I know there are a lot of plays to analyze, but there was one play in particular that had it all. Play call, scheme, formation, execution, read; it was all there. It is on Iowa's first drive, 2nd and goal from the 9. It ended in a 1 yard loss with a little inside flip to LaPorta, but, there is so much more to it than that.
Formation: Spencer in shotgun, Bruce in the backfield to his right. Ragaini far left with, Brecht far right. Lachey on the LOS on the right with LaPorta off the line to his right. The unbalanced formation made the linebackers shade to the tight end side, and with a single high safety, it left Brecht in man coverage on the right with his corner playing 7 yards off of him and Ragaini man coverage on the left with his corner playing 10 yards off of him. I love the formation and the personnel because it put all of the playmakers in their best spots and the tall QB can see over the top of the defense to read what the safety is going to do.
Motion and pre-snap read: So we send Ragaini in motion to the right and Illinois responds by rotating the single high safety with him and the left corner rotated into the safety position. Now, at this point the only contain the Illinois had on the left was the defensive end, which you would think should have been the next read because we know that we are going to counter Bruce to that side of the field post-snap as well as LaPorta. To me breaking it down, the defensive end is all that mattered.
Play-call: It was a great play call because we were in control up to the snap. Illinois was forced to respond to what we were doing and they responded in a very predictible way. I love everything about this play up to this point.
Snap: Bruce breaks to the left and Spencer shows the ball to him with this run option. Before Bruce ever gets to Spencer, the defensive end crashes to the inside to engage the pulling right guard and never had his eyes in the backfield.
Execution: As soon as Spencer saw the defensive end crash, he should have handed the ball off to Bruce who would have been in a foot race with the single safety to the pylon. He either scores or gets really close. But Spencer kept the ball who fooled nobody because there was really nobody to fool as the defensive end was already engaged. Instead Spencer flipped it to a pulling LaPorta who tried to turn it up inside the left tackle. However, the gap was much tighter because of the crashing defensive end, Richman totally gets beat on his block, Stephens, the right guard gets beat on his block (in his defense he was blocking someone he didnt think he had to as the defensive end shouldnt have been there) and the result is there were two defenders standing all alone at the line of scrimmage waiting for LaPorta.
Analysis: This play really stands out to me because of the all the elements within it. Like I said above, I love everything about the play up until the snap. But the first thing that I really question is the read. Was this play designed to be a read-and-react play or were we dead set no matter what that we were going to flip it to LaPorta? That question alone is the basis to why this offense is not very good. If this was a designed read-option play, then Spencer is at fault here because he totally failed to make the right play with the very obvious key he would have had. If it was not a read-option play, then we are expecting to be able to "guess" as to what the defense is going to do in the huddle, which seems incredibly difficult to do, which would show to me that the OC is not doing a very good job. But in this particular play, it is not both, it is one or the other.
The other thing it shows me is that we have zero confidence in throwing to a receiver with single man coverage. Ragaini could have stayed where he was and not went in motion and Spencer would have had 2 options on the edges. Is this because we have no faith in our WR's to make a play? Is it because we have no faith in Spencer to make the throw? Both? Either way, this is a glaring weakness that makes things very difficult for us to do anything in the box because there are so many defenders there.
My take: To be an effective offense, you need to be able to counter anything the defense shows you. If you can't, if there is even one weakness, it will be exploited and you will not be very good. Any good offense, college or pro, would have thrown to either of the wide receivers with both of them being manned up with a single safety. Not complicated. You can throw the fade, a fade-stop, a curl, a break to the pylon, or even just get it out quick and see if he can make a play and beat the corner. When this is successful the OC looks brilliant. But we dont do that so we have to scheme everything, which is much much harder. In this case, if Spencer missed his read on the defensive end, then that answers the question of what is the upside of playing another QB. The upside is that we have a QB that makes the right decisions based on the keys he is given. But, if Spencer was not supposed to read anything post-snap and the RPO action was just for show, then we seriously need to look at the upside of a new OC because most high schools can execute post-snap read options.
