Trojan Football Analysis

Here is a snap shot of Arizona’s offense the past few seasons. Since Sonny Dykes joined the Wildcats from Texas Tech their offense has gotten noticeably better.

Despite coming from a strong passing background at Texas Tech Dykes has made the Arizona offense pretty balanced the past two seasons. This year the Wildcats are ahead of USC in the total offense category ranking 34th in the nation. On a game by game basic Arizona has racked up the following yardage amounts…

In two of the past three games Arizona has struggled a bit with just 274 yards versus Cal and 265 yards versus Arizona State. Arizona did rack up 441 yards versus Oregon, 456 versus UCLA, and 553 yards versus Stanford.

Arizona runs a pretty multiple offense in terms of formations. On one play they’ll line up in the I formation with a TE in the game. On the next series they’ll run 4 WR sets and run pass plays similar to Texas Tech. They will also rotate their QB. If you take Sonny Dykes at face value his offense runs 23 plays in total. Formations, personnel groups and motions are used to make it look like more. These are the base plays:

5 Run Plays (Inside zone, Outside zone, Isolation lead draw, Power, & Base)
7 Five step drop intermediate passes
5 Three step drop quick game passes
3 Play action passes
3 Screen passes
23 Total Plays

Here is a short summary of a coaching presentation he gave a couple of years ago.

In particular I think Arizona will try their running game early on versus USC especially the power play and inside zone play and see how the USC defense responds. If Arizona can run the ball consistently the game will probably be very close…If Arizona is forced to mainly throw the ball then I think that makes them pretty one dimensional and favors USC. Arizona’s screen game is very good and they pick up a lot of cheap yards on these plays. USC will need to defend these pass plays well on the perimeter and force Arizona gain yards with runs and vertical passes. Some of their screens are right out of the Mike Leach playbook. Watch close and you can spot them on Saturday. (Click the following links for playbook examples of the screen plays. Double click to enlarge the image)

Arc

Larry

Randy

Lisa

Rita

This was not a very entertaining game for most of the contest. Too many mistakes, penalties, and 3rd down execution problems again. I’ll watch the game again tonight and see if anything else jumps out but I may just move onto some items about the upcoming Arizona game. Interestingly right out of the gate on the first Bruin play of the game UCLA decided to run their power play off tackle and see if it worked as well as it did for Stanford…I guess UCLA does not have a tackle pull play out of shotgun?

UCLA Power Play

1st play of the game. I formation TE to the right.	Back side left guard pulls and FB heads for EMLOS.
The motioning WR did not crack block on the play. I guess UCLA must run a reverse off this play as well?	Here the FB kicks out the EMLOS and pulling guard hits the designed gap off tackle.
Unlike the Stanford game where the Cardinal O-line won the battle and made their blocks UCLA does not get the USC LB’s blocked on the play.	Malcolm Smith and Chris Galippo have the play contained and shut down.

I don’t have the nice behind view for the blocking assignments but USC’s defense executed much better in this game as Malcolm Smith makes the tackle for no gain. I’d like to think that USC suddenly got better at defending this play but the reality is probably that Stanford’s offensive line is just a whole lot better than UCLA’s…Toby Gerhart is a beast as well.

The defensive highlight of the game was easily the Malcolm Smith interception return for TD. Here is a short video clip of that play. UCLA was trying to run a little switch route with the TE and WR crossing near the line of scrimmage. They probably ran it enough in previous games that LB Smith knew to jump the route. The QB made it pretty easy for Smith to read as well.

The only real offensive big play was the final controversial 48 yard TD play from Barkley to Williams. I suspect big plays (+10 runs / +15 passes) are probably off by quite a bit this season. I’ll see if I can tabulate where the team stands going into the Arizona contest.

Here are the main USC defense trends through game 10 for 2009 and a few categories on a game by game basis. Much like on the offensive side of the ball there is not a ton to cheer about. Most of the following trend charts really don’t tell the story of this season very well. For the first five games the defense performed very well. Then things sort of fell off the cliff…Here is the overall story first in table format.

