Treggs' TD vs. UW

If you're interested in scheme, go back and watch Cal's offense vs. UW's defense right now. Do it twice. This game was awesome. Both sides had clearly scouted each other well, and both sides made great adjustments from those initial good gameplans. I've got a few aspects of our offense that I want to write posts on, so be on the lookout for a later post about what Brandon Jones has added to our run game (more lead blocking!), but for now I want to talk packaged plays, and particularly Treggs' 1^st half TD.

But first, what is a packaged play? These are plays where the OL and RB are running one of our standard run plays, while the WR's are running some kind of pass play or screen. We've been running these since game one against Northwestern in 2013, but they've become much, much more complex and aggressive as our offense, and Goff in particular, have gotten more experience in the system and gained TF's trust.

To look at the concept of a packaged play in more detail, let's see some examples of how we used these plays in 2013. First, let's look at everyone's least favorite play from one of everyone's least favorite Cal football seasons: outside zone packaged with bubble screens:

  The OL and RB run a normal outside zoneplay here, and the inside WR's run bubble screens, with the outside WR's blocking the CB's. As far as the WR's, OL, and RB know, this play could go to any of the three potential ball carriers. The decision is up to the QB. Pre-snap, he's reading the coverage, and looking specifically for the “best located flat defender.” Flat defenders are the guys responsible for the short, outside zones in coverage. I've drawn the defense in quarters coverage, so the flat defenders in this diagram are the WLB and the SLB. The best located flat defender is whichever of those guys is closest to the box. In this diagram, the best located flat defender is the WLB, since the SLB is walked out toward the Y receiver. Goff ID's the best located flat defender and throws the screen to his side, with the idea being that if that defender is in the box, he can't get out to cover the bubble screen. Ideally, the outside WR will get a block on the CB, the bubble screen will outflank the FS, and we'll get yards down the sideline. What actually happened in 2013 is that the CB beat his block and squeezed the play from the outside in, pushing the ball back inside to the FS and WLB who swarmed and made the tackle for no gain. This probably sounds familiar to everyone. We actually still run this play, but we've gotten a lot better at it. Powe's caught several of these this season for 7+ yards down the sideline, so good job WR coaches.

But what if there is no best located flat defender? That's when Goff hands it off for the run:

  In this diagram, we see that both OLB's are walked out toward the inside WR's. This means that the defense is playing three defenders (CB, S, OLB) over two WR's to each side of the field, making the bubble screen a bad option. By doing this, however, they've left only five guys in the box, so you hand it off, hopefully for a nice gain. In 2013 we couldn't block this play well at all along the OL, so it usually went for no gain. The other problem was that, once the ball was handed off, it was in fact easy for the WLB and SLB to jump back inside to get a 6^th or even 7^th guy in the box, especially since (1) the bubble screens were no threat thanks to our WR blocking, and (2) the RB's couldn't get good downhill cuts thanks to all the trash created by a substandard OL and bad reads on their own part, so the plays were strung out longer. We've also gotten better at both blocking and reading this since 2013, so good job OL and RB coaches.

There was another packaged play that we ran a ton in 2013, and this one had a little more success:

On this play, we're running power toward trips, with an out by the single WR to the left. I won't go through all the different coverage and alignment possibilities, but basically if the CB plays with a cushion on the single WR, and the WLB isn't in a position to get wide and underneath the out, then Goff can throw it. If the out isn't an option, in most cases that should open up the run. This worked reasonably well for us, particularly because our WR's are better route runners than bubble screen blockers, so normally the single WR (usually Treggs) could get open against an off CB. We've also been pretty good at running power, with it being our most consistently effective play from 2013 to the present (though our zone runs have improved dramatically and have been a bigger weapon than power in plenty of games from 2014 and 2015).

The point is, you can take any of your base runs, figure out what kind of defensive call will be made to try to stop it, and then tack on a pass that counters that defensive call, letting the play develop post snap instead of trying to guess what the best play will be pre-snap. The goal is to make the defense wrong no matter what they do. The thing to notice about our early packaged plays is that they're all more horizontal than they are vertical, with the bubble screen being caught behind the LOS, and the out gaining maybe 7-10 yards max.

In 2015, that's all changed. At first, it's easy to miss the developments that we've made. When Goff gets a hand-off read, this just looks like a normal run play. Here's a case from the UW game that will look a lot like the plays we were running in 2013 (you might want to mute the video, the slow-motion commentary sounds crazy):

Watch the LB at the bottom of the screen (standing just outside the hash). He's going to sit inside before the snap to try to bait Goff into throwing a screen before jumping out to cover the flat. It really doesn't matter though, because the second Goff catches the snap he's reading that player. Watch Goff's eyes at the snap, as he turns them straight to that OLB to see what he's doing, almost like a QB reading a DE on the zone read. Goff sees the OLB jump outside, hands off against a 5-man box, and we get a relatively easy 11 yard gain. Here's a diagram of that clip:

 

One play later's when the fireworks begin. We're running the exact same play, but UW's in a different defense, since they know that we like to run the same play twice after a nice gain. 

