Wednesday, November 26, 2014

What do you want to see?

I'm taking recommendations for post ideas.  I've already posted and gotten a few ideas in the following BI thread, so if there's something you want to see, head over there and let me know.

http://bearinsider.com/forums/showthread.php?88765-Bear-Raid-Breakdown-What-do-you-all-want-to-see

Friday, November 14, 2014

Pick Plays and Cover-0: Caleb Coleman's 4th Down Stop

Every season there's some hot-button issue that gets the pundits talking. This year, for a stretch after the controversial finish to Notre Dame-FSU, that issue was the pick play. A little closer to home, a similar play gave Utah the victory over USC in the last minutes of that game. These are plays that everybody runs. Everyone complains about them when they're used against their team, and nobody notices them when their own team runs them. Until someone institutes a rule that no two receivers can pass within X yards of each other, these plays will have a legitimate place in football strategy, and that's OK. Although picks capitalize on a certain amount of “interference,” defenses have plenty of answers that can render them ineffective. Like every other play, it's about the coordinator having a sense for when these plays are coming, and making the right call to stop them. This post will break down three key plays involving picks from the OSU game in an effort to get inside the game-within-the-game behind compressed formations (formations where two or more receivers line up tight to each other). The ultimate point will be to understand Caleb Coleman's game-sealing tackle late in the game on 4th and 2.

Sunday, November 2, 2014

UCLA Defensive Gameplan

Up until the UCLA game, our defense had never given up more than 5 ypc against the rush, and had only given up more than 4 ypc twice. We'd only given up 150+ yards one time (to Colorado), and had held everyone else under 120. In the UCLA game we gave up 237 yards at 5.04 ypc. Why the sudden change? It's tempting to say that they're just better than the teams we'd played up to that point, but on the season they aren't that far ahead of UA. As always, it's a lot more complicated than the size, strength, and speed of your opponent.