Adjusting On The Run

Like every other woe begotten soul that follows Ole Miss Football, I sat there Saturday night watching the Rebels take on Auburn.  For the second week in a row Ole Miss has played a solid first half of football before falling apart in the 3^rd quarter.  All of the message board pundits over at The Spirit and in The Grove are fuming over the 2^nd half meltdowns and the word “Adjustments” has become a time bomb of hatred, malice, and confusion.   Well, I finally decided that I should make an adjustment to this website (1^st post in about 6 months) and go over some of the things that I saw during the game.

Someone must have mentioned Pete Boone

Disclaimer:

-I did not TiVo the game so I have not been able to review things.

-I was so focused on the Ole Miss offense – particularly their newfound fondness of gap scheme run plays – that, like David Lee, I didn’t notice any adjustments by AU’s defense.

-This post is being based off of memory and watching live football so it may contain errors.

AU Run Game:

Gus Malzahn’s offense has been cataloged and dissected by every football writer in the country.  People that study his offense start to notice the reality: is not an overly complex scheme that is loaded up with a bevy of different plays and schemes, but rather a nice mix of plays that are masked several times over and executed from a number of different formations, shift, motions, and personnel groupings.  Today I really just want to hit on two of Malzahn’s top run plays against Ole Miss: the Power and the Hand Sweep.

Power:

My infatuation with Power has been well documented (keep scrolling down to see).  My giddiness exploded all over Twitter last weekend when OM started to use Gap scheme run plays like Power instead of the inside zone scheme that has resulted in terrible rushing performances through the first several weeks of the season.  Power, or Power O, has been a big part of the Auburn run game for some time.  (For a great read-up on Malzahn’s power see Brophy’s excellent write-up from last year)

In the first half of the game last weekend Ole Miss did a nice job of stopping AU’s power and counter schemes because their DE’s were doing a great job of spilling the kick-out block and forcing the ball to bounce to the unblocked defender.

Ole Miss prefers to play with a two-safety shell on the back end of their defense.  The “SPUR” aligns to the passing strength of the defense and the front aligns based on the call.

When running the Power play, AU will try to kick out the DE with either a pulling lineman or H-back.  If/when they get the kick out block the following puller will try to turn up and seal the LB giving the RB a downhill crease.

If/when the DE effectively squeezes the kick out he forces the next pulling lineman (and the ball) to bow their path deeper into the backfield and towards the sideline.  This action allows the play-side LB and the play-side Safety to get over the top of any blocks and get to the ball before the ball carrier can get rolling down hill. 

Ole Miss Defensive Ends Kentrell Lockett, Cameron Whigham, and Gerald Rivers all did a nice job of spilling this play in the first half.

#40 looked the @OleForty that we all know and love.

Auburn and Malzahn found most of their 1^st half success in the running game when they were running their Hand Sweep (thanks again Brophy).  The Hand Sweep is another Gap Scheme run play that finds its roots in old Wing-T football.  The Hand Sweep was more successful because they were not trying to kick out the defensive ends and instead were using their technique to pin the edge players for Ole Miss.  To effectively spill any kick out block a defender has to “squeeze” – literally take the air out between he and the nearest offensive player – to get himself into position to spill.  So when a tackle blocks down the end squeezes and looks inside for the puller.   When the play side offensive tackle blocks down on the hand sweep the DE automatically squeezes the down block and looks for the pull.  What he does not see is the offensive player coming down from the outside that is trying to pin him inside to allow the two pulling guards to follow.

 AU popped the Hand Sweep for a 9 or 10 yard run late in the 2^nd QTR and seemed to realize then that it could get outside.  The 3^rd and 4^th QTR brought a steady dose of Hand Sweep and a nice variation of Power.  AU began using the same type of motion, and the same type of block, on the edge player and started to hit Power outside of the tackle.  Once AU found out that they could get outside they took the game over offensively.