Bear Raid: The Run Game

This is the first post of a lengthy study on the Bear Raid offense. My first three posts will look at the most common plays in the run game, the quick passing game/screens, and the deep passing game from the first three games of the season. I'll outline how our most common plays are supposed to work, and then comment on how successful they were, what players were most successful at running them, etc.

Once I've gone through these basics I'll talk about how all these plays fit together, game-planning, adjustments, etc. Once I've done this for the first three games of the season, I plan to treat the rest of the season more briefly in three game chunks, showing what changed and why as the season progressed. Let's get it started.

The Run Game

This post, as well as the two that will follow, is aimed toward gaining familiarity with the kinds of plays that we run and what they're trying to accomplish. As a result it might be a little heavy on X's and O's, but it'll present some basic concepts that are useful for the more narrative and explanatory posts to come. If you're not into assignments and things like that, there's a “stats” section at the end of my discussion of each play. There you can get the quick and dirty info on how each play did and who did the best at running it.

Power

In the first three games of the season our most common run play was “power.” We ran this out of a number of personnel groupings and formations and with several variations, but all in all we ran some variant of it 45 times in those three games. So what's power? Power is a run wherein most of the offensive line “down blocks,” meaning that they block away from the playside. To make that more clear, if we're running power to the right, then the offensive line will look to their left, and if there's a defensive lineman there they'll block him:

Obviously that's not going to take care of everybody. The other defining feature of power is that the guard away from the playside will “pull.” This means that he comes across the formation and serves as an extra blocker to the playside. In our most common variant of power, he's going to block the play-side defensive end:

This will look like a “trap” to some of you, but for us it's power, especially when you look at some of the variations we run off of it. You can see that this opens up a hole between the pulling guard and the right tackle, which is where the RB is supposed to go. From the RB's perspective, running this play requires good patience and instincts to let the hole develop and to hit it fast once it does. This isn't a play where the RB has a lot of choice, so it's more about a feel for the play than about vision and creativity. For the linemen, the blocks are pretty easy. Since they're already in between the defender they're blocking and the ball, they don't have to do much to gain position.

There you have it: down-blocking and a pulling guard are what define “power.” From there, there are only a few more minor points to add. First, you'll note that in these diagrams the RG doesn't have anyone to down-block. If a lineman finds himself in this position, then he's going to “combo-block” with the guy next to him. This means that he'll form a double team until a LB threatens the ball-carrier. Once a LB flashes, the offensive lineman in the best position to do so will come off the double team and block him. The WR's then account for the rest of the LB's:

Here are some stats for power from our first three games (I'm excluding plays with fumbled hand-offs, since they don't have any bearing on how well the OL blocked the play or the RB read it):

Northwestern:

Overall: 15 rushes, 48 yards, 3.2 ypc

Bigelow: 7 rushes, 37 yards, 3.6 ypc (Most of this was on one 19 yard carry on the first play of the game).

Lasco: 5 carries, 5 yards, 1 ypc

Mohamed: 3 carries, 6 yards, 2 ypc

Portland State:

Overall: 9 rushes, 59 yards, 6.6 ypc

Bigelow: 3 rushes, 9 yards, 3 ypc

Mohamed: 5 rushes, 48 yards, 9.6 ypc (including one 34 yarder and one 11 yarder)

Ervin: 1 rush, 2 yards, 2 ypc

Ohio State:

Overall: 19 rushes, 90 yards, 4.7 ypc

Bigelow: 6 rushes, 24 yards, 4 ypc

Lasco: 6 rushes, 42 yards, 7 ypc

Mohamed: 3 rushes, 11 yards, 3.7 ypc

Boehm: 4 rushes, 13 yards, 3.3 ypc

Outside Zone

Our second most common run play is the “outside zone.” Whereas power was characterized by down blocks and a pulling guard, outside zone is characterized by “reach blocks.” On a reach block, the offensive line will all step in the same direction as the run itself. If there's a defensive lineman there, they will try to get outside of him and seal him back inside:

Whereas power tried to create a hole in between two offensive blockers, the goal here is to seal the defenders inside so that the RB can get around the edge. For the linemen these blocks take more quickness and athleticism, since they have to cross the face of the guy they're blocking. As with power, if a defender steps to the playside and has no one to reach-block, he'll help the guy next to him with a double team. We'll use the double team of the center and right guard in this diagram as an example: 

 

Here the center and RG double team from the DT through to the LB. The RG will obviously be the first blocker to engage the DT. In a perfect world he's going to chip the DT inside, at which point the center will be able to take control of him and seal him inside, allowing the OG to get to the next level to cut off the LB. If the guard fails to get control and can't cross the DT's face, however, then the center can release to look for a LB. This will be worse, because the center is coming from an inside position and so it will be harder for him to prevent the LB from getting outside.

