Well, howdy y'all!
Some of you my know me from my own blog or from my rather colorful Twitter account (which by the way, you should follow), but for those of you that do not, let me introduce myself. My name is Ryan Ritter, aka NDtex, and, as of today, am the newest contributor to Her Loyal Sons. DMQ reached out to me last week to ask if I'd consider blogging ND Football exclusively for HLS and I was very excited to accept, finally giving HLS a much needed southern presence.
As far as my background, I am a 2007 Notre Dame graduate and a proud former member of the Student Managers Organization. I worked with the football program during Weis' first season and afterwards moved to the golf course working with our golf teams my senior year. As a manager, I learned more than I could've possibly imagined about football working practices on a daily basis. The program also gave me a chance to play actual full-contact football on a couple occasions for the first time in my life (I played baseball growing up).
Thanks to my time working with the team for even just a little over a year, I was able to see the game in a completely different way. In fact, I was able to flat out predict plays that we would run from the stands my senior year (in hindsight, probably not a good thing about the Weis offense perhaps?). I've always been a stat guy and love taking a look at the numbers behind the game, but there is no doubt that I wouldn't have been able to throw together posts like this one as easily without that background.
So what should you expect from me here at HLS? My goal is to bring the same content that I created for my site over here to continue to make HLS one of the best ND blogs around. That means my crazy creation of the NDtex25 will be following me here (it can't be any more embarrassing than saying Ruffer is the #1 player for ND, right?) and I will continue to bring my opinions and analysis to our program just like I always have.
Also, you should expect to see me lurking around the comments and the Sideline forums on a regular basis as well. If you haven't been joining in yet, you definitely should get yourself an account here, grab yourself a Gravatar (because I'm lazy and like to see pictures instead of reading names), and join in.
But hey, enough of me talking about myself, let's give this post some actual ND football content while you are here!
For me, the big story in the Purdue game (besides the zero turnovers), was the rushing attack basically having its way with the Boilermakers. As Poot mentioned in his breakdown, Cierre Wood and Jonas Gray led the way with 191 and 94 yards respectively. Furthermore, the Irish actually had more rushing yards (287) than passing yards (264) in a victory for the first time since 2008 against Navy.
For me personally though, this game gave me a chance to really take a look at what a running game looks like under Brian Kelly when executed properly. With Rees and the QB position being such a hot topic in general, most of my focus has been mainly on the passing game. This time around though, there is very little to break down for Rees because Purude went with the very odd "leave Floyd in single coverage" defense, making his decisions very easy. That left me focusing on Wood (insert joke here), Gray, and the blocking up front.
By now, pretty much every ND fan knows that Kelly's system is a spread offense that operates primarily out of the shotgun with a single back. These formations obviously open up the potential for the passing game, but what most Irish fans may not realize is that the running game is actually a power based attack intended to run the ball in between the tackles.
Yes, that isn't a typo, we run a power running game from the shotgun, a welcome departure from Weis' system in which we really only found success through misdirection and delayed handoffs, but a concept that may have many fans scratching their heads.
To see what I'm talking about, let's take a look at a more traditional power formation, the power I. Below, is a diagram of a rather straight forward run to the weak side of the line, with the FB leading the RB through the hole.
Let's take a look at that same play in a shotgun formation. Below we swap a FB for a third WR; however, the purpose of the play is still the same: run the ball between the LT and LG.
In this case though, we have no FB to use as a lead blocker. Instead, the RG pulls from his original position and leads the RB through the hole just as a FB would. Furthermore, the center now has the responsibility to plug the gap the RG leaves behind and make sure that he traps the opposing defender from blowing the play up behind the line of scrimmage, making this type of scheme rely on not just the power of the offensive line, but their quickness as well.
The overall goal of Kelly's scheme is to have the best of both words of a passing attack that spreads the defense and a running game that can punish up the middle. If run successfully (like Purude), you force the defense to honor both aspects of your game, forcing them to spread out against all receivers, while forcing defenders back into the box at the same time.