Here are four items on a game by game basis…Rush Defense, Pass Defense, Total Defense and Scoring Defense.

The linear trend in all cases is of course terrible given the associated start (San Jose St.) and end points (Stanford). None the less even when aggregated and compared to previous years there is not much to cheer about.

Here are more trend charts on an annual basis.

Pretty disappointing in all cases. We’ll see where things wind up after three more games. Hopefully the team can put on a little run to finish strong…

Here are the updated charts depicting USC performance in several offense related categories through game 10. Not a lot to cheer about but a couple things were surprising. Here is the text summary and then the same information in trend charts for easier viewing…

Total offense is of course down and barely averaging 400 yards per game.  With a good finish it could stay above the 400 yard mark but after the past couple of weeks I am not optimistic…

Yards per play (YPP) however is not all that bad…it is in line with some of the better teams in recent years. The reason total yardage is down is mainly due to running fewer plays (quantity effect) and the poor 3rd down conversion statistic which kills so many drives a few plays early. In 2002 for example USC averaged 77 plays per game…this season the average is a mere 62.3 plays per game.

Rushing offense was supposed to carry this team until the QB developed and the passing game came along. The rushing offense has been pretty good except in the games where USC got behind early and had to go away from the run. This year probably won’t match up the previous two seasons however it will probably surpass the 2001 through 2004 squads.

In terms of rush yards per carry (YPC) this season is second only to 2005. The problem again is mainly one of too few carries per game and getting behind in recent contests…

Unless the next couple of games really turn around the passing offense will be the worst of the Pete Carroll era in terms of yards per game.  Matt Barkley had a couple of big games but has also struggled at times as well. His future is no doubt bright however…

Passing offense in terms of yards per attempt (YPA) is down from last year. It is slightly higher than the two John David Booty seasons of 2006-2007 or Carson Palmer of 2001. A lower pass completion % is pulling this number down somewhat…

Yards per completion (YPC) on the other had is doing quite well. When USC completes a pass under Matt Barkley the results have been very good at times especially on “smash” and deeper corner type routes to the WR’s and seam routes to the TE’s.

As noted above pass completion percentage is several points too low. Need to get this metric consistently back around the 65% range as Barkley progresses.

Passing efficiency is down as well.

Turnovers are up again this season for the offense at just under two per game.

As widely reported 3rd down conversion is a mess and ranks near the bottom of the NCAA at 100th in the nation. UCLA is just ahead of USC at 99th…neither is impressive. University of Washington with Steve Sarkisian in contrast ranks 9th in the country at just over 48% at the time of this post (Nov. 23, 2009).

Fourth down conversion has taken a step back as well. Only the QB sneaks have been consistently in short yardage situations…

The scoring offense is off by 10 points compared to last season. Wonder what it would have been if Mark Sanchez had stayed for his senior season? It will take several strong performances to get this number north of 30 points per game.

After a week of “mourning” I was finally able to go back and take a short look at this game. The only part I really wanted to see was what type of running plays Stanford used versus USC to rack up 325 yards on the ground on 50 carries. For simplicity I just looked at the plays for Stanford that gained +9 yards or more. Here is a histogram of all the Cardinal runs in the game.

Stanford had 15 running plays in the game that gained 9 yards or more in the contest. An impressive  9 of these went for 12 yards or more…

Here is a list of the type of plays that Stanford ran resulting ing +9 yards on the ground first by type and then ordered by gain…

Most of the damage was done in the +9 yard runs on the basic power play by Stanford. That is a little misleading however as five of the six big Power play runs came in the 4th quarter when Stanford put the game away.

As you will see in the video down below earlier in the contest USC has trouble with Stanford running plays out of the shotgun when the tackle pulled and functioned as a lead blocker for the tailback Gerhart.  According to the staff this was a small new wrinkle that caught USC off guard early on. QB Andrew Luck had three runs of +9 yards but only one looked to be a designed running play. The other two were scrambles off designed pass plays. Here is the list of the +9 plays re-ordered in terms of yards gained.

