Same formation as the earlier 3rd-and-long with two RB’s and then stacking the receivers to the field side. This time they hit them with a draw that busts for 50 yards.
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Texas is having a lot of luck with that designed cutback run out of shotgun. Down block the DT, push the edge wide, LB’s are flowing too aggressively to the G action and the cutback lane is huge. It’s a simple zone play, but I’m a fan of doing the same things until the defense can prove they will stop it. This is designed to cut off the RT down blocking here.
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I saw them line up and motion the H-back across the formation and no one went with him and I said to myself I hope they play-action and throw it to him because he will be unaccounted for. They did. The QB turfed it. Applewhite is doing a great job in this game, but his offense only has three points because of a red-zone fumble and the QB being unable to complete this easy throw. The only defender over there is that CB with a WR to block him. Perfect call.
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Later on, Oklahoma has to call timeout because Texas showed a formation they weren’t ready for. Bob was letting his brother know he was less than pleased.
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Applewhite absolutely killed it in this game with his 3rd down calls. Here is a 3rd-and-12 and he goes 4-wide slots off the line. To the field side he runs a switch concept and it turns into a wheel with the outside receiver running the post. Before you ask; Yes, it was mirrored to the other side as well. The play goes for a long TD as the defense doesn’t handle the switch well.
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Notice the difference in position from the two corners. The top of the screen he is nearly even and flat footed. To the bottom of the screen he’s already turned and is running with the receiver.
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Had him again on a deep post but the QB throws it up the field instead of into that open area in the middle of the field. Truly an impressive gameplan by Applewhite in this one. He’s getting his shots in when the coverage dictates, but otherwise he is controlling the game with that Inside Zone run that has a natural cutback in it.
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Just about ready to move on to Houston, but wanted to highlight this play as well. He’s gone back to the stack and has almost a diamond in the backfield (missing one point). It’s another 3rd-and-long. Oklahoma is standing everyone up in the “NASCAR” package you hear so much about nowadays.
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I said earlier that you stack your slot receiver to give him a two-way go and stop any press/jam coverage. Texas doesn’t know who is coming out of this pass rush, but they know someone will either step out or they’ll need an outlet if everyone comes. They run the front receiver on a shallow cross in front of the LB’s who back out. This catches the LB’s attention and causes them to step up to account for him. Look at what they did with the RB’s. They ran both to the same side this time, with the one to the left of the QB running a wheel route and holding the outside CB for just a split second. They brought the other one across and gave the QB a play-action look. Slot runs a bang-8 behind the LB’s and gets 8 yards on 3rd-and-7. This is a perfect example of having a counter to a look you give earlier and saving it for the right time. It’s not as great a play on a 3rd-and-12, but at 7 yards it’s the perfect yardage for that route combo and the way Oklahoma was showing their defenders standing.
*Side note* It’s why I started to favor Applewhite as the OC rather than Fedora, who stated how he has pre-packaged plays on 3rd downs when I’d rather have a set of plays designed to work against that specific opponent and use them when the right look is given by the defense.
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Here is what the QB saw. You see the RB wheel completely pulled that CB out of the play. Shallow pulled the LB up (plus play-action). Slot is wide open on the post behind it.
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Oklahoma has been squatting on the slant all day, so Applewhite waits until a big spot to call the Sluggo (Slant-N-Go). You get the should fake from the QB.
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And the Go is so wide open it’s almost unbelievable that he missed this pass this badly. That receiver started well inside the numbers and the throw goes out of bounds. This is perfect play calling and the QB just didn’t even come close to executing. Should’ve been a TD, but it’s now a long FG attempt. Is that on the OC? To me, this is just excellent stuff thus far. I won’t spend a week going through every game he ever called, but this game plan- on this day- was a masterpiece. Oklahoma wins 36-20 as a big underdog after the way they’ve been dominated the years prior. I hope Mack Brown gave Major Applewhite a game ball after this one.
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Houston
At this point, Applewhite has had a pretty winding road as a coach. From being the youngest OC in the country when he was at Air Force and at Alabama, to lasting only year calling plays at his first three stops, he has experienced ups and downs. In 2015, Tom Herman was named the HC at Houston after winning a national title with Ohio State as their OC and the results for Houston were immediate. They went 13-1, finished 8th in the AP Poll and smacked Florida State in the bowl game. The game they lost they didn’t have Greg Ward.
Applewhite inherited the best QB of his career when he came to Houston. Greg Ward Jr. was a WR to start the 2014 season but when John O’Korn got hurt, he took over at QB and was fantastic. Under Applewhite, Ward took the next step to superstardom. Utilizing the power-spread that Coach Herman wanted to implement, Ward ran for over 1,000 yards, scored 21 rushing TD’s, completed 67% of his passes and had a 17/6 TD/Int ratio.