To take a look at such a play in action, let's take a longer look at Cierre Wood's 55 yard run in the second quarter. At this point in the game, Purude is flat-out reeling and on this drive in particular, have given up two runs for 12 yards each. As ESPN notes, they get a bit desperate and send a safety on a blitz, opening the potential for a big play; however, that isn't the only reason this run works so well.
Above, we see the play pre-snap. Kelly is going to use a variation of the play that I just diagrammed above. Here, he has an unbalanced line and has moved his RT over to the left side of the line. The play will call for the hole to be created between the two tackles on the left edge and the RG, Trevor Robinson, will pull and lead Wood between the tackles. Notice how there are only six men in the box (four D-line, two LB) as the rest of the defense must spread out to defend our receivers. There will be a seventh man in the box coming in the form of a blitz, the safety circled in red. Thankfully for us though, he will blitz completely away from where the play will go.
After the snap, we can see that a very nice hole has been opened. The DBs on the outside haven't yet reacted to the run and the blitzing safety is still running in the wrong direction. This leaves only the two LBs as Purdue's only hope to stuff this play at the line.
However, Robinson hits the hole well before any defender and engages one of the LBs, sealing the hole for Wood. Before Wood even hits the hole, the second level is already wide open with only one LB left unblocked, and, thanks to a blitzing safety and DBs that are too far away from the play, there is only one remaining safety in the secondary as Purdue's last line of defense.
The unblocked LB has taken a rather unfortunate angle and has been sucked up into Robinson's block. With Trevor basically taking care of the second level on his own, Wood has only the single safety to beat in the secondary to get to the endzone.
By just making a single move, Wood burns the safety and it's off to the races for a TD.
While it sure isn't the type of old-school rushing that many are used to, Kelly's take on the power run game can be quite effective. Of course, it does have it's drawbacks. For instance, if the other safety or LB over the left gap had blitzed or had a defender shot the gap left behind by Robinson's pull, the play is dead before it ever really starts. In fact, any rush that went for a loss had these type of issues.
So as you watch the running game throughout the season, keep the above factors in mind. Our success and failures in the running game under Kelly won't be as simple as getting a push up front, but also having our pulling linemen get to their positions quicker than the defense can react. Losing that battle will be just as important, in most cases, as getting a solid push up front.
By PootND October 4, 2011 - 7:42 am
tl;dr
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By NDtex October 4, 2011 - 8:31 am
You just have to spoil the party don’t you? #DammitPoot
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By Matt Q. (DMQ) October 4, 2011 - 8:12 am
Awesome start, Tex! Welcome!
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By It’s Not Goodbye… » NDtex.com October 4, 2011 - 8:25 am
[...] I posted earlier today at Her Loyal Sons, I will now be doing all of my ND and college football blogging over there instead of this little [...]
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By The Biscuit October 4, 2011 - 8:44 am
Welcome Tex! This is the reason we brought you on board. Solid stuff! Glad to have you.
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By Jeremy October 4, 2011 - 9:51 am
Excellent article. Thanks for joining HLS!
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By NDtex October 4, 2011 - 10:28 am
Thanks, very excited to be here!
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By Frank LeBeau October 4, 2011 - 10:54 am
Interesting analysis, Tex. This particular ND play, more than any other I’ve seen this season, demonstrates how a spread running scheme can allow a speedy back to take it the distance by running up the middle. It reminded me of Oregon’s running attack with Lamichael James. Does this approach limit a team’s ability to run the ball in short yardage or goal line situations? Oregon had a hard time running the ball against Auburn in last years championship game. Can the more agile linemen ND is recruiting still play power football against stouter defenses? We’ve had trouble scoring in the red zone with our running game.
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By Brad October 4, 2011 - 11:06 am
Frank,
Something to think about is that pretty much all teams have difficulty running the ball in short yardage or goal line situations. If the opposing team can stack the box with 8 or 9 guys, and play good gap control defense, its really, really hard to just plow the ball into the endzone. Pay attention, and you’ll see that very few teams can get inside the 10 yardline and just plow on in unless they are facing very inferior opponents. So while Oregon may have difficulty running in short yardage (mainly against SEC defenses)….the question should really be, doesn’t everyone?
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By The Biscuit October 4, 2011 - 11:14 am
Also note that our more agile linemen are also huge. 300 pounders.
