X/O questions - now with more OCs!

[Arehel]

I'm not against the mesh myself, but it's not particularly hard to stop it. Its essentially a pick play over the middle, which isn't that much different then a wr screen, just more room on the outside and doesn't take as long to develop and stretches horizontally.
The mesh does force the zone dominate teams to have their lbs play a shallower zone and eventually set up to a 15 yard over, but it doesn't set you up for much long term, in term of big play and you can get a wr smashed.

 

[WestEndZone]

I'm not against the mesh myself, but it's not particularly hard to stop it. Its essentially a pick play over the middle, which isn't that much different then a wr screen, just more room on the outside and doesn't take as long to develop and stretches horizontally.
The mesh does force the zone dominate teams to have their lbs play a shallower zone and eventually set up to a 15 yard over, but it doesn't set you up for much long term, in term of big play and you can get a wr smashed.

To build on your point:

The school I played for in college was a hurry up Air Raid. We actually broke the Div. III single game passing record at one point. I know they ran mesh a ton, and complimented it with what they called Cadillac (drag, dig, post--3 levels down the middle of the field). It was very successful for us at the time.

 

[Arehel]

I'm not against the mesh myself, but it's not particularly hard to stop it. Its essentially a pick play over the middle, which isn't that much different then a wr screen, just more room on the outside and doesn't take as long to develop and stretches horizontally.
The mesh does force the zone dominate teams to have their lbs play a shallower zone and eventually set up to a 15 yard over, but it doesn't set you up for much long term, in term of big play and you can get a wr smashed.

To build on your point:

The school I played for in college was a hurry up Air Raid. We actually broke the Div. III single game passing record at one point. I know they ran mesh a ton, and complimented it with what they called Cadillac (drag, dig, post--3 levels down the middle of the field). It was very successful for us at the time.

The ol' da bomb from NFL Blitz, yeah? Haha
That post would be wide open as long as that wr gets position.

 

[hharvey09]

Hey Arehel I'm a defensive guy so when I watched the game I looked there but I didn't see much shallow cross or mesh. With the receivers we got I think we would kill teams with that concept. Any reasons why we don't run it.

 

[Arehel]

Hey Arehel I'm a defensive guy so when I watched the game I looked there but I didn't see much shallow cross or mesh. With the receivers we got I think we would kill teams with that concept. Any reasons why we don't run it.

It's a pass over the middle that needs some touch and not hammered in there. Morris didn't throw over the middle unless it was a seam pass.
That's just a guess, the coach went with the qbs strength and tried to make him not a pick machine.

 

[Bennubird]

Nice post. It would be a staple, but part of a well balanced passing attack - not just the vertical routes that have become so common but admittedly suited Morris' game.

Not even pretending to be a know it all but this got my attention because of a previous OC we had that loved it. Every play in the book is a solid play if it is executed properly. When Nix was the OC we used them a lot and people ****ed. Whipped didn't use them and you would see posts ask for more of them. The play itself keeps corners honest and tests their tackling skills. If a corner is always playing off the WR to prevent a big play, there very well could be 4 or more yards there which in most cases is a win. Plus as stated you make a player at a position where tackling isn't always a strong suit make the play near the LOS. The play can work even better with a talent like Coley, but you gotta disguise it or like everything it is to predictable, just like running the stretch on 4th and 1 has been for us, both predictable and retarded in that situation.

 

[LuCane]

I'm not against the mesh myself, but it's not particularly hard to stop it. Its essentially a pick play over the middle, which isn't that much different then a wr screen, just more room on the outside and doesn't take as long to develop and stretches horizontally.
The mesh does force the zone dominate teams to have their lbs play a shallower zone and eventually set up to a 15 yard over, but it doesn't set you up for much long term, in term of big play and you can get a wr smashed.

It's not only about the pick play, but rather about defenses stretching and that outside receiver gets a ton of single looks. Your last sentence is basically what I'm talking about, especially as it relates to some of the plays that are used with it (4 vert, specifically).

Here's a GIF I couldn't find earlier:

http://cdn2.sbnation.com/imported_assets/1834261/BA-Cal-gif---Mesh-Q1-12.40_medium_medium.gif

 

[LuCane]

Hey Arehel I'm a defensive guy so when I watched the game I looked there but I didn't see much shallow cross or mesh. With the receivers we got I think we would kill teams with that concept. Any reasons why we don't run it.

It's a pass over the middle that needs some touch and not hammered in there. Morris didn't throw over the middle unless it was a seam pass.
That's just a guess, the coach went with the qbs strength and tried to make him not a pick machine.

I was coming to answer "probably Morris." The pass requires timing, anticipation and touch. None of those were in Morris' strengths.

