play.  Because if a team plays some type of man versus Ohio State it is playing with fire with Terrelle Pryor's running ability.  I hope to show why Terrelle Pryor's scrambling ability is not just a nice anecdote to broken plays or something that does not count towards the Buckeye offense, but instead the glue that makes the offense so dangerous.  Because it not only gains OSU yards, but also constrains what a defense can do and thus opens up the passing game.

The problem, of course, with playing this type of coverage against OSU is that defenders get their backs turned away from Pryor--something that can lead to huge chunks of run yards.  Advocates of this coverage will retort that the robber or "RAT" in the middle of the field can account for the QB, or calls that trade off coverages can keep eyes in the backfield. 

But ultimately, as a former Big 12 Coach says:

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.

And this applies to OSU, as we've all seen.  Pryor has scrambled over and around teams playing man defense.  This happens even if a team has a LBer playing a robber position, because that guy is simply not fast enough.

The mere 'threat' of Pryor running, then, opens up the passing game against MOFC.  They cannot simply sit in base cover-1 or cover-3 pattern matching because Pryor will tear it apart.  So eams basically have two options.  They can either try a double-A gap blitz or backside blitz to catch Pryor before he's prepared to run. 

Or they can sit in a really soft cover-3 that tries to keep eyes in the backfield on Pryor.  But this simply gives Pryor and the wide receivers easy pickings.

Teams limited coverage options allows Ohio State to call pass plays with confidence that they know will work against these coverages.  It also allows OSU to dictate match-ups to the opposition.  For instance, the play below best defines the Ohio State passing game this season.  OSU gets in their favored tight-trips formation.  If OSU knows a team is generally playing a 1-high coverage, the tight trips will generally dictate that the defense will shade to the trips to play zone to that side, and man backside. 

OSU responds by putting Devier Posey to the single receiver-side, providing OSU with a running match-up.  Here, OSU runs snag to the trip-side, attacking the zone coverage, along with a deep post to hold a middle safety, while having Posey run a deep comeback to attack man.

In sum, Terrelle Pryor's running ability in the dropback game should not be considered somehow undesirable or throwaway yards.  Instead, the combination of the OSU run game threat, combined with Pryor's running ability, makes this offense go because it severely restricts what the defense can do.  OSU is a pass-first team not simply because they are good at passing, but because passing opportunities are opened by these defensive constrictions.  Pryor's running threat is not just a nice bonus, but instead the engine that makes the offense go.  His throwing opportunities are made easier by his legs.

Game Within the Game:  Making Patterns Look Alike

As OSU passes more and more, the scheme must adapt to the increased workload to constrain the defense and not show tendencies based on formation or the initial route.  As noted above, teams will pattern read routes if possible, which is easiest with horizontal routes.  To use an example, OSU's favorite route is 'Drive.' 

Logically, however, you can see the threat from pattern reading.  To the DB to the two receiver side, if you see the immediate shallow cross action you can pattern read and jump the cross and square-in routes. 

OSU beautifully countered this by making patterns look alike.  Here, courtesy of 'dornstar' is the sequence on Sanzenbacher's 22-yd TD route that shows this perfectly. Here is the pre-snap look:

OSU is in '11' personnel with doubles, or two receivers to each side.  From this, OSU likes to run both drive and double scat.  Here is the action five yards off the snap.  As you can see, this looks identical to 'drive' on both sides.

However, if a defense tries to jump 'drive' based on pattern reading they are in trouble, because OSU converts these route stems in to scat routes by the outside receivers, and skinny posts by the inside offenders.

This is how you attack defenses with the pass game.  A team can no longer try to jump the shorter routes for fear of getting hit over the top, which OSU was able to do for an easy TD.

The Brandon Saine Show

It probably goes without saying that I was more than pleased with how OSU used Brandon Saine in the game plan.  OSU did a great job using him in the slot or out of the backfield to engineer opportunities to use his unique talents.  And Saine is proving himself a real threat in the passing game.  Here, OSU attacks Indiana's cover-3.  The corner goes with Posey on a post, allowing Saine to run a wheel route out of the backfield behind him.

The combination of Saine and Stoneburner in the passing game present numerous challenges for defenses.  Going forward, defenses must be aware where Saine is at all times, opening up opportunities for others.  What will likely happen is that teams will try to immediately locate whether Saine or Z. Boren is on the field and adjust their defense accordingly.  This will be a tendency OSU will have to combat but can also use to their advantage to catch defenses off-guard.  But games like Indiana are for creating tendencies, later games are for breaking them.

The Ohio State Offensive Line in the Run and Passing Game

As most know, the OSU offense line has been maligned this year--I believe unnecessarily--particularly in the run game.  As I've noted, the line cannot overcome a numbers' disadvantage.  But if there are two areas I have felt the OSU line could improve, it was getting off of combo blocks onto linebackers in the run game, and picking up blitzing games in the pass game.  The line improved on both fronts against Indiana.

First, it is worth noting that in the First Half's sixth possession Indiana did not have their eighth defender attack the line of scrimmage.  Boom Herron quickly ripped off runs of six and eight yards and Indiana quickly went back to their original game plan.  But here you will see how the line did a much better job getting onto the linebackers in the running game.

The OSU line had a few running game breakdowns; notably with Andrew Norwell taking a few lumps in his first extended action.  But technique continues to improve and OSU's run game remains a threat that defenses take seriously.  For those expecting a median gain of 4+ yards per carry, such expectations should be tempered.  If the OSU running game gets opportunities like I mentioned above to run against seven men fronts, I expect the rushing yards per attempt to shoot up.

The line's performance in the pass game was even more impressive.  OSU did a very nice job picking up the blitzes Indiana demonstrated (see Brewster and Z. Boren picking up the double A gap blitzes below). 

When Indiana did not bring pressure, OSU easily dominated the line of scrimmage.  Here is a picture perfect example of combo protection where the line all slides away from the playside call (to the right) inside of the first bubble the RB is responsible for, and the RT blocks man.

Conclusion

I sound like a broken record, but it will be interesting to see if teams continue to defend OSU the same way.  Thus far, the only thing able to slow down the OSU offense has been wind.  Teams have  followed the same script, and it will be interesting to see if Wisconsin continues to do so.  We will have greater discussion of this topic this week, but to that end its worth noting that Wisconsin played nearly all 8-man fronts against OSU's 'spread' looks last year.

Of course, this is a very different OSU offense.  So longs as teams try to defend OSU in the same manner they have in the first half this year, expect OSU to continue to attack with the same pass-first methods.