After taking a year off after being let go by Charlie Strong at Texas, I wanted to see if Applewhite made changes to his offense under the tutelage of Coach Herman. The game I chose to watch was the game against Florida State for a couple of reasons: 1. It’s Florida State and it’s fun to watch them lose. 2. Florida State happens to be a team we play every year and we know that defense always has talent, so if he can coordinate an offense against that defense that had weeks to devise a game plan then it’s a good omen. Remember, this Florida State defense had Derwin James and Jalen Ramsey among others.
On the first drive, the offense is very similar to what he had run previously, but the element of having a QB who can run really opens things up. He’s run slip screens to the WR, a QB option on the edge, a jet sweep, a zone-read QB edge run. The formations are pretty much the same as what I saw at Texas but the element of legs with the QB is obvious.
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I say that and the next play has a new formation alignment. They have trips to the field side and look at the space they are creating with all three receivers outside. The H-back at that offset alignment allows for a lot of different looks with motion (he stays put on this play). With a QB who can run, this alignment is so difficult to stop on the zone-reads. If Applewhite brings this formation to Miami and develops one of the QB’s, they will improve drastically on offense.
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You can see the focus they have on getting space on offense to stretch the defense. This is a QB draw all the way, with the intent to simply take as many defenders outside the hash marks as possible. There is definitely a more modern element to the offense than he had at Texas. Herman said before the game he does not call any plays and he simply helps with implementing a game plan during the week of games. Major Applewhite said he came in and was very humble. He said, “Tom, teach me the offense and I’ll teach the other coaches and the players while you implement the culture.” I see it as a major positive (pun) that he learned the offense under Herman enough to teach others, which means he knows the aspects of the offense he wants to take with him.
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You will definitely see more passes thrown to the RB’s in this offense. You have a shallow and medium crosser over the middle and then the RB releases out away from the motion. He’s slow, so that FSU LB ran him down, but you can see the play design worked to get the easy completion and should’ve been a 1st down.
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More passes to the RB’s. #10 was lined up next to the QB here (two RB’s out of shotgun seems to be a play Applewhite likes to run). They sent him in motion just before the snap behind the QB and it’s an easy completion in space. Many of us on the board have been asking for easy completions to our playmakers in space. This goes for 12 yards as #42 is caught all the way on the other side of the field trailing the play here. DeeJay Dallas and Cam’Rom Davis are great fits for this type of formation. Brevin Jordan is a very rich man’s version of the H-back to the top of the screen between the two hash marks.
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Another space-you-out formation where the QB can use his legs, you can throw the screen to the back WR, or you can confuse the defense with fake-block for the screen and go. We saw a similar play call from Applewhite when he was with Alabama against LSU for a TD. This play was for the screen, but the formation and spacing allows for a lot of options.
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Gash them a few times with the QB keep and the give opens up nicely. It’s imperative that the QB keep the ball in this offense more often than they kept it last year because it has a major impact on the defense when you do.
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This offense wants pace. This offense wants multiple eye-candy for the defenders to be looking at (bubble action, stack sets, bunch sets, zone-reads at the same time). It’s a pretty special offense right now, quite honestly. This is the offense I hope Applewhite brings here. Add in the power-spread elements that he likes to run and this offense will put up points at Miami. Applewhite has always run a ton of plays wherever he has been, so this isn’t all a Tom Herman approach, but it’s like Applewhite’s previous pace on steroids. They’re snapping the ball on gives, bubbles, tunnel screens with 37 seconds on the play-clock. In the Miami heat that’ll be difficult on opponents if Miami can create the depth to run it every play.
This is another play design that is new from Applewhite. They have a trips bunch to the field. H-back to that side to make formation strong. FSU has to keep a force player to the boundary or Ward will just take off running to that side. You have two defenders on three receivers. FSU hustled a DL off-the-field to substitute and Houston is snapping it now.
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This offense wants pace. This offense wants multiple eye-candy for the defenders to be looking at (bubble action, stack sets, bunch sets, zone-reads at the same time). It’s a pretty special offense right now, quite honestly. This is the offense I hope Applewhite brings here. Add in the power-spread elements that he likes to run and this offense will put up points at Miami. Applewhite has always run a ton of plays wherever he has been, so this isn’t all a Tom Herman approach, but it’s like Applewhite’s previous pace on steroids. They’re snapping the ball on gives, bubbles, tunnel screens with 37 seconds on the play-clock. In the Miami heat that’ll be difficult on opponents if Miami can create the depth to run it every play.
This is another play design that is new from Applewhite. They have a trips bunch to the field. H-back to that side to make formation strong. FSU has to keep a force player to the boundary or Ward will just take off running to that side. You have two defenders on three receivers. FSU hustled a DL off-the-field to substitute and Houston is snapping it now.
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That makes this basically stealing to flood that side and force an open receiver underneath. You talk about scheming a guy open. The QB airmails this throw so it isn’t converted, but that’s as simple and easy a throw, read, play for a D1 QB as you will get. What you don’t see is that the middle guy, the one running right by the defender at the 1st down marker gets let go and is uncovered for a walk-in TD if the QB sees him. You can’t set an offense up any better or easier for a play than this one but it’s just missed by a QB from a clean pocket (#14 is pushed wide then cleaned up by the H-back running back there).