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By NDtex October 4, 2011 - 11:22 am
Not necessarily. In fact, Gray’s TD at the goal line used an unbalanced line as well. However, in that case, we didn’t get the blocks quick enough and Gray made that TD happen.
We do have some more traditional runs in the playbook as well as runs from the shotgun that do not involve pulls.
I definitely need to try and chart this all down because we are definitely in some unfamiliar territory here.
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By GB October 4, 2011 - 1:07 pm
NDtex, It’s nice to you you here. My question is how did th offenses of “old” do running plays and make lots of yardage when there was not so much passing? The D could load up the box on them and the O still did very well.
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By Matt Q. (DMQ) October 4, 2011 - 1:14 pm
Actually, as of now, no ND offense since the 46 team had the even close to the same yards per carry as the 2011 team is gaining.
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By Brad October 4, 2011 - 1:26 pm
GB,
For one, did the offenses of old have running plays that made lots of yardage? Or did teams just run the ball a whole lot more. A good running team in the old I formation or double tight formation would love to have 4-5 yards per run. At even just 4.5 yards per carry, that brings about 225 yards rushing per game if they could hand the ball off 50 times to 2-4 backs. Thats a pretty good day at the office.
As far as how they kept people out of the box, they simply used tradition constraint plays. Think about it. If people loaded up the box with 8 or 9 against Holtz, he’d just run a play action pass about 50 yards down the field to Rocket and pray he got to the ball first. If not, it was as good as a punt.
Also, even with 8 or 9 in the box, back in the day the Fullback was a second running threat in the backfield. Now they are just glorified TEs or Gs. Back then, the 8 or 9 in the box had to account for the FB as well as the RB (and counters based on fakes to one before handing off to the other). If you had an option threat, that meant 3 running threats to account for. VERY few teams do that anymore.
Also, to get widen guys out of the box you had traditional slants to pressure the OLBs, reverses to pressure DEs who came down the line too hard, and screens to pressure an overly agressive DE or blitz screen.
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By SDI October 4, 2011 - 1:27 pm
Running QBs also helped. That is the whole new/old wisdom of utilizing guys like Tebow, Cam Newton, Vince Young, etc. If your QB can’t run you are basically playing 10 offensive guys vs. 11 defenders. A good passing QB gets yards and points through the air. But if he can’t pass effectively, you are at a big disadvantage.
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By Milf October 5, 2011 - 9:12 pm
I’m not a huge fan of running that counter near the goal line, or of running outside zone or inside zone from the shotgun down there as well. Slow developing plays where you’re pulling lineman and/or trying to run wide is susceptible to penetration, which is a lot easier to get near the goal line when you can put 7 or 8 in the box and play cover 0 or cover 1. In short, as Frank notes above, those run plays out of shotgun work so well in between the 20s because defenses have to respect our ability to spread them out as well as attack them vertically.
Count me as someone who would prefer to see a little more of this near the goal line: http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=6955009
Of course, we need more than 2 healthy TEs to be able to run that =D
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By NDtex October 6, 2011 - 8:49 am
Good to see you here Milfy!
I’m with you on your analysis of the goal line. Just line it up with your big uglies and don’t just fancy, there’s no room.
I might be imagining this, but I seem to remember Kelly also using one package in which we had an extra O-lineman line up as a FB. The exact play escapes me though. That would be another nice goal line wrinkle.
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By The Biscuit October 6, 2011 - 11:54 am
Oh yeah, we tried. Power package. Against USF. It failed miserably.
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By Brad October 4, 2011 - 11:12 am
ND Tex,
Welcome aboard, and great post.
One of the things I’ve noticed is that Kelly is particularly adept at using a broad variety in his running game to keep defenses honest. For example, he’ll commonly run a simple inside or outside zone play (whether with a read option or not) to one side or the other. These zones get all the offensive lineman moving in one direction, and thus, get the defensive front to get moving with them.
Then, Kelly will utilize the power running game as a counter to this. In the play you showed, he used a pulling guard. But he has a power run built in as a counter to his normal zone runs, and I believe that counter is called at the line of scrimmage by the QB based on formation.
