The Ohio State Offensive Playbook Part IV: The Dropback Passing Game

As noted, Ohio State's drop back passing game is now premised on the underneath horizontal stretch.  As a bit of background, it is necessary to understand what 'horizontal stretch' means.  One of the biggest misnomers amongst
the football commentariat is that the offense's goal is to get "one on one matchups."  That is incorrect, at least against anything other than pure man coverage.  Instead, the goal is to attack a zone in a manner that gives the offense a 3 v. 2 or 5 v. 4 numbers' advantage  That way the defense is wrong every time.  As SmartFootball states:

Here is a visual demonstration:

As one can see in the top left diagram, the 5 receivers horizontally stretch the 4 underneath defenders.  In 5 v. 4 someone should be open.

More after the Jump:

From there, an offense wants to choose a stretch that is going to be successful against the coverage presented by the defense.  As will be discussed in more detail below, certain pass patterns are successful against one coverage and not others.  Taking the all-curl route above, it is perfect against cover 3 because the offense has that 5 v. 4 advantage.  Against cover-3 it is a 'coverage beater.'  But it is not against cover-2, because now the defense have 5 underneath defenders for the 5 receivers.  An underneath pass pattern that is successful against cover-2 is double slants, however, because you now have 2 receivers versus the 1 underneath defender.  For this reason, teams will often 'package' coverage beaters to each side so that the QB will have an option to either side depending on the zone coverage the defense is running that play.  

Turning to the prosaic, Ohio State is more likely to run their dropback game from the shotgun.  They are more of a run and play-action team from under center.  This is typical, as it is more difficult to pass-protect from the 'spread.'  In this way, Ohio State's dropback game is now similar to teams such as Texas.

Individual Pass Patterns

I now want to turn to the individual patterns that Ohio State favors.  This list is of course not exhaustive but merely a sampling of the Ohio State pass offense.

All-Curl

I used this route as my example above so will just add these limited points.  This is a 'crutch' route for OSU.  They will go to it against 'one-high' defenses in tight situations.  OSU also likes the route on first down.  Courtesy of Smart Football, here are the basic receiver techniques:

 The QB will take a 5-step drop (or 3 steps in the shotgun) and watch the MIKE backer.  If the Mike drops weak, the QB will work the strongside, the sit route to, curl to flat.  If the MIKE drops straight back or strong-side, the QB will 

work the sit-route to curl to flat.  In either case the QB is going to work in to out. The curl route is so versatile because it can be run from any formation.  Generally OSU likes to run this out of a spread look with the slot-receiver working the sit route.

Double Slant/Snag Route

This route package gained (marginal) notoriety during the Oregon game, with both myself and Smart Football focusing on the play.  To get a more granular view of where the Ohio State passing game is going I recommend both posts, but for our purposes here I will focus on how this fits into the 'new' OSU scheme.  

Below is a diagram (from Smart Football) of the scheme  (the screen shot above demonstrates a good example of the play live):

This play is a practical example of putting the aforementioned coverage beaters to each side of the field. 

This play is thus an example of two coverage beater concepts in one--a man route to one side, and zone route to the other, and a route on either side that is effective against different zone coverages.  Double slants was an OSU favorite throughout last year.  OSU liked it not only against Oregon's blitzing schemes, but also against cover-2 zone.  The reason is that it puts the linebacker to that side in the unfortunate position of dealing with 2 slanting WRs within his zone.  As noted, that is why double slants is a cover-2 coverage beater. 

To the other side, snag

Snag is a versatile route that can attack any number of zone coverages.  As 'Will' in the Smart Football comments section notes, "the underneath stretch puts a lot of pressure on the OLB / Sky Safety to fly to the flat to cover the RB, and if he does it leaves a big hole for the flanker to settle in, with a primarily run-oriented ILB trying to stop him as a bonus."  Here is video of OSU running the play against Oregon:

Snag has become an even greater part of the Ohio State offense this year.  This play is thus a perfect example of where Ohio State's passing game is headed.  OSU is looking to stretch the defense with a ball-controlled passing game that employs horizontal stretches that can attack a myriad of coverages.

Double Scat and Spacing

Another play that has grown in increasing importance in the OSU offense is 'Double Scat.'  Double scat (seen below) is again another horizontal stretch against the underneath zone.  

As seen above, both inside receivers are going to push in hard.  If the MLB crosses the receiver's face, the receiver should look for the ball.  If the receiver's route is walled off, the receiver will sit and bounce back out. (in action it will look like the receiver is doing a 270 turn and bouncing back out).  The receivers are attempting to get a 2 vs. 1 horizontal stretch on the middle defender, settling in the hole and putting him in a bind. 

As Brophy states, all the QB "has to determine is if it is MOFC or MOFO coverage and then immediately attack the appropriate defender.

• Vs 1 high – look weak (key the flat defender)
• Vs 2 high – look strong (key the flat defender)."

The scat route puts pressure on both the receivers and QB to correctly read the inside linebacker and get the football to the correct space, showing the coaching staff's increasing confidence in their passing game.  

The route is similar to the spacing concept, which is also becoming an OSU favorite.   OSU likes running the spacing route from a tight bunch personnel grouping (H/T: Smart Football).  Spacing is effectively a compressed version of the all-curl route--again the goal is to put the horizontal underneath defenders to that side of the field in a bind by having to account for three horizontal curl routes to that side.

In particular, they like putting Brandon Saine in the inside slot and can have him run the base route or 'tag' a wheel route for him off of spacing.   Posey will then play to the single receiver side and run an individual route. 

Here you can see the spacing route in the foreground with Sanzenbacher on a quick out to the opposite side.

And here is spacing with Saine running a wheel route 'tag' off of it.  With OSU running spacing so often, a team will try to jump the flat route and then Saine can go right by them.

Both scat and spacing are short, ball control passing game concepts that horizontally stretch the defense, OSU's preferred way to attack in the drop back game.

CONCLUSION

The Ohio State dropback passing game has morphed into a ball-control, horizontal passing attack.  The premium is placed upon stretching the underneath defenders horizontally to put more receivers in a particular space than the defense has defenders to cover.  From this, OSU will then put Posey to a one-receiver side to get big plays against a defense that has overcommitted to stop spacing or smash to a three-receiver side.  As Ohio State has become a QB-centered offense, these horizontal passing routes will continue to be a staple of the Buckeye offense.