Embarrassingly it was mostly vanilla stuff and just great execution and technique on the part of Stanford’s offensive line. The USC defense looked as bad as I have ever seen it during the Pete Carroll era…no one looked good at all. I’ll put up the 2009 YTD trend stats for the defense tomorrow…most categories are at “lows” for the Pete Carroll era especially run defense.

Here is a video of the +9 yard Stanford running plays. It was a very good clinic in physical football…the type of thing that USC used to do to teams in the past. Wonder how it felt with the shoe on the other foot for a change. (Note: Runs in the video are organized in the order the +9 runs occurred in the game and not by type.)

Stanford +9 Runs vs USC 2009

For those interested here is a link to an old post in 2008 that will provide a sample of what Stanford threw at USC in the running game department up in Palo Alto. I’m sure they will have some wrinkles to add this season but also expect to see much of the following.

http://www.trojanfootballanalysis.com/2008/2008_game10_stanfordruns.html

I don’t really see much point in reviewing the details of the Arizona State game. USC is limping home with too many injuries and a struggling offense. The defense seemed to pull itself together versus ASU but the passing game struggled for the third contest in a row. Two ugly trend charts below show the extent of recent struggles on both sides of the ball.

Through game six (Notre Dame) the offense was on a nice improvement trend. For the past three games however the offense has struggled and performed progressively worse each week. In particular the passing game has declined to levels rarely seen in the Pete Carroll era. Take away WR Damian Williams and who knows how bad it could get…

The picture with the defense is not much prettier. After a great start through the Cal game the defense struggled for three games in a row…The slope of the trend was equally bad on this side of the ball culminating in the 613 yards allowed versus Oregon. Fortunately the Arizona State game showed some improvement on defense - however ASU’s offense only ranks 79th in the country.

Saturday’s upcoming opponent on the other hand ranks 14th in the country on offense averaging 443 yards per game (15th in rushing and 46th in passing). Stanford is a physical team these days. Jim Harbaugh and his staff have done a great job both in terms of recruiting and developing talent. Stopping Toby Gerhart will be a big key in the upcoming game…if he get’s rolling it could be a long day for USC’s defense. Here are a couple of videos I noticed on YouTube highlighting some of his better runs. He runs inside zone, power off tackle, isolation lead type plays and other run plays very well. Usually he does not come down on the first hit…Last season he gained 101 yards on 23 runs versus USC. I’d be pretty happy if the defense could duplicate that sort of result this season.

Video Example 1

Video Example 2

With some relief I doubt that USC will face this play again the remainder of the season. However for those interested here is the Oregon run play that I think just gives opposing teams terrible fits. Jeremiah Masoli ran this multiple times versus USC for big yardage and I recall that Oklahoma State had a terrible time defending it in the bowl game last season. Most teams run inside zone in some form or other these days leaving the backside DE unblocked to gain a numerical advantage on the line of scrimmage. Even USC runs the inside zone play…they just don’t have the QB run to keep the DE honest. Instead USC boots the QB away and makes the defense also respect the threat of the pass.

Oregon, Florida, West Virginia, and most good running teams run the zone option read play where the QB makes a decision on whether to keep the ball and run or to give the ball to a tailback. This play is pretty widely detailed in many places on the internet. (Note: Here is one example). I have some examples of the Utah zone read play on this site from when Urban Meyer was head coach. (Note: the video hosting service took down my videos mistakenly thinking they were from the TV broadcast. I’ll find another host during the long off season).

Anyway the inside zone play is the bread and butter run play for Oregon. What is unusual though is that Oregon does not always read the outside DE in the five technique position on the play. Sometimes they block the 5 Tech DE out on on the play and instead read the 3 technique defensive tackle to the inside of the DE. That is very unusual for most teams and hence an effective change of pace in the game. The defensive line starts to get confused regarding the play and starts to play tentatively or rush out of position.  It was pretty clear that the USC  defense got flustered as the game went on this past week.

