If you read the Pete Carroll articles on this site about basic blitz
schemes it may have taken you back to the Rose Bowl games against Michigan. In
both 2003 and 2006 USC finished off the season with victories over the
Wolverines in Pasadena. In the January 2004 game Pete Carroll turned
the dogs loose and Michigan QB John Navarre was sacked 9 times
including several straight to end the game. In the 2007 Rose Bowl Pete
Carroll again turned the blitzkrieg loose and Chad Henne was sacked six
times. The sacks in the game this year resulted in two turnovers on the
Michigan side of the field that produced 10 points for the Trojans.
That field position and turnover margin was one of the keys to the game.
For
fun I went back and clipped the main blitz plays in the Rose Bowl for
further study. Here are a couple of links to PhotoBucket where the
files are stored for now. If you are interested in looking at the
different blitzes spend a few minutes going over them. I broke the
videos up by half for ease of storage. There are about 25 short play
clips to watch.
First
Half Blitz Plays
Second Half Blitz Plays
Here also are a couple of pictures when Henne was hit and hurried as
well by the Trojans.
I imagine that Chad Henne was pretty confused and banged up at the end
of the game. Still however Henne was
able to complete 27 of 42 passes for 312 yards and only 1 interception.
The Wolverine's main problem in hindsight was failure to run the ball
effectively which kept putting the Wolverine's in fairly predictable
passing situations were USC was able to blitz.
I was curious to
see if Henne did better or worse against the USC blitz and here is how
the numbers came out. In total USC blitzed about 25 times during the
game which was twice the season average.
| Attempts | Incomplete | Complete | % | Yards | YPA | YPC | Int's. | |
| Blitz | 25 | 11 | 14 | 56.0% | 191 | 7.6 | 13.6 | 1 |
| Non-Blitz | 17 | 4 | 13 | 76.5% | 121 | 7.1 | 9.3 | 0 |
| Total | 42 | 15 | 27 | 64.3% | 312 | 7.4 | 11.6 | 1 |
As you can see blitzing Henne in hindsight was a good call by the Trojan coaching staff. When allowed to sit in the pocket with only pressure from the front four of USC Chad Henne coolly completed 76.5% of his passes. When blitzed he completed 56% and was hurried into the one interception. As you can see by the Yards Per Completion (YPC) number however the blitz strategy is not without its risks...The Wolverines completed several long passes against the blitz when the pressure did not get there in time to disrupt the play. The blitz remains a high risk high reward sort of tactic.
Next season I'll be curious to see how well the front four of USC can apply pressure to the QB without the blitz. The 2002-2004 squads were very good while the 2005 and 2006 teams lagged in this respect. If the front four can not pressure the QB however expect Pete Carroll to unleash another round of blitzes in big games to compensate for this deficiency.