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Definitely a new addition to this offense is the “check-with-me” concept. I’ve wanted this for years. You don’t huddle, you run simple play calls and get set at the LOS. The QB reviews the defense and then decides to run that play or look to the sideline and “check-with-me” on what to do. It’s so difficult on the defense because they have to get set quickly and show their play early and then allow the offense to adjust. How many times did the Miami offense get to the LOS, have the defense shift or show a blitz and not have any adjustments available to them on the play? Applewhite did not do this prior to Houston and I hope that’s something he brings with him to Coral Gables.
At the end of this game, Houston had run 99 plays, ran the ball 53 times, and thoroughly confused the defense of Florida State with formations, tempo, zone-reads, and space.
Conclusion
I know by now that many of you skip to the end to get the cliff notes version of things, so I’ll wrap it up here. Applewhite has been at four different schools calling plays in his career (Rice, Alabama, Texas, Houston). At Rice he implemented a new modern spread offense from a Wing-T the year prior and got the HC promoted to another job. He then left to join Nick Saban in his first year at Alabama and it was just a poor fit, despite the fact he improved their offense significantly in his year there. At Texas he replaced an OC who was promoted to a HC job and while his offense on the season did not perform as well as his predecessor, he put together one of the best game plans I have seen in years against a much more talented Oklahoma team in leading them to a huge win. At Houston he learned the Tom Herman offense and added elements of his own experience into his play calling and was fantastic.
Tom Herman left Houston after two years and so did their dynamic QB, Greg Ward Jr. Houston decided to play more of a pocket passer in Kyle Postma, despite the fact that D’Eriq King was a much better player. Kyle Allen was a big-time recruit who came to Houston as well and he was given a shot at playing time before the full-time move to King. Hiring Kendall Briles brought the offense back to a pace-and-space offense that thrived under D’Eriq King. Merging the styles of Herman and Briles would be a great style for Applewhite to employ with Miami’s personnel.
Focusing on Applewhite as an OC there are a lot of things to like. He has learned, changed, adapted his style at every stop he has made. He has taken elements of what each coach he has coached under has wanted to do and molded them into a style his own. I’ll get into some data to close things out.
The main benchmark that teams want to get to in scoring points is 30. If Miami scores 30 points a game consistently, they will win a bunch of games. Applewhite in his career has scored 30 or more points against peer competition in 34 of the 51 games he has called plays (66.7%). At Houston, they scored 30 or more points in 16 of the 20 games he called plays (80%). Yes, Briles scored 30 in 9 of the 10 games he called plays last year, but he is a legit dude as an OC and they used D’Eriq King all year for Briles.
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Applewhite gets his offenses to the 30-point threshold far more often than not. That’s a great place to start. Applewhite will also run a ton of plays.
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One interesting item to note with Applewhite is that at each place he called plays, the offenses improved the year after he left everywhere except Texas. I believe much of that is Applewhite having only one year and the next year with a similar scheme allowed for improvements on already good numbers, but that is admittedly a rosy viewpoint.
Positives
- The system is QB friendly and each stop he has seen a QB blossom in his system.
- Uses formations to confuse the defense and get easy throws for the offense.
- At each stop Applewhite has learned, grown, shown an ability to adapt.
- Has counters for each formation he runs and when the defense shows an obvious aggression, waits for the time to attack it with a counter off the same formation.
- Power running game is a part of his offense at each stop.
- Pace-and-space is modern football and the athletes in Miami are used to running this in HS.
- Head Coaching experience will be huge for a first-time HC in Manny Diaz to bounce ideas off of.
- 67% scoring 30-points against peer opponents is quite good. The name of the game is to score points, so while he doesn’t always put up elite Yards Per Play numbers, his ability to hit that marker on the scoreboard is quite good.
Negatives
- While he has put up very solid Points Per Play numbers as an OC (.482 points-per-play in his time at Houston), it still falls far below the elite teams this year. Oklahoma- .714 points per play, Alabama- .672 points per play, Clemson- .617 points per play, Ohio State- .517 points per play.
- Some poor decisions as a HC. The OC he brought in to Houston wanted to run more of a pocket-passing system despite his success with a full-spread with a running QB and his lack of success with a pocket-passing system. Brought in D’Onofrio as his DC.
I would call Major Applewhite’s offense a Tom Herman/Kendall Briles compilation that I believe will be an excellent hire. In Richt’s time calling plays, Miami ran an average of 64.5 plays per game against peer opponents. His offenses scored 30 points in a game only 29% of the time. Applewhite, for his career, runs an average of 76.2 plays per game against peers and his offenses scored 30 points in a game 66.7% of the time.
Welcome to the modern era of offense, Miami fans. This hire is going to unlock the scoreboard for this program and set this program up for wins and recruits to want to come here again. After doing extensive work on Applewhite, I am excited for what he’s going to bring here.