Essentially, everyone takes a step to the right as if its a normal outside zone to the right. This gets the D moving their feet to the right as well. However, he will have the right tackle pull and come back to the left to blow up the backside end. This is a power counter, and the other members of the box have already run themselves out of the play.
This kind of pairing that he does in the run game works really well.
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By NDtex October 4, 2011 - 11:26 am
Very observant, Brad. Kelly does have a lot of small wrinkles that does give his offense an extra step. For instance, we ran a pitch play a couple of times and I noticed on some of the runs, Wood or Gray would take a step away from Rees as if the pitch was happening again just to run it back up the gut.
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By Brad October 4, 2011 - 1:43 pm
Exactly, he has a ton of built in counters which I love. Another thing I’ve noticed they do a lot is run/draw option based on the OLB.
Sometimes ND will come out in a 1×3 shotgun formation with the TE in the slot nearest the OL, followed by Jones and Ridjohnson on the right, and Floyd off to the left. That alone puts pressure on the safeties, because one has to stay with Floyd, the other has to cover 3 WRs on the field side.
The RB will line up on the left (Floyd’s side). If a defense lines up in nickel, Rees will read the LB to the right side (3 man side).
I AM NOT SURE THEY ARE DOING THIS, but this is what it looks like to me.
They will run all four receivers vertically, with Eifert headed just outside the LB by a few yards. Rees stares down the LB and watches. If he widens out to cover the TE that Rees is aimed to, then Rees hands off to the RB for a delayed draw. Since the LB has run off from a nickel front, this leaves the Irish with 5 hats on 5 hats (5 OL vs. the 4 DL and the remaining LB). By the time the stretched LB comes back in, the Irish already have 5 or 6 yards cause he ran out of the play. If the LB doesn’t widen out, then they Irish toss the ball to the TE on a streak/curl/out route.
I have also seen them do a similar think where they put the ball in the RB’s stomach, and if the LB comes in to support the run, Rees pulls up and throws it out to the TE. If he stays on Eifert, he hands off to the RB.
A lot of these plays just look like fake draws or fake passes, but I really believe that they are run/pass options based upon what the 6th man in the defensive front is doing.
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By Brad October 4, 2011 - 1:47 pm
Again, I am not sure they are doing this, but thats what it looks like to me. As a lot of spread teams do similar things, its not surprising. I wish I knew how to cut up pictures of film and post them but I have no frickin’ idea how to do that.
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By Josh October 4, 2011 - 11:13 am
Dammit! I just added the NDTex site to Google Reader the other day. Well, at least this cleans up my RSS subscriptions.
Nice post!
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By Irish007 October 4, 2011 - 5:09 pm
Me too.
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By Dave October 4, 2011 - 11:44 am
Nice analysis. Now please tell us how to stop the triple option and copy Bob Diaco.
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By SDI October 4, 2011 - 12:07 pm
Nice work. Great read. Welcome to HLS.
I think that ND finally seems to have all of the necessary ingredients for a strong run game–scheme, play calling, Oline play, and top shelf RB talent. Weis’ run game definitely left much to be desired, but think about how many times DWalker would have nice 15-20 yard runs and get caught from behind, or AAllen would get shoe stringed by that safety that filled the hole and settle for 7 yard gain. Jonas and CWood almost never get tackled by the first defender in the open field. They are very difficult to bring down one on one and have the speed to break some very big runs. Jonas would have had another monster run if it was not for a nasty face mask tackle by a Purdue DB.
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By Mr. Wednesday October 4, 2011 - 3:30 pm
I think the big difference from Weis’s running game isn’t so much the backs as it is the receivers. Floyd is a beast blocking, and Kelly clearly has high expectations of all of his receivers for downfield blocking to turn small- or medium-sized gains into big gains. If Weis cared about this stuff, he (or Ianello) didn’t know how to teach it.
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By SDI October 4, 2011 - 5:04 pm
No doubt, receivers didn’t block for shit under Ianello and that is a big difference.
Oline wasn’t particularly good at it either–especially after ’05. But WRs blocking effectively or not, I just don’t see ND rushing for 5.41 per carry this year with some combination of DWalk, Allen, Hughes, Aldridge. ND is #15 in the country in yards per carry, 4 of the teams ahead of them are option teams, and almost everyone ahead of them has played a weaker schedule.