Formation: Spencer in shotgun, Bruce in the backfield to his right. Ragaini far left with, Brecht far right. Lachey on the LOS on the right with LaPorta off the line to his right. The unbalanced formation made the linebackers shade to the tight end side, and with a single high safety, it left Brecht in man coverage on the right with his corner playing 7 yards off of him and Ragaini man coverage on the left with his corner playing 10 yards off of him. I love the formation and the personnel because it put all of the playmakers in their best spots and the tall QB can see over the top of the defense to read what the safety is going to do.
Motion and pre-snap read: So we send Ragaini in motion to the right and Illinois responds by rotating the single high safety with him and the left corner rotated into the safety position. Now, at this point the only contain the Illinois had on the left was the defensive end, which you would think should have been the next read because we know that we are going to counter Bruce to that side of the field post-snap as well as LaPorta. To me breaking it down, the defensive end is all that mattered.
Play-call: It was a great play call because we were in control up to the snap. Illinois was forced to respond to what we were doing and they responded in a very predictible way. I love everything about this play up to this point.
Snap: Bruce breaks to the left and Spencer shows the ball to him with this run option. Before Bruce ever gets to Spencer, the defensive end crashes to the inside to engage the pulling right guard and never had his eyes in the backfield.
Execution: As soon as Spencer saw the defensive end crash, he should have handed the ball off to Bruce who would have been in a foot race with the single safety to the pylon. He either scores or gets really close. But Spencer kept the ball who fooled nobody because there was really nobody to fool as the defensive end was already engaged. Instead Spencer flipped it to a pulling LaPorta who tried to turn it up inside the left tackle. However, the gap was much tighter because of the crashing defensive end, Richman totally gets beat on his block, Stephens, the right guard gets beat on his block (in his defense he was blocking someone he didnt think he had to as the defensive end shouldnt have been there) and the result is there were two defenders standing all alone at the line of scrimmage waiting for LaPorta.
Analysis: This play really stands out to me because of the all the elements within it. Like I said above, I love everything about the play up until the snap. But the first thing that I really question is the read. Was this play designed to be a read-and-react play or were we dead set no matter what that we were going to flip it to LaPorta? That question alone is the basis to why this offense is not very good. If this was a designed read-option play, then Spencer is at fault here because he totally failed to make the right play with the very obvious key he would have had. If it was not a read-option play, then we are expecting to be able to "guess" as to what the defense is going to do in the huddle, which seems incredibly difficult to do, which would show to me that the OC is not doing a very good job. But in this particular play, it is not both, it is one or the other.
The other thing it shows me is that we have zero confidence in throwing to a receiver with single man coverage. Ragaini could have stayed where he was and not went in motion and Spencer would have had 2 options on the edges. Is this because we have no faith in our WR's to make a play? Is it because we have no faith in Spencer to make the throw? Both? Either way, this is a glaring weakness that makes things very difficult for us to do anything in the box because there are so many defenders there.
My take: To be an effective offense, you need to be able to counter anything the defense shows you. If you can't, if there is even one weakness, it will be exploited and you will not be very good. Any good offense, college or pro, would have thrown to either of the wide receivers with both of them being manned up with a single safety. Not complicated. You can throw the fade, a fade-stop, a curl, a break to the pylon, or even just get it out quick and see if he can make a play and beat the corner. When this is successful the OC looks brilliant. But we dont do that so we have to scheme everything, which is much much harder. In this case, if Spencer missed his read on the defensive end, then that answers the question of what is the upside of playing another QB. The upside is that we have a QB that makes the right decisions based on the keys he is given. But, if Spencer was not supposed to read anything post-snap and the RPO action was just for show, then we seriously need to look at the upside of a new OC because most high schools can execute post-snap read options.