Evolution of Offense Pt.1
a. Running Game


The game: Football. The objective: to get the ball into your opponent's end zone. How to do it? Well that my friends, that is where it becomes interesting. 

Here on cfboffense, we will take a look at what different teams do to put points on the board. In this first segment, we will take a look at a simple play used by every collegiate and professional football team today - the inside zone.

The concept of an inside zone is very simple in appearance, but intricate in proper execution.

If an offensive lineman does not have a man directly on him, his job is to block ahead and to at least seal the "shade" of the defender on the play-side. If unblocked, the lineman takes a lateral step to the play-side  and it is then his responsibility to "chip and climb"- a term for chipping the defensive lineman on the man adjacent to him and then "climbing up" to track the closest second level man (usually a linebacker) to stop him from making the tackle. All of this mess for just one simple play. 





Let's take a look at an inside zone the way it would look like in the 80's to the early 2000's. This is an ace slot left formation, with the term "ace" meaning it's a single back formation, the "slot" an indication for a slot receiver  and "left" meaning that the strong side, which in a balanced formation is always to the tight end side, is to the left.

As you can see, it's a simple inside zone to the strong side with a double team at the point of attack. Now that we've got all of the explainin' out of the way, let's take a look at it.

As you can see, there is only one option as to where this ball is going. Everyone is blocking the man ahead of him, except the quarterback of course. Very simple concept, but clearly limited.









Now transition to modern times, where teams are trying to go as fast as possible while still trying to keep a high chance of success. People ask when and why the spread offense was invented; it wasn't really "invented" per se, but after a while, people started to realize that not everyone is born with size and strength. Some players put on this earth aren't very big or strong, but have speed. Imagine where a coach in the 80's would place a De'anthony Thomas; he's too small to play receiver, and at running back he wouldn't fit in the popular ground and pound style at that time. When people found out how to use these "little pissants" as Mouse Davis used to call them, that's when early spread concepts started to enter football. As the old saying says, necessity is the mother of invention. In football, this couldn't be more true. One great example of this is one of the key spread mottos - "if you can't block them, make them cover you". So let's take a look at this concept.

First of all, with this new wave of spread offenses, teams are not only spreading out by design of formation, but spreading out in spacing. Take a look at how the spacing of the offense for Alabama compares to the spacing of the offense of Baylor.

As you can notice, spacing helps with this spread concept, forcing the defense to cover more grass.

Back to the play

This picture on the right is the same play by direction and run concept, but there are new additions on what the receivers are doing. As you can see, the slot receiver on the right side is now running a "bubble" screen, where the receiver shuffle steps in a semi-circle towards the sideline. The play-side receiver on the left side is running a quick hitch. It is the quarterback's job to decide where the ball should go. If the corner on the "X" receiver is playing with a 10+ yard cushion, the quarterback can take the snap, take a quick play-step, and throw to the receiver. If there is no man on the slot receiver, the quarterback can take a quick play-step and throw to the bubble. If both of these options are covered, considering that the safeties are showing a simple cover two (like in the picture), the quarterback has the numbers advantage to hand the ball off to the RB. 

Take a look at a version of an inside zone with a quick screen

As you can see here, the inside receiver on the left side is covered so the quarterback hands it off. If the quarterback had the numbers advantage on the outside, he would throw to the bubble. If you haven't noticed already, modern spread football is all about numbers. 








The entire point of adding these new pieces to a simple run call is to make the defense cover more space. By forcing the defense to cover grass horizontally, the offense automatically gives them the chance to have the advantage in numbers somewhere on the field. The key is to be able to identify that mismatch in numbers and take advantage. Spacing from sideline to sideline is an important component of the spread offense. Now spreading the defense vertically? That's a subject for another day.

Hopefully this wasn't a waste of your time and you now know a little bit more about the X and O's of this sport. Stay tuned for more analysis, and as always, keep lovin' football.

-Thomas Fleming
twitter username thomasflem97
email thomasflem97@yahoo.com

OKLAHOMA STATE OFFENSIVE ANALYSIS 

Oklahoma State used a multitude of new wrinkles and concepts in their game vs Texas Tech. Here, I will analyze the biggest plays for the Cowboys, which each had a big impact on the game’s result.

This play has became Oklahoma State’s base offensive play. It’s an inside zone, having the backside DE being blocked by the FB (Staley) wham block. OSU has shown a screen on the twins side before, making the screen a pre-snap read for Chelf. Although this is a good play, it became limited when the Cowboys used it in the red zone, allowing TTU’s 4-3 pack the line of scrimmage and outnumbering OSU’s blockers 7 to 6. Occasionally, they would include a jet motion on the call to keep the defense on their toes.

