The Ohio State offense again demonstrated its potency by flying out to a big first half lead.  This evaporated, however, when momentum swung during the third quarter, forcing the Buckeyes to grind out the game's remaining minutes.  The Buckeyes were sufficiently prolific in the first half, however, to allow a few crucial second half scrambles by Terrelle Pryor to be just enough to get OSU past the finish line.

The Arkansas Decision:  Attack

In my preview, I posited that Arkansas could go one of two ways:  sit back in quarters coverage, or play an aggressive, blitzing style.  Arkansas clearly chose the latter.  Arkansas blitzed OSU more than OSU has seen this year, and more frequently than the Razorbacks have shown all season.  Arkansas would show an over or under with a 2 high shell.  But generally Arkansas would bring at least the OLB/nickel back off the edge from the field, and would often bring a second ILB in tandem. 

When OSU went to I formation, Arkansas multiple times brought a weakside corner blitz to try to catch the OSU run play from behind.

Behind this, Arkansas would play cover-1 man , bringing a safety up late to play the slot receiver. 

Terrelle Pryor and the OSU Response

Fortunately, this played right into Terrelle Pryor and OSU's hands.  Pryor is most effective when teams force him to use his legs and make decisions on the move.  And Pryor was particularly adept this game in doing so.  In my opinion, this was Pryor's best game at Ohio State.  This was not simply because of his passing accuracy, though he played well in this area, such as his touchdown throw to Dane Sanzenbacher on the deep out, putting the football only where Sanzenbacher could make a play.  Pryor has had other good days throwing the football.  Instead, Pryor was at his best this game because of his decision-making.  This applies not only in diagnosing coverages, here reading the zone blitz and hitting the curl behind the dropping defensive linemen;

but also continually making the right decisions as to when and how to employ his legs.  Pryor was nearly pitch perfect as to when to move in the pocket and make plays downfield, and when to tuck the ball and run.  

As a result, Arkansas had no answer for Pryor.  One of the dogs that did not bite this game was the effectiveness of the Arkansas pass-rush.  J.B. Shugarts had repeat issues handling No. 91 Jake Bequette on speed rushes.  But Pryor single-handedly neutralized this aspect, leaving opportunities down field. 

Pryor will never get credit for what did not happen, which was preventing Arkansas from generating negative plays, but his ability with his feet was the difference in this game.

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The OSU offense once again got off to a slow start, aided by Michigan showing a different defensive look.  But, in the end--as they have all year--the OSU offense geared it up to play at a high level until Tressel took the foot off the pedal.  This was aided by a great second quarter by Terrelle Pryor, and some minor adjustments that allowed the running game to get rolling.  By the end, OSU had recorded yet another blowout against a Rich Rodriguez led Michigan squad, aided by putrid Michigan special teams.

Michigan:  Waiting all Year to Unveil a Structurally Sound Defense?

Michigan clearly surprised OSU in moving away from its 3-3-5 stack that had produced such poor results all year, and instead lining up largely in a 4-3 under front.

Michigan then had their linebackers and safeties key Zach Boren and flow aggressively in response to the fullback's movement.  For example, here OSU successfully blocks the front 7, but the Michigan strong safety Jordan Kovacs commits aggressively to the run action.

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The Buckeye defensive performance against Iowa was fairly typical of what you expect from a Jim Heacock led unit.  There was some bending, not a lot of break, and in the end the defense is again largely responsible for another OSU victory.  Iowa has a solid, balanced offense, and OSU responded with a myriad of fronts and coverages to keep Iowa guessing.   In the second half, the defensive front was able to control the line of scrimmage, turning the tide and ensuring the OSU victory.

The Iowa Playbook

Iowa's goal was to use formation and motion to attack the OSU front at weak spots.  Specifically, Iowa had two goals--try to get OSU in nickel, and run away from OSU's formation strength.  Iowa did so by taking a page from Penn State and brought a tight end back into the formation to attack OSU's 6-man fronts.

Iowa also repeatedly set twins or trips to the field and then run stretch into the boundary.   The goal was to get OSU to set their front to the field, enabling Iowa to outflank OSU.  Here you can see how OSU's front is set to the field, providing no run support outside the tight end save the boundary corner.

Iowa had success running the ball early, raising flashes of Wisconsin.  Ross Homan began the game again standing flat footed waiting for the play to come to him, rather than attacking the hole.  This allowed Iowa to gain solid yardage when getting to the second level.  One major difference, however, was that OSU unleashed Brian Rolle to shoot gaps and attack the line of scrimmage, allowing OSU to stop Iowa several times for negative yardage.

Finally, as Iowa does, they sought to attack the OSU underneath zones.  Here Iowa does a nice job hitting the all-curl route v. the OSU cover 3.

The OSU Counter

Ohio State, as they are wont to do, did not overreact despite the fact Iowa had success early.  Instead, OSU stuck to its basic plan.  On first down, OSU played primarily cover-3, freeing HInes to come into run support.  