 

Even though it's only one play later, UW's made two good schematic adjustments to shut down the power run here. The first is in the front. Check out this diagram and the one before it. In the first, the NT is shaded to the right of the center, and the DT is shaded to the left of the LG. This left a “bubble” (a gap covered by a LB rather than a DL) over the gap between the RG and RT. In the first play, we use our RT to kick out the DE, and lead Borrayo through the hole, right to the LB sitting in that bubble, for a nice run. In the more recent diagram, on the other hand, UW has flipped their DT and NT, so that the DT is now shaded outside of the RG, thus eliminating the bubble that we'd run through on the previous play. The other good adjustment that they've made is in their coverage. On the first play, they were playing a version of Cover-2. Because the safeties were deep, this meant that an OLB had to jump out to cover the inside WR. In the most recent diagram they've rotated to Cover-3 (or a man coverage that allows lots of switching), with the SS rotating down to cover the inside WR. This means that the WLB gets to stay in the box as a sixth run defender. So, they've made a really good adjustment to make sure that we can't run power again.

The problem is that what we're actually running on both of these plays is a packaged play that makes adjustments much more complicated than just scheming to take away the run. I've purposefully left out the WR routes until this point so that I could do a big reveal about how awesome this play is. On both of these plays, this is what the WR's are doing:

This diagram shows the routes against the coverage that UW used for the second of these plays. Now, with this pre-snap shot of the defense, Goff doesn't yet know what precise coverage they're in. It's possible that this is a man coverage, meaning that the SS would carry the seam route by Treggs (H) while the CB covers Harris (X) on the in route:

Because the SS would be playing inside H on the seam here, there's not a big natural advantage for us. In this case, there is a good chance that Goff can hit X on the in route (especially since X will get a natural pick when he cuts under H), so long as the WLB doesn't fly outside. Note that the WLB is still the key player here even though UW's in a different coverage. That's part of the beauty of the play design. There's no change in who the QB reads initially.

So what can UW do to take away the in route? They could be dropping the SS down to the curl zone, in which case he'd cut off the in-route by X. This is, in fact, what they're doing:

 

When they drop the SS down, though, that means that the CB has to be responsible for the deep outside zone (since no one else is out there), so he has to play Treggs (H) with outside leverage and hope that the FS can help him on anything inside. Treggs' seam route takes advantage of this outside leverage by the CB, giving him an advantage. TD Bears. 

 But it gets better. Note that in my last diagram I've drawn two arrows for the FS in the middle of the field. We're not only attacking him with the seam by H, but also with an intermediate cross by Anderson (Y). This is putting both a horizontal and a vertical stretch on that FS. If the FS flies deep and outside to Treggs, then we've got a nice 1-on-1 matchup with Y and the nickleback over the intermediate middle (a matchup that we also won on this particular play). If the FS holds in the middle of the field or comes downhill on Y, it's an easy TD to Treggs. Remember how in 2013 we ran packaged plays with mirrored bubble screens to each side of the field. L.O.L. Now we've got a fully-developed, aggressive, downfield passing concept packaged with a power run. Talk about having to defend the whole field. 

I'm sure everyone likes the idea of packaging a downfield pass with a power run, but the real genius of this play-design is its simplicity. Goff's initial read will always be the WLB. The WLB tells him everything that he needs to know. If the WLB is responsible for the short outside zone in coverage, then he has to jump outside to fulfill his coverage responsibility, just like he did on the first play where we handed it off. In this case, Goff will see him jump outside, and hand it off so we can run it against a light box. If the WLB sits inside to defend the run, then Goff can turn his eyes to the SS; if the SS drops down into underneath coverage, we've got Treggs over the top on the seam. If the SS runs with Treggs, then UW doesn't have a defender in the short outside zone, and so Harris will be open on the in route. Finally, if Goff's read takes him to Treggs but the FS flies deep and outside to cover him in the seam, then Goff can always come back to Anderson on the intermediate crosser, since the FS will have vacated the intermediate middle to cover Treggs. It's not just that we're packaging a downfield play with a run here, it's that our coaches have gameplanned the perfect packaged concept to put the maximum amount of pressure on UW's defense, no matter what their call is. This is exactly what you want on 1^st and 10.  You're no longer gambling by calling a deep shot on first down, or trying to guess if the defense is going to play tougher against the run or pass.  You've got an option for every scenario, and you take the play that's open based on the defense's reaction.

These packages can (and do) also change from gameplan to gameplan based on what any given defense is most likely to do. This fact got us a TD in this game, because while UW was able to adjust to the run immediately, they didn't have time to also adjust to the passing component of this play. Remember that UW, in the span of only one play, came back with a great front adjustment to stop the power run. The problem for them is that, in that same span of time, they also had to have (1) seen the route combination that we were using behind the run on the previous play, even though we didn't actually throw the ball, (2) run through the ways that that route combination would work against whatever coverages they're considering calling, (3) figured out whether or not the coverage call that they need to make will also work with the front adjustment that they want to make, and (4) gotten the call in from the sidelines in about 20 seconds. Meanwhile, if they do make a good coverage adjustment, then on our next play we can just package a different passing concept with our power run, and they'll have to start the entire process over again. Good luck, defense.