This also was used extensively by OSU, with multiple variations. This formation puts an extra big boy at the tight end position off right tackle (Jach Veach). They ran this play mostly out of the pistol, even though the picture has the RB offset to the quarterback. OSU would run either an inside or outside zone, with Josh Stewart in the left slot running a bubble screen (notably one of the very few times a bubble screen has been used in the Holgorsen-Monken-Yursich era). The Z receiver has block responsibility on the corner on outside zone, but on inside zone, he is free to run an isolation route. Oklahoma State’s first score was on this exact play where Tracy Moore ran a fade isolated on the right hash. It was already packaged in the play, giving Chelf an option to hand it off or throw. Also, late in the third quarter, they called zone read of this for a Chelf TD.

This play also featured an extra offensive lineman at that right tight end position. It’s a power off of the strong side, with the backside guard pulling into the B-gap (Oklahoma State has not used man blocking schemes a whole lot; since the start of the Holgerson era, they used predominately zone blocking).

This formation (pistol strong slot close) was used a bunch in this game (picture above). The outside zone was the base play of this formation. They also used a jet motion with this outside zone (right picture) with Josh Stewart jetting across the formation. 

There is a soft spot in every college football fan’s heart for a good trick play. The Cowboys, who used to call this about once per game, and who also scored with this same play last year vs. the Red Raiders, used the flea flicker to jumpstart their offense in their second drive. An interesting point to be observed is when this play was ran, it was ran immediately after an outside zone to the strong side. This means that Yursich and the Cowboys practiced what is called a sequence call - where one play call instructs the team to run the outside zone and then quickly line up and run the flea flicker. 

While this isn’t exactly an offensive play, the Cowboy punt that got blocked deserves notice. OSU has used a spread punting formation this year opposed to the traditional set. This only works when the defense accounts for each player spread out. When the punt got blocked, every player for the Cowboys ran immediately upfield without chipping the defensive rushers on the line of scrimmage. This allowed about six or seven rushers to take on Oklahoma State’s three up backs, allowing TTU to easily get a hand on the punt.

This play, which notably was the same play used to score against TTU last year, gave OSU a score on 4th-and-1. The Cowboys again used a sixth lineman here, and ran a play action boot with a levels concept to the right side. This is very spider-two-y-banana-esque, giving the QB a hi-lo option on the rollout. Interesting call, considering that they have lined up in this formation before an ran it off the tackle.

This is the most painful play in this entire report, considering it gave TTU a pick-six. This is a motion middle screen designed for the left back, with both the play-side swing and backside isolation route an option for Chelf. What happened here was the ROLB showed blitz off of the right tackle, making Chelf think that there was single cushion coverage on the “Z” receiver. Unbeknownst to Chelf, this was a sugar call for the defense, meaning the linebackers show blitz and drop back into coverage. This put the Raiders’ LB in the perfect position to pick off Chelf’s pass for a score.

The stick-draw has been a staple of the air raid(picture on top), thanks to Dana and the 2012 Fiesta Bowl team. The Cowboys showed a variation of this play tonight, with the play being run in the 5-wide set (picture on bottom). From what it seemed, the routes ran in this version were just used as a diversion, not as an actual passing option. Still, an innovative play call by Yursich. 

The final play on this analysis, the inside zone and quick screen. This was OSU’s bread and butter in the past, but this was the first game where they used this as much as they did. It’s a simple concept - inside zone with a slot screen on the trips side and an optional backside isolation route. It’s te quarterback’s job to know where to put the ball. OSU also had success using this concept with a zone read.

Thanks for reading this analysis, and for those who actually finished it, serious kudos to you. For any comments, questions, or discussion, email me at thomasflem97@yahoo.com or contact me on twitter on my profile thomasflem97. I would love thoughts and feedback from all you avid football fans. Go Pokes!

Tid Bits
*OSU also ran two plays motioning Josh Stewart into the backfield and handing the ball off to him. The first play was a gain of six, the second was a loss of two. Still, Yursich must have watched the WVU OU tape from last year when the Mountaineers used Tavon Austin in the backfield to result in a 572 all purpose yard day.
*OSU only scored 78 points in their first three Big 12 conference games. In the last two, they've scored 110 (David Ubben)
*Only three times Red Raider punter Ryan Erxleben had his punts blocked - all three were vs OSU
*In the second half, Texas Tech tried a Music City Miracle trick play on kickoff return, but with a little twist. I immediately recognized it as a gem play used by the Eagles in the NFL.

*Oklahoma State wore a new uniform combination, with orange helmets with pistol pete logos, white jerseys, and white pants. They are yet to use gray in any part of their uniform yet this season.

NOTE****FOR ALL OF YOU FOOTBALL JUNKIES WHO LIKED WHAT YOU READ TODAY, PLEASE KEEP FREQUENTLY VISITING. I PLAN TO HAVE A NEW INTERESTING OFFENSIVE TOPIC EVERY WEEK. 

EXPECT A NEW TOPIC THIS UPCOMING TUESDAY. KEEP LOVING FOOTBALL.