Reading the 3 technique DT player is not unknown in football by any means. In fact it is quite common with option teams that run midline option especially from under center. The play can be devastating when executed with the right players. Here are some examples of midline option. (Flexbone association example here, Jerry Campbell explanation summarized here). To the best of my knowledge however it is relatively uncommon in Division I college football to read the 3 technique DT out of shotgun with more of a zone blocking scheme like Oregon employs. Unfortunately Oregon has released zero information about the specifics of this play in their clinic talks and won’t release run game cut ups (I actually asked the staff over the summer for them and was politely told no - but was given an invite to come up some time and watch practice and visit with the offensive line coach if I was in the neighborhood).

Here are some images of the play I am talking about clipped in small increments of time. I will show two examples from TV - one play from behind and one from more of a sideline angle. The angles are not always the best but you can see the play unfold and the giant hole that develops for the QB to run through. When the DT and LB are successfully removed from the play by the blocking scheme the unoccupied defender next in line to make the tackle becomes the free safety…in other words you are looking at a 15-20 yard gain.

Example 1 rear angle

On this play Oregon has the TE left, the QB in shotgun and the back offset weak to the right. USC has their 3 technique player to the weak side and a loose stand up 5 technique DE player to the right as well.	It looks like USC slants the 3 tech DT and the 5 tech DE to the viewers right on the play. The play starts off similar to and inside zone read play except that the Oregon RT is looking to block the USC 5 tech DE out on the play…The Oregon RG is also going to bypass the USC 3 tech DT and head up for the linebacker…
To the viewers right the 5 tech DE is now out of the TV picture and the 3 tech DT is penetrating up field unblocked. The Oregon RG climbs to the LB level. The QB & RB mesh and the QB makes a give or pull read…	Masoli does a great job making reads and hiding the ball. it is tough to tell even after the disconnect who has the ball. The zone blocking to the left has USC defenders mostly distracted and occupied to that side….look at the hole on the right however.
Masoli keeps on this play and the penetrating USC defender to the left can not make the play. Conversely the penetrating 3 tech DT has run himself out of the play to the viewers right. The 5 tech DE is even further out of the play to the right.	Masoli hits the open hole and now the defense has a major problem…the next unoccupied defender is the deep free safety in the middle Taylor Mays a good 20 yards away. The offense wins in this exchange every time when executed this well and or played this poorly by the defense.

Example 2 sideline angle

Here is a 3rd and 15 example of the same play, same formation. USC is even cheating a safety down on the strong side at the top of the screen.	At the snap this starts to look like the IZ read option play being run to the TE or strong side. The USC DE has backside responsibility in the event the QB keeps and runs weak side C gap.
Here we can start to see though that the offensive line is going to let the USC 3 technique penetrate by design and kick out the 5 tech DE player.	Here the scheme intent is now obvious as the 3 tech player runs straight through unblocked on the play. The QB makes his give / pull read and decides to keep.
If the USC 3 tech DT had taken a better line to the QB this play might have been stopped for no gain or a loss. USC did make the play once or twice during the game but they executed against it worse as the game wore on…	Masoli is now through the gap past the 3 tech defender and now in open space. The USC DE does not make the tackle either…finally the safety stops the play after a 20+ yard gain.

Why make such a big deal out of this particular play? I think it sows the seeds for confusion in the mind of the defense. This play for a split second starts out like the regular inside zone, or the read inside zone option play. The backside DE has to stay somewhat wide in the event the QB pulls the ball and runs outside. The 3 tech DT is accustomed to chasing down the tailback and not being responsible for the QB on running plays. Once unblocked though he has to reorient and change his responsibilities. I don’t know the USC game plan though…perhaps the DT was to take the tailback and leave the QB to the LB’s. I suspect though that he was to take the QB and leave the tailback to the linebacker on the play (just my guess). This is not the sort of stuff the staff will openly discuss for good reasons.

