2007 Rose Bowl Preview - Illinois Offense Date - December 27, 2007 Here are some short notes on the Illinois offense to pass the time leading up to the Rose Bowl. Unfortunately I did not get a chance to watch this team during the year (except for highlights etc.) Fortunately, I managed to obtain a copy from a generous fan of the program from the big Ohio State game played earlier this year where the Fighting Illini upset the Buckeyes 28-21. The following notes are an overview of the Illini offense based upon 1) overall season statistics, 2) game trend data, and 3) the Ohio State game in particular. As such the contents may or may not reflect how Illinois will play versus USC - the Ohio State game is just one data point that I was able to obtain. (Note: The following statistical data is all from the NCAA's CFB web site for Division I football and the 2007 offense figures are all year to date numbers as of today.) 2007 USC vs Illinois Overall Offense Comparison Category 2007 YTD USC NCAA Rank 2007 YTD Illinois NCAA Rank Rush Yards Per Game 185 #33 266 #5 Rush Yards Per Carry 4.7 #33 5.7 #33 Pass Yards Per Game 233 #53 157 #114 Pass Yards Per Attempt 6.6 N/A* 6.6 N/A* Pass Yards Per Completion 10.8 N/A* 11.8 N/A* Pass Completion 61.6% N/A* 55.7% N/A* Total Yardage Offense 418 #41 423 #35 3rd Down Coversion 43.5% #31 44.3% #26 Scoring Offense 31.25 #41 28.75 #54 *Not available in any easy format Statistically on offense Illinois and USC are roughly even in terms of total yardage and points per game. Illinois however is much more of a spread option rush attack team and gained far more of their yards on the ground. Illinois finished the season ranked #5 in the country with 266 yards per game and a healthy 5.7 yards per carry. Overall for the year Illinois ran 66% of the time and passed 34% of the time for almost a 2:1 run pass ratio. For the season Illinois finished with a much improved 9 wins and 3 losses overall. The losses were against Missouri, Iowa, and Michigan. Quality wins were posted versus Penn State, Wisconsin, and of course Ohio State. For those with LOTS of time on their hands the Illinois football website posts 5-10 minute highlight films of most games. Click here if you are interested in viewing any of the games. Illinois Offense Introduction Here are the starters for the Illinois offense at the time of the Ohio State game. I don't have any injury information pertaining to the squad so this may or may not be up to date. Offensive Lineman QB /RB's/WR's The most well known figures on the offensive side of the ball for the Illini are probably their excellent running back Rashard Mendenhall, quarterback Isiah "Juice" Williams, and freshman wide receiver Arrelious Benn. Mendenhall is the main back in the offense having gained 1526 yards this season on 245 carries for a 6.2 yard average. Second in rushing on the team is QB Juice Williams at 150 carries for 774 yards for 5.2 yard average. Daniel Dufrene had 45 carries on the year for 294 yards and a 6.4 yard average as well. On the passing side of the attack Juice Williams has completed 132 passes out of 232 attempts for 1,498 yards and 13 TD's. He also threw 10 interceptions to go with his 56.9% completion percentage for a 121.0 NCAA QB rating. His top receiver is the highly touted freshman Arrelious Benn who caught 49 passes for 596 yards for a 12.2 yard average. Illinois will also sneak Benn into the backfield and use him on reverses and option plays as well totaling 32 carries for 158 yards. Illinois Base Offense Formations Illinois used several different looks on offense in the game that I watched versus Ohio State. As such it may or may not be representative of what they will do versus USC in the Rose Bowl. However I suspect this is how the Illini will align about 80% of the time. Motion and personnel groupings will of course vary on top of these pictures below. Illinois likes to put the QB in the shotgun and spread the field with multiple WR's and the TE. In this case it is a balanced 2x2 set with the QB in the shotgun and RB off to the one side. Field side receivers take bigger splits than the boundary side. From here they will either run or pass depending upon the alignment of the defense as well as down and distance. Often however Illinois will vary this and put 3 WR's to one side in a Trips Formation and see what adjustment the defense makes. The effect here was to pull down the defensive backs tighter. Just as from the previous formation to the left Illinois will run the zone read option, other run plays, and pass from this formation. Illinois will also put 2 backs in the backfield with the QB on a number of plays. From here they can execute triple option style of football with the dive play to a back, a QB keeper, or a pitch to the outside back. Illinois will motion in and out of this formation as well as others. The corresponding movement (or lack of) by the defense helps the QB determine if the coverage is man or zone pre-snap. Illinois will put the QB under center as well and utilize 3 WR's and a single back in a doubles formation (2 WR's to one side, TE and single receiver to the other). In goal line situations they will go heavy or jumbo at times and put in 2 RB's and three TE's for short yardage plays. The motion used by this type of offense is confusing at times but the base plays they tend to execute are still