On pass downs, OSU played a lot of cover-2--more so than any other time this year--mixing in some cover 1 robber.  The reason is that these looks provide ample underneath coverage.  In pass downs, then, cover 2 gave OSU five underneath defenders to attack things like the mesh route that Iowa so favors.  Here is the OSU cover-2 v. mesh:

And here vs. cover 1:

What is so impressive about the OSU defense is that unlike, say Iowa, OSU is not wedded to any coverage philosophy but will instead play a myriad of coverages with equal success.  That allows OSU to choose the coverages that best defends the team they are playing, putting the Buckeyes on the offensive.

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The Iowa victory was a classic example of Tressel ball.  Not in the sense of an over-reliance upon the I-formation run game--OSU made a conscious choice to largely eschew it.  Instead, to me, Tresselball means that when the going gets tight, Tressel narrows down the playbook to what he believes his team can successfully execute and gives his team the best chance to win.  In the second half, OSU used a few simple plays, featuring an extensive amount of bootleg and rollout passing sprinkled with the drop back and spread-option run game.  Despite the numerous mistakes throughout the game in execution, this mixture provided a Jim Tressel led OSU team the opportunity to win (again).  In the process, it leaves little doubt that this is a Terrelle Pryor-centric offense and he is the guy the coaches are going to rely upon even more heavily when the offense needs to make plays.

The Ohio State and Iowa 2-Step

The Ohio State game plan was clearly to force Iowa to spread their linebackers in space.  The OSU play-calling largely moved away from the under center I formation run-game. Boom Herron had 20 carries, but that stat is misleading.  Of his 20 carries, 10 were either on the last drive to end the game, or in short yardage or goal line situations.  This became more pronounced in the second half, where only 2 I formation run plays were not in such circumstances.

In its place,  the OSU game plan did a nice job attacking the Iowa defensive schemes, particularly their cover-2 coverage.  Indeed, many of the OSU miscues in the forms of drops and interceptions came because OSU had so successfully attacked the Iowa cover-2 safeties with hi/lo pressure that the safeties got themselves out of position jumping crossing routes , leaving the deep vertical routes open--the same open routes that OSU could not convert.

OSU featured a large percentage of 'open-I" sets, with 3 wide receivers.  Iowa responded by remaining in their 4-3 under, but simply walking their Sam backer out to the twins side.  This allowed to get OSU favorable match-ups both for running in the box and attacking in the pass game.

OSU generally only spread more from there, including numerous five-receiver sets.  The Iowa response, as expected, was simply to continue to spread further.   With five wide receivers, Iowa placed every linebacker outside the tackle box, essentially assuming their cover-2 drops pre-snap. 

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One of the most overrated cliches in football is 'half time adjustments.'  To paraphrase Bill Walsh, its much easier to make adjustments Thursday afternoon than during a game.  What he meant is that it is simpler to create a game plan when you have extensively scouted your opponent and can clinically prepare your game plan, then it is to  tinker with everything during a game where emotions are running high and even coaches only have a limited ability to know everything that is happening. 

Of course there are exceptions to every rule, and the OSU defensive performance on Saturday fits that exception.  The OSU defense was able to literally clamp down the screws on Penn State, shutting down the underneath passing game that was allowing Penn State to sustain drives in the first half.  Penn State's QBs thereafter were unable to throw the ball downfield as they needed to succeed .  This change provides a window into the OSU defensive coaching staff's thinking--and perhaps the most interesting aspect is that the change is one many did not likely expect...

The Penn State Gameplan:  The Underdog's Handbook

Penn State had a very nice game plan offensively, one that is often seen from an underdog.  By that I mean, Penn State knew that could not out-talent OSU, so they attempted to create strategic advantages.  Most specifically, Penn State sought to throw on first down and run when OSU expected pass.  The thinking was this--Penn State knew that OSU will generally line up in their base 4-3 on first down, but want to go nickel at the first opportunity.  So Penn State wanted to throw against base and run against nickel. 

Penn St. also sought to create match-up advantages for their run game.  They would use '11' personnel (3 WR, 1 TE, 1 RB) to get OSU in nickel.  But they would then motion down the receiver to the single side into the box.  This gave them 2 TEs to run with, while it generally resulted in an OSU corner having to come down in run support.

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To paraphrase, it was a tale of two halves.  My inclination is to take a detached, strategic view of football--what team had the better game plan, what strategy best exploited what the opposing team was trying to accomplish, etc..   As we all know, however, football is a game of emotion and comes down to how the eleven guys on the field actually play.  The OSU performance against Penn State was  a reminder of this fact.  While I think Penn State had a nice game plan and I again think OSU came out trying to be too cute, ultimately OSU simply executed far better in the second half.  Once the OSU offense got the running game started, it was like a ball rolling downhill that continued to gather momentum.  Ultimately, the OSU offensive proved too multi-faceted for Penn State to defend all three aspects--the inside run game, pass game, and Terrelle Pryor based runs--but it took OSU a half to get out of their own way to exploit these advantages.