The zone play often doesn't get successful reach blocks, and so the RB has to read a lot more in this play. He's going to look at the OT's block. If the OT has successfully reached his man, the RB will continue to the edge. If the reach block didn't work, then he's looking inside to the next blocker for the same kind of thing, trying to find a seam. When you hear people talk about “cut-backs,” this is the kind of thing they're talking about. On this play a RB's vision is very important, because he has to quickly see where the seam is developing and take it.

Here are the stats for outside zone:

Northwestern:

Overall: 7 rushes, 46 yards, 6.6 ypc

Bigelow: 5 rushes, 30 yards, 6 ypc (He had one 32 yard run on the second play of the game, so the rest of the game was clearly pretty bad.)

Lasco: 2 rushes, 16 yards, 8 ypc (Gains of 6 and 10 yards).

Portland State:

Overall: 12 rushes, 35 yards, 2.9 ypc

Bigelow: 8 rushes, 32 yards, 4 ypc

Lasco: 1 rush, -2 yards, -2 ypc

Mohamed: 1 rush, 1 yard, 1 ypc

Coprich: 1 rush, 2 yards, 2 ypc

Goff (on zone read): 1 rush, 2 yards, 2 ypc

Ohio State:

Overall: 5 rushes, 10 yards, 2 ypc

Bigelow: 3 rushes, 9 yards, 3 ypc

Lasco: 2 rushes, 1 yard, .5 ypc (one TD from short yardage).

Misdirection

Every offensive formation gives some tip about which side of the formation a run will probably attack. If you're an I-formation team, you'll probably run to the TE side. You might also tip your hand by off-setting the FB, preferring to run to the boundary (for this term, see my post on terminology here: http://calfootballstrategy.blogspot.com/2014/01/this-is-meant-to-be-reference-post-that.html), etc. If you're going to keep defenses honest, you have to have plays that counter those tendencies.

In the shot-gun the tendency is obvious: If the back lines up on the left you're probably going to run to the right, because the RB already has to move to his right to get the hand-off. Put another way, runs from the shot-gun usually go to the side opposite the back's alignment. Our offense has two plays that counter this tendency. We have one such play that is based more or less off of power blocking, and one that is based off of zone blocking.

Counter

Our first misdirection play is “counter.” For the offensive line, “counter left” is the same thing as “power left.” The difference is for the RB, who will move from left to right to get the ball, and then reverse direction to get to the hole:

You can see the elements of power blocking here: The LG, C, and RT down block, and the RG pulls across the formation to kick out the DE. This makes this a relatively “cheap” play, meaning that it gets you mis-direction without having to spend much time practicing a new blocking scheme. Contrary to what you'd expect, against many teams the RB's change of direction isn't what makes the play go. Most defenses key the OL rather than the back on the theory that the OL will always take you to where the run's going, so against a disciplined defense the pulling guard will tell the LB's where the play's going regardless of what the RB does. While this play does have an element of mis-direction, therefore, it's most useful because it can take advantage of the defense's alignment. If the defense overloads to the offense's right to stop runs in that direction, counter lets you attack the left side, away from the overload. You might not even get great mis-direction off of it, but your numbers are going to be better than if you ran normal power or outside zone. Counter forces the defense to line up honestly, which in turn lets you run your basic plays more effectively.

I don't think we ran this against Northwestern, but against Portland State we ran it three times for 17 yards (Bigelow: 2 for 19 yards; Mohamed, 1 for -2). Against Ohio State we ran it six times for 36 yards (Bigelow: 2 for 5; Lasco: 2 for 23; Mohamed: 2 for 8). This play obviously has potential.

Toss

We also have a counter off of zone blocking, and if anything I think it's a little better for mis-direction. This is our “toss” play. If we're running toss left, the offensive line will have the same blocking assignments that they would on an outside zone to the right. The difference it that instead of trying to reach block those guys, they'll just keep pushing them to the right. Nonetheless, when the entire OL steps right the initial read for the LB's is going to be that it's a zone run to the right, which should cause them to pursue in that direction. The QB pitches the ball to the RB to the left, and it's up to the WR's to block any remaining defenders:

Against Northwestern we ran this once to Bigelow for 5 yards. Against Portland State we ran it twice to Mohamed for sixteen yards and once to Bigelow for four. We didn't run it against Ohio State.

You do the Breakdown

Now that we've covered the base running game, TouchedTheAxeIn82 has put together a video of eight run plays from our first three games.  Here's a youtube version and a downloadable dropbox version (you can download the dropbox version by right clicking and selecting "save link as"):

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1438804/Cal_Bear_Raid_01_Run_Game.mp4
 
Part of the goal of this series is to give everyone some tips on analyzing games for themselves, so if you're interested watch the video and head to the BI thread on this post (http://bearinsider.com/forums/showthread.php?p=842266887#post842266887). Tell everyone what you think each play is and why you think it worked or didn't work. Hopefully this will get us some good off-season discussion going to get us through the summer.