Would like to see us use more crossing patterns.

 

[LuCane]

Some of the most interesting stuff in this thread, conceptually, is readily seen in what Mike Leach pulls off consistently. At the foundation of his stuff is balancing the field and stretching it all the way across horizontally. I hoped we would use this to open some one on one matchups for us down the field or, more specifically, at least some easier reads for Morris on the outside (digs, etc.). The MESH concept that Leach runs is probably the best example of that and something that could help us attack both zone and man coverages. It's also a concept that works well with the 4 verticals we run at times, which happens to fit out personnel.

I think it was Wildcat or WestEndZone who mentioned we seem to be headed toward 2TE looks. I agree. We need better timing to make it work.

Funny you mention mesh, most air raiders are actually removing it from the playbook. An expensive install.

At the HS level or in college? Leach still rocked it last season.

 

[Coach Macho]

Awesome insight from some of you guys. Not much I can say that already hasn't been said.

Our OC's had the bubble built-in for our zone running plays. The object was to keep that flat defender honest. That's who our QB is reading. If that flat defender is crashing down on the run then we're throwing bubble. If he widens out to defend bubble then we're giving the ball to the RB.

My way of defending it (out of the 3-4) was to blitz my OLB to the RB's side and roll my Safety down to defend the bubble. Now we can tackle the RB and defend the bubble. I then taught my ILB (to the RB's side) to "fall back" or "back door" the QB on the read option, so that way if the QB kept the ball we had somebody in the C/D gap to tackle him.

It's a great offensive concept though. It puts the defenders in a bind. It helps if you have a QB who can run but it was still successful for us even with the stork Wade Freebeck at QB.

This is why I ***** about Coley, cause I don't see concepts.

 

[hharvey09]

Some of the most interesting stuff in this thread, conceptually, is readily seen in what Mike Leach pulls off consistently. At the foundation of his stuff is balancing the field and stretching it all the way across horizontally. I hoped we would use this to open some one on one matchups for us down the field or, more specifically, at least some easier reads for Morris on the outside (digs, etc.). The MESH concept that Leach runs is probably the best example of that and something that could help us attack both zone and man coverages. It's also a concept that works well with the 4 verticals we run at times, which happens to fit out personnel.

I think it was Wildcat or WestEndZone who mentioned we seem to be headed toward 2TE looks. I agree. We need better timing to make it work.

Funny you mention mesh, most air raiders are actually removing it from the playbook. An expensive install.

At the HS level or in college? Leach still rocked it last season.

Mostly college but it's trickling down to the high school level. Noel Mazzone at UCLA put it in but I'd be surprised if he ran it 10 times last year just because of the time needed to perfect it. Leach is a more pure air raid guy so he's not gonna stray away from the stuff he's ran for years. More new school air raid guys like holgorsen, sumlin, and kingsbury are going to a more balanced attack with run and playaction passes.

 

[hollyhood27]

Some of the most interesting stuff in this thread, conceptually, is readily seen in what Mike Leach pulls off consistently. At the foundation of his stuff is balancing the field and stretching it all the way across horizontally. I hoped we would use this to open some one on one matchups for us down the field or, more specifically, at least some easier reads for Morris on the outside (digs, etc.). The MESH concept that Leach runs is probably the best example of that and something that could help us attack both zone and man coverages. It's also a concept that works well with the 4 verticals we run at times, which happens to fit out personnel.

I think it was Wildcat or WestEndZone who mentioned we seem to be headed toward 2TE looks. I agree. We need better timing to make it work.

Funny you mention mesh, most air raiders are actually removing it from the playbook. An expensive install.

At the HS level or in college? Leach still rocked it last season.

Leach is still the only one runs it still. Franklin pretty much eliminated it from his Tony Franklin System. It just takes up so much practice to get it right to run it maybe once or twice a game. And you kinda get the same look running Shallow and that is an easier install. Leach is like that old school french chef still making the classics, while all his disciples are putting their own twists on them.

A lot of Raiders are really stripping down their playbook, so they can maximize reps. We actually end up getting rid of about 1 or 2 plays a year due to the amount a times we actually run a play during the season vs how much time we practiced it. it is just so hard to guys running at each other making sure that they are so close that they can actually high five each other and the the same time recognize if they sit against zone or keeping running against man.

 

[killa1storm]

Since this discussion is leading that way anyway, let's talk about that a bit - is there a legit rationale for toss/stretch plays to the short side? Is it a matchup decision? I can't believe it's just haphazard (even I'm not that jaded yet.)