The Penn State Scheme:  Tried and True Philosophy...With a Twist

As expected, Penn State stuck with their base system.  The Penn State plan became quickly apparent.  When OSU was under center, PSU would go with the 4-3 stack to get an additional linebacker in the tackle box. 

Conversely, when OSU went with shotgun 'spread' looks, PSU widened out to the 4-3 over, thereby spreading out to the flat to deal with the No. 2 receiver threat, while maintaining their base package.

From there, PSU generally played their MOFC, 1 high, cover-3 defense (see above). 

The one wrinkle PSU demonstrated was on third down.  Unlike last year when they were more aggressive, this year, PSU often dropped back into cover-4 'quarters' coverage, with their front four trying to maintain rush lanes to contain Pryor. Quarters coverage starts with the four defensive backs each splitting the field into four , but it effectively involves a form of match-up zone--each safety will read the route of the number 2 receiver to their side--if he releases vertically, he plays that defender in man coverage, if that receiver releases in or out, he will pass coverage to the underneath linebackers and play his quarter.  The effect for the offense is that it needs to either hold the safety and have the outside receiver beat the defense's corner in what effectively becomes man coverage, or attack the underneath flat where the defense is weakest.

This was a page from Wisconsin's playbook against OSU and proved equally effective, as I will discuss below.  It not only short-circuited the intermediate passing game that OSU favors, it also allowed PSU to keep 9 defenders with their eyes in the backfield to prevent Pryor from scrambling.

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OSU's victory over Minnesota Saturday may have been little more than a glorified scrimmage, but it nonetheless in my opinion may have represented the most unified, coordinated offensive effort in both scheme and execution of the Terrelle Pryor era.  In the last two games, the offense has come together where the coaching staff is providing the correct philosophy and play-calls, and every member of the offense is executing nearly flawlessly.  This demonstrates that the coaching staff now knows exactly what it has in this team, and that the players are confident in themselves and the plan, playing at a high level.  Perhaps I am too bullish given the defenses OSU has played, but yet I cannot help to imagine what would have happened if OSU used this game plan against Wisconsin.   The reality for any defense right now is that the OSU offense is a balanced, hard to stop unit.

Strumming the Chords...

In other words, the OSU game plan and execution are coming together in harmonic convergence.  Minnesota, not surprisingly, tried a little bit of everything against OSU.  Minnesota came out in a 4-3 stack with a 2 high shell, trying to keep both seven defenders in run support and four defensive backs.  OSU immediately exploited the soft-spot in Minnesota refusing to walk out a linebacker in twins, hitting Sanzenbacher on an easy pitch and catch bubble screen.

Once Minnesota was pulled horizontally, OSU began again hitting their two-high defense with the inside run game, featuring the same trio of plays that has made the OSU running game begin to go:  Inside Zone, Stretch, and ISO.   A more vertical, attacking running game has been a step forward for the OSU offense.  It fits the running style of Boom Herron.  Boom is at his best when he is able to attack aggressively downfield, make one cut, and go.  Then, the pounding inside run game sets up the stretch play, providing OSU a way to get to the edge and for Boom to take advantage of cut-back running.

Minnesota next tried to adjust by moving to a 4-3 under front, mixing and matching putting a safety in the box.  OSU turned to a potent balance of the inside run game above, and the drop back, sprint-draw play pass game, and bootleg passes.  In the first half,  of the 41 offensive plays, 33 featured OSU in the I formation or 'twins' or with '12' personnel (1 back, 2 TE).  OSU had 20 first down plays.  Of these 20, 9 were pass plays, or a nearly perfect 50-50 run pass balance.  OSU is thus using balanced run-pass formations to employ a balanced run-pass gameplan, threatening defenses across a variety of fronts.

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The OSU defense rebounded from a poor showing against Wisconsin to register a shutout against Purdue.  In so doing, the Buckeyes' defense put on a text book example of how to shut down a 'spread to run' offense.  OSU's continued dominance against spread teams demonstrates that the 'spread' is no longer an 'equalizer' that will benefit lesser- talented teams, but instead simply another offensive philosophy that has both strengths and weaknesses.

Background:  The 'Spread's' Evolution

The spread offense as one thinks of it today developed as a way to change a defense's arithmetic-.  Defenses have to account for the QB as a potential ball carrier, so it required the defense to either have insufficient numbers in the box to defend the running game, or bringing a safety up in the box, leaving the defense exposed to the pass game.  As Chris Brown stated: 

All this flows from the simple fact that there are eleven players on one side and eleven players on the other. Every ballcarrier necessarily has an unblocked counterpart: if you bunched up and tried to block everybody one guy is still unblocked. Maybe you can dictate who that is so he is too far away, but the defense will always have one guy.

In the NFL, the quarterback hands the ball off on a run play and stands there. The quarterback's counterpart is usually the deep safety -- he stays back in case there's a play action pass. The runningback's counterpart is still free to come up and make the tackle.

With the shotgun run game and great faking and reading, the quarterback can alter the assignments. He can occupy two defenders: the backside defensive end, who must watch him for a run, and the deep safety, who has to guard the post-pass. This opens up blocking in the run game. Note the two circled defenders.

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