the same. The Illini practice something fairly similar to the West Virginia style of offense under former coach Rich Rodriguez. There are differences of course but this is the best simple explanation of the base run play that I could find. Click here for a short 2 minute video explanation of the base run plays that a fan can expect to see. Illinois Offense Game by Game Trend Charts Here is the Illinois season at a glance on a game to game basis. The shaded columns in red indicate the three losses and the respective yardage outputs generated in each game. Rushing offense is the strength of the Illinois attack as noted above in the NCAA statistics. The Illini racked up a season high 448 yards on the ground versus Minnesota and gained more than 300 yards in three games in addition to that contest to rank #5 in the nation. Conversely as you can see in their three losses the Illinois squad only gained119 to 137 yards. Stopping the Illini rush attack is the first order of business for any opponent. As Ohio State with the nations third ranked rush defense found out however that is easier said than done. The Illinois passing attack is not the focus of their offense. However if opponents ignore the passing dimension then Illinois will complete several long pass plays per game for big yardage. Illinois threw for only more than 300 yards once during the season (in the first game of the year) and only twice threw for more than 200 yards in addition. I'll highlight a couple of passes from the Ohio State game as general examples. In terms of total yardage gained the offense varied quite a lot during the year. The high point was the 655 yards generated versus Minnesota. The low points were in the two mid-season losses to Iowa and Michigan with 287 and 253 yards respectively. Those last two tapes would be more insightful to watch perhaps to see what works best versus this offense. Sample Big Plays Made on Offense By Illinois Versus Ohio State Illinois rushed for 260 yards on 51 carries in the game versus Ohio State for a 5.1 yard average. For the game that meant Illinois ran on 51 of 73 total plays for a 70% run versus pass ratio. This contest was even more rush heavy than the entire season figure for the Illini who ran on 558 of 845 plays for a 66% to 34% run pass ratio. As the rush yardage chart showed above the Illini tend to live and die by the rush attack. Limit them to less than 140 yards and you have a good chance of beating them. Ohio State did not do this and much of the damage came on a few runs in the game. Here are three different examples USC will have to defend more effectively than Ohio State was able to in their loss to Illinois. Big Run Play Example 1 This is the two back spread set for Illinois with the QB in shotgun and 3 WR's on a 2nd and 10 situation. It presents the threat of triple option. The play is a simple inside trap play with the right tackle pulling inside and a hand off to the tailback Daniel Dufrene while Rashard Mendenhall goes in motion behind. In the backfield you can see the two defenders that have to provide disciplined back side force containment in the event that the QB or the other RB have the ball. It looks like the play will be stopped for no gain... However the tailback bursts through a small seam and is suddenly loose in the secondary. The play results in an 80 yard gain to set up the first score for Illinois. He may have even fumbled at the end but the play was never reviewed (see video clip). At the bottom of this section is a video of the play with replay angles that provide a better view. It is a good example though of how dangerous the Illinois rush attack can be with even the smallest type of error in assignment or defensive execution. Big Run Play Example 2 Here Illinois lines up with Williams under center in an unbalanced 3 WR set (TE + 2 WR's to one side and a single receiver backside). Some teams call this formation "TE Trips" or "Trey". On this play the strong side tackle pulls from his left tackle spot towards the middle of the line. This motion pulls the linebacker inside towards that position. Ohio State sent either an outside linebacker or a safety on a run blitz on this play it appears. However he took an improper angle into the back field. The middle of the line is clogged but due to the force person over-running the play a gap is opened to the left side which Mendenhall runs right through. As a result Mendenhall is able to rumble forward for a considerable gain and move Illinois out of dangerous field position. Finally after about 15 yards he is brought down on the play by several OSU defenders. Big Run Play Example 3 Here again is the TE Trips spread formation for Illinois with a single back and Williams in the shotgun. This play is a fake to the tailback on a 3rd down and seven play in the 4th quarter and Illinois up by seven. The actual play though is a QB draw up the middle after the play fake. Initially it looks well defended by Ohio State... ...but Williams finds a small opening. And is brought down after 12 yards on the play for a first down. These are three sample plays (among others) that USC will have to watch out for and defend better than Ohio State did. With all the pulling by the guards and tackles, etc. the linebackers will have to be especially disciplined in this game in order to not get blocked out of the plays. One small