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By NDtex October 4, 2011 - 9:32 pm
We also had some serious holes on the offensive line as well. That sure as hell didn’t help matters easier, especially at the end of his tenure.
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By Erik '04 October 5, 2011 - 11:41 am
Wasn’t Kamara a pretty good blocker? If I recall, he was a much better run blocker than pass catcher. Perhaps I am thinking of his senior year under coach Kelly, though.
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By The Biscuit October 5, 2011 - 2:48 pm
I think that’s about right
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By Erik '04 October 4, 2011 - 12:14 pm
Welcome, Tex, great post! Any post that incorporates screenshots and formations gets a thumbs up in my book.
I think some of the drawbacks you mention are tempered by the QB making his checks at the line. If it looks like a LB is about to blitz through the play-side hole, he can switch the call, the RB will step over to the other side, and they’ll run it away from the LB. Good defenses will probably catch on to this and re-adjust their call after the audible, but most college teams aren’t good at that. Watch Ray Lewis play against Payton Manning, though, it’s a wonderful chess match.
That’s also one of the reasons why the young QBs aren’t playing yet. They don’t have the experience to see where the blitz is coming from and adjust the calls. Tommy doesn’t have much more, but he has enough to run this offense competently, and I think he’ll get better and better at looking off the safety and/or checking down to secondary receivers.
I do like that our running scheme is not necessarily dependent upon where the RB lines up. So often you see shotgun formations that only run the ball across the QB’s body (i.e. if RB lines up left of QB, the run is going to the right). Your diagrams show that we can run left even if the RB is on the left. Or we can run those sweeps. Or we can run counters to the right. There’s a lot more variety in the running game than I thought there would be, which is great.
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By FightingSonOfNotreDame October 4, 2011 - 12:48 pm
Great post NDtex!
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By canuck75 October 4, 2011 - 1:47 pm
Welcome aboard NDTex.
Nice analysis. I think Jonas has a particular ability to run a power sweep as well, but I like the thought of running off tackle with the spread.
Do you think that it would be even more effective if we can get to the hurry up approach? Seems like Oregon always has teams on their heels because of the speed of play.
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By Jack October 4, 2011 - 2:18 pm
The detailed schematic analysis of how Kelly choreographs his running game is quite interesting to me, someone who never dealt with those intricacies. I appreciate how this piece shows how Kelly’s running game can differ from previous Irish editions yet still make me cheer, “Finally, a Holtzian running game.” I suppose i was really reacting to the effects, but what great ones: the O-line consistently opening up BIG holes, running backs hitting them with great timing, runners refusing to go down at the first hard contact, and both backs able to toss off break-away runs. It’s been a long time!
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By SySy2007 October 4, 2011 - 3:05 pm
A bit wordy for my tastes, but not bad for a Texan I suppose. In all seriousness, good stuff Ritter.
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By GQ574 October 4, 2011 - 4:10 pm
Damn Tex!
Scout much?
All the other coaches need to do is stop here and read your posts and they will have us nailed with pics and all. lol Good job
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By NDtex October 4, 2011 - 9:33 pm
Well, if other coaches can’t see this on film, and need to come here, I need to start applying for coaching jobs!
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By trey October 4, 2011 - 8:48 pm
Its really not a welcome as I know youve been around for a while, but glad to see youll be here full time. This site was begging for a Texan presence & i think youll do perfectly. Theres no real doubt that the best football in the world is played in the Lone Star State, so this is long overdue.
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By IrishLion10 October 5, 2011 - 8:29 am
Am I the only one who has a problem with all of this expansion? I think HLS should’ve remained independent…
Just kidding Tex, looking forward to reading more insight from you in the future
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By PurdueMatt October 7, 2011 - 8:49 am
You have to admit the turf looks really nice.
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By USC Post Mortem « Her Loyal Sons October 25, 2011 - 2:41 am
[...] of your offense. As I stated before in my first post, Kelly takes advantage of that with a power running scheme to complement his passing attack, not one composed on only draws and misdirection that were so [...]
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