A lot of times defensive coaches will stack numbers to the strong side because the assumption is an offense won't utilize the short side as much because of the previously mentioned factors like limited space. So every once in a while you can pop a big gain to the short side.

It's not a bad call once or twice a game but it most definitely should not be a staple, just not enough room to gain consistent yardage over there.

 

[ghost2]

Follow-up question for the morning crowd - as an OC, do you give your QB a group of plays to run and let him choose based on what he sees, or do you give him a single play to run? Same kinda question applies to audibles - how do you construct a package of audibles and how are they implemented in a game?

 

[hollyhood27]

Follow-up question for the morning crowd - as an OC, do you give your QB a group of plays to run and let him choose based on what he sees, or do you give him a single play to run? Same kinda question applies to audibles - how do you construct a package of audibles and how are they implemented in a game?

we give him a play and he runs the play. Now there are a couple plays where he has to check out of something but for the most part he runs the play. But like the way we run zone he has about 4 different reads on that one play. (he can give, keep it and run, pull it and throw backside bubble or frontside our WR has some kinds of individual route designed to beat certain coverages. Plus if anyone is uncovered he can say a code word and throw it right now and pick up 5 yards.) so we really worry about the look the D gives and what our answer is that within the play.

Rich Rod says it best about auidibles "I am not trusting my mortgage payment with a kid who still watches cartoons." thats why a lot of teams run check with me's, etc.

 

[killa1storm]

Think it depends on your offense and/or your coaches confidence in the QB.

My freshman year in college we ran a pass-first spread and barely huddled so the QB was given 2-3 plays but that was mostly for the run plays. Every run play was packaged with a 'hot' if he saw off coverage or a weakness somewhere in the secondary. The hots we used the most were the bubble against off zone coverage and the slant or drag against loose man coverage. Most of the pass plays have concepts in them to defeat man and zone so there weren't too many audibles there.

We scripted our first few possessions as well as all two minute type scenarios so once the offense got in those situations they knew what plays would be called. But of course depending on adjustments made by the defense plays could be added/dropped to the playsheet.

 

[Coach Macho]

Good discussion.

 

[pb5cane]

Awesome insight from some of you guys. Not much I can say that already hasn't been said.

Our OC's had the bubble built-in for our zone running plays. The object was to keep that flat defender honest. That's who our QB is reading. If that flat defender is crashing down on the run then we're throwing bubble. If he widens out to defend bubble then we're giving the ball to the RB.

My way of defending it (out of the 3-4) was to blitz my OLB to the RB's side and roll my Safety down to defend the bubble. Now we can tackle the RB and defend the bubble. I then taught my ILB (to the RB's side) to "fall back" or "back door" the QB on the read option, so that way if the QB kept the ball we had somebody in the C/D gap to tackle him.

It's a great offensive concept though. It puts the defenders in a bind. It helps if you have a QB who can run but it was still successful for us even with the stork Wade Freebeck at QB.

This is why I **** about Coley, cause I don't see concepts.

Good insight. Not defending coley but we had no rungame after Dukes injury. It's hard to evaluate coley concepts when we were essentially 1 dimensional with a hobbled QB. Your thoughts?

 

[Coach Macho]

Awesome insight from some of you guys. Not much I can say that already hasn't been said.

Our OC's had the bubble built-in for our zone running plays. The object was to keep that flat defender honest. That's who our QB is reading. If that flat defender is crashing down on the run then we're throwing bubble. If he widens out to defend bubble then we're giving the ball to the RB.

My way of defending it (out of the 3-4) was to blitz my OLB to the RB's side and roll my Safety down to defend the bubble. Now we can tackle the RB and defend the bubble. I then taught my ILB (to the RB's side) to "fall back" or "back door" the QB on the read option, so that way if the QB kept the ball we had somebody in the C/D gap to tackle him.

It's a great offensive concept though. It puts the defenders in a bind. It helps if you have a QB who can run but it was still successful for us even with the stork Wade Freebeck at QB.

This is why I **** about Coley, cause I don't see concepts.

Good insight. Not defending coley but we had no rungame after Dukes injury. It's hard to evaluate coley concepts when we were essentially 1 dimensional with a hobbled QB. Your thoughts?

I thought we looked the same all year long regardless of who we had or didn't have. I just thought that losing Duke magnified our weaknesses on offense and we looked a lot worse without him hitting homeruns every game. We showed little ability to nickel and dime down the field.

And don't get me started on the play-action passes on 3rd & 15.

 

[Cats3x]

All screens have their place. Like the fishduck article, many are moving to the packaged plays with run/pass options. Adding zone runs and bubble screens allows for a better opportunity to throw the bubble when it will work.

At worst its an easy completion that can give guys with wiggle a chance to make a play.