Either way Oregon accomplished what all good run option or spread teams try to accomplish. 1) They leave one of your best players unblocked and read him instead of blocking him. 2) They make the defense pause and think - is this the play where I have the QB or the RB. And by the way this is 3rd and 15 so I am really thinking about pressuring the QB…3) A gap is created and the QB makes a give or pull read designed to take what is best or make the defense wrong. 4) A good player Masoli is now in open space against bigger less mobile defenders. The result is a lot of yardage on the play. 5) The defense gets depressed and disoriented. I could go on but this is what I suspect happened.

Oregon rushed for 391 yards on the ground and most of it was from inside zone, inside zone option read, and the inside play variation where they read the 3 technique. Not even Texas and Vince Young accomplished that versus a bad USC defense in the Rose Bowl. I don’t think Oregon even bothered to mess around with their outside zone, draw, or fly sweep plays in the game. I’ll go back at the end of the season and organize the Oregon run plays in this game by type, frequency, and gain. Last season USC held the Ducks to 60 yards rushing on 39 carries including the ones above when Oregon had a more veteran offensive line. Put in a new front seven for USC though and an entirely different result was obtained. The other odd part about a stellar performance like this is that Jeremiah Masoli at 5′11″ and 225 pounds might not even get drafted by the NFL. In college football though a smart, tough, quick running QB making the right reads can be devastating.

I will circle back to this game when the season is over and look at every drive in detail for both the offense and the defense.   I don’t have a lot to say about this game except that it was a complete victory for Oregon. USC seemed to play with confidence the first part of the game then fall apart as the game progressed. Credit to the victors for the biggest loss margin of the Pete Carroll era.

One of the keys to the game for Oregon was the play of QB Jeremiah Masoli and his ability to run the zone option read play. Oddly USC defended the play quite well for the first quarter as you can see below. The first six times Masoli ran the ball in the first quarter it did not net much yardage for the Ducks. From the middle of the 2nd quarter on however he had his way running the ball winding up with 164 yards in the contest. Two of the larger running gains however were simply QB scrambles and not even designed runs…

In the 3rd and 4th quarter Masoli had success running the inside zone option play with the read on the 3 technique defender instead of the 5 technique defensive end. The last three times he ran the play it gained 18, 20, and 28 yards. The game was lost by that point so it hardly matters but the play is a good one and gives lots of teams fits.

Here are Masoli’s runs organized by gain instead of by sequence.

Here is the video of just the Masoli runs…the running back did immense damage as well on the occasions that Masoli gave on the read instead of keeping. Oregon RB James gained 184 yards on 24 carries. USC will have to learn to defend this play better if they hope to beat Oregon next time around. In total Oregon ran 80 plays in the game and averaged 7.7 yards per play.

Here is a link to some files I posted over the summer. Oregon’s rush attack is off this season compared to the past two. The Ducks have “only” averaged 210 yards per game to rank 14th in the country this season compared to the 250+ yards per game the past two seasons. Amazingly if you take Head Coach Chip Kelly at face value the Ducks only run four basic play types - inside zone, outside zone, counter, and draw plays. In reality he has some pretty neat twists in his attack that makes it more versatile and seem like a lot more but the blocking schemes are kept to a minimum for the offensive line.

If you are a USC fan concerned about stopping the Ducks it all starts with defending the rush attack and taking away their bread and butter plays. If you are a Duck fan then I’d encourage you to familiarize yourself with these plays and the interesting wrinkles Coach Kelly likes to sprinkle in from time to time.

Here are the posts I ran this summer on the Oregon Duck Rush Attack. #6 down below is the most interesting one to me as it looks like midline option but apparently according to most coaches I checked with is not…they run IZ and read the 3 technique DT at times instead of the reading the 5 technique DE. Whatever it is the play is effective and confusing for the defense. Click on the below links and you’ll find descriptions and images for the main plays.

1. Chip Kelly Comments on the Oregon Rush Attack

2. Oregon Inside Zone Running Play

3. Oregon Outside Zone Running Play

4. Oregon Fly Sweep Play (OZ Blocking)

5. Counter Play

6. Other running play (IZ with apparent read of 3 technique)

7. Final notes

Study up before Saturday afternoon!