miss as in the first 80 yard run example from above and several different Illini players can take it the distance of the field. Click here for a short video of a half dozen runs in the game that went for big rush yardage and one example that was stopped at the line of scrimmage by Ohio State. Big Pass Plays On Offense By Illinois Passing is not the strong suit of the Illinois offense but they will take shots down the field of course at different times and on 3rd down and long situations. The better pass plays did tend to come after play fakes where Illinois tried to draw the safeties up and then throw over the top of them or the linebackers. Illinois only completed about 56% of their passes on the year but at times they did effectively throw down field to Arrelious Benn as well as to RB's such as Mendenhall coming out of the backfield. Below I'll show a short video of three pass plays in the game that generated significant positive yardage for the Illini on offense. (Note: Not included here are all the more normal slant routes and quick hitch type of high percentage throws that every team runs today off 3 step drops under center or 1 step drops from out of the shotgun that gain 3-7 yards at a time.) Big Pass Play Example 1 Here is a 3rd down and 12 yard pass play completed by Illinois QB Juice Williams. On this obvious passing down Ohio State brought a zone blitz off the left side of the offensive line (defensive right side). Williams spotted the blitz easily though and found an open receiver. Blitzing is always a double edged sword especially against running QB's. When the pressure arrives in time great. When it does not however it leaves a hole in the secondary somewhere - usually in the direction from where the blitzing players came. In this case the WR was open near the left sideline for an easy pitch and catch and a 15 yard gain for first down. This will be one of the interesting points in the Rose Bowl to watch for. Will USC blitz the QB in passing situations or sit back and stay in their assigned lanes? Big Pass Play Example 2 Here is a second down and 11 yard play with 4 WR's in a 3x1 set to the wide side of the field. You'll see the motion better in the video but the inside WR to the Trips side comes in motion into the back field and the QB fakes the ball to the tailback. This effect freezes the linebackers and probably the deep safeties on the play momentarily as well. The ball is thrown perfectly to the inside shoulder of the WR on a post route where the corner can not make a play. The safety help was several steps too late. There were not a lot of big pass plays in the game for Illinois but just enough to keep the OSU secondary honest and not play run on every down. When the safeties did not respect the pass or even when there was a blitz for example, Juice Williams showed that he could make the defense pay if he has time to locate the receiver and throw. Here is a short video of the three bigger passes for Illinois in the game with some replay angles and slower detailed motion as well. Summary Observations & Takeaways The Ohio State game was the signature win for Illinois this season and established that they can beat a top team on any given day. The strength of the offense is clearly the running game and that is what they will try and establish right away. Spreading the field with WR's is simply a way for this team to create more room to run the ball for their tailbacks and QB's. USC has faced several versions of the offense the past couple years and had mixed success. When a QB like Ell Roberson of Kansas State in '01 or '02, Bryan Randall of Va Tech in '04, Vince Young in '06 Rose Bowl, or Dennis Dixon in '07 gets rolling this style can be extremely hard to defend at times. Conversely USC's single gap 4-3 under defense with excellent overall speed and a smart player like Kevin Ellison in the secondary is well built for this task. Much of the game I suspect will come down on how well USC's linebackers Rey Maualuga and Keith Rivers (or Maiva if Rivers can not play) correctly read plays and how well containment players defend the perimeter and force runs back inside. This type of rush offense is exciting as the potential for a big gain lurks on every play. If the opponent plays sound technique and gap disciplined football however the run game can be stopped as evidenced by the Iowa and Michigan games in particular. General Takeaways & Observations It is unclear from this single viewing if blitzing has much effect on the Illinois passing game. Blitzing running QB's often gets players out of position if the QB pulls the ball down and runs Sound tackling and gap discipline is required on every play to stop Illinois QB draws and other run plays are a distinct threat on 3rd down and long plays with this offense The secondary can not get lulled into ignoring receivers downfield despite the 2:1 run versus pass ratio Linebackers have to be alert for pulling guards or tackles and not getting caught out of position or just peeking into the back field Illinois RB's looked a little loose at times with ball security not keeping it high and tight. Fumbles or strips might be possible. Illinois has been practicing indoors for several weeks on artificial turf. Natural grass may feel slow and sometimes it seems that footing is an issue at the Rose Bowl   Should be a good game on January 1st.