Mailbag Question

Hey guys,

Great blog. Like the article about the osu defense. What is some of the best ways to attack their defense in Coach Rod's spread offense? Can you give examples of areas in the passing game along with the running game. Can you say where at along with the position on the field.

Such as is there a difference on your own 20 compared to their 20 and what about the spread offense down near the goal line what are some things you can do and what are some things that make it hard to go up against osu type defense.

Greg
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Thanks for the question Greg. Field position is not major issue in Coach Rod’s offense scheme. It is primarily a run and short passing game that can be used anywhere on field. Michigan showed a standard pro offense with two backs and Tight End in goal line situation. It was not very effective and Coach Rod and staff went to standard offense with better success. Most teams are in some sort of man on the goal line and this tailor made for the Quarterback read offense. The pick routes and crossing patterns are almost impossible to defend in goal line situation.

Key to attacking any zone blitz defense is to be successful on early downs. If you can keep zone blitz teams out of nickel and dime packages you have good chance to be successful. That is exactly what LSU did. They ran the ball and kept OSU from being able to get into their specialty schemes and packages.

In general, areas to attack are between the tackles, between the hashes, and with combination routes that take advantage of defense rotations. In Michigan’s scheme things that will give OSU and other zone blitz teams are the inside belly and Quarterback read off the zone. What you are doing is playing games with the backside Defensive End and Weak side Linebacker.

If they flow too hard to the ball, the Quarterback is wide open. If they sit, or stay home the Offensive line can either out man or cause a mismatch to the play side. Other thing is if Middle Linebacker fills to front side, and Weak side Linebacker stays home the Backside A and B gap is open to the cutback.

What teams try to do to zone blitz schemes is confuse the Free Safety with formations and motion. The key to zone blitz secondary play is Free Safety adjusting to both the formations, wide side of field, and call made by Middle Linebacker.

If he blows the call this defense is not going to work. So Coach Rod’s many different spread looks, and motions will present a challenge to Free Safety. The other thing spread passing games do is try to get to vacated zones before the defense can rotate to fill the void. Coach Malone was very good at this. He would put twins into the boundary and attack the Free Safety with the inside receiver.

Most Michigan fans should remember Braylon catching long Touchdown all alone. This exactly what Michigan did, they attacked Free Safety into the boundary and ran Braylon straight up the sideline. The Free Safety could not rotate over fast enough.

written by CoachBt and ErocWolverine

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