The "Tech Ceiling"

Great stuff.

and this is why all the preseason hype is so mind boggling.

Sounds good. The old "throw it where they ain’t" offense. It works on paper, but high level defensive coordinators are not the type to give up cushy 6 figure jobs, so they adapt and innovate, too.

Ahem.

Apparently Gerald Myers agrees. h/t Wiz.

I said high level.

Just in the interest of accuracy:

 In Tech’s nomenclature, what you’ve just illustrated is H Shallow.

 Left to Right, Tech receivers are X, H, Y, Z.

 H is running a shallow cross, Y is running a hunt route (since you have him facing zone coverage).

 F would be running a swing route, his landmark being the footsteps of X before he began his route.

 Also, you’re really going to have DEs match up with slot receivers? That’s a good way to ensure continued success for their offense.

If you’re playing a four man front, you almost have to have an end pick up the slot. There’s no one else left.

The good news is that guy, if he gets the ball, will be getting it behind the line of scrimmage. Ends nowadays have to be athletic enough to get out therer. They can’t usually cover that guy on the pass, but they can drive him to the sideline and a corner or linebacker should be able to get over there if he cuts it back in.

The point isn’t to show some all encompassing coverage with no weaknesses. The point is that you can run some goofy shit if you know a pass is coming and get away with it. It’s easy to look at the chalkboard and say “well, harumph, why don’t you just . . .” but it’s a lot harder in live action when you’ve never seen it before.

All you’re trying to do is get into the QBs head and make him manually search for the open guy. You know, the point of the entire post.

Leach and Harrell will run the ball when facing 5 man fronts. The key is feigning a 6 man front to get Harrell to check out of the run. Then, jamming the WRs at the line of scrimmage (i.e. Mizzou, Alabama) and showing your blitz at the last minute dictating where Harrell goes with the hot read. Then, jump the route with a LBer (say Jordan Dizon if you’ve got one) S, or CB. Also, Harrell is hard to sack, so it’s imperative that DT and DEs get their hands up in the air.

First read for the QB on this play is H Shallow. You’ve left him uncovered, so I fail to see how this ‘different look’ will get into the QB’s head.

Dedfischer,

How would tech respond if the D played a nickle (where the NB is a CB type guy) but replaced the tackles with DEs, the DEs with LBs (where it actually provided an upgrade in sacking the QB (might be best to leave Rack as the speed rusher)), and replace the LBs with safeties. Would Leach still pass almost exclusively (given that there are still 6 guys in the box even though there 7 DB type guys on the field)?

I never got the impression that Harrell is either fast or tough to bring down. Do you just mean that tech QBs get rid of the ball quickly so it is tough to sack them?

Why does tech have such huge OL? Given that tech uses large splits and passes short a bunch, why not have faster OL men that can downfield block better and can reach a block target quicker and can block better on screens?

Kafka,

 Standard counting rules for spread teams goes as follows: 5 in the box, run the ball. 6 in the box, run or pass, your option. 7 in the box, pass the ball.

So, seeing 6 in the box, they have the option to run or pass, depending on their preference. I think it is safe to say Leach always likes to pass the ball.

I think one of the things to do when defending Tech (or any spread team) is to show them 5 in the box as much as possible. You want to tempt them to run the ball as often as you can, b/c they’re normally passing teams b/c they can’t run (Florida is an exception to this rule).

Ever notice how big OL are in the NFL? While pass blocking is more difficult than run blocking, pass blocking actually uses less energy. You can be a fat slob and still be an effective pass blocker.
You have to actually be able to move around and have some agility to be a good run blocker.

Tech doesn’t run a scheme that requires their linemen to be light in weight, and their preferred scheme is not conducive to their players losing a lot of weight.

I think this allows them to be successful while not attracting top flight OL recruits to Lubbock.

Beergut, that’s actually your best contribution to date. Good bit.

Kafka, it’s much like Beergut stated, and I think Leach will still pass with the personnel you described. He lets the QB make the call and Harrell is very pass happy. Harrell is not fast or necessarily strong, but he gets rid of the ball quickly and shuffles his feet to move around in the pocket effectively. He threw 713 attempts last season and was only sacked 18 times in 13 games. Louis Vasquez didn’t allow a sack and Rylan Reed allowed only 1. Think about that for a minute and re-read my offensive preview. Stunts and interior quickness against the right side of our OL is the weak spot when pass rushing.

I will also mentioned here that Tech doesn’t have the overall talent of the top programs in the Big 12, but they’ve recruited as well as anyone in the conference on the OL. Vasquez will play on Sundays, and Reed will get a shot. Winn has the ability to be an All Conference player, and only Carter is the guy who is probably limited by ability. They’ve all got good feet for guys their size outside of maybe Carter and the backup center Byrnes.

Beergut,

Thanks for the confirmation, I thought that might be the case. I was wondering what the absolute max is for the number of DB bodies a D can put on the field before Leach will be forced to run a lot. It appears to be 7 (as I described in the previous post). Funny. It has been so infuriating to see UT play a standard 4-3 against tech. Muschamp will fix that.

I’m pretty familiar with run blocking and pass blocking since in high school I played TE on O (and MLB, DE, and DT on D (not all 3 at the same time)) so I realize that it helps to be quick on your feet (particularly in pass blocking or screen blocking or downfield blocking). I still don’t get how being fat helps the OL much and it definitely hurts your stamina and quickness. With the advent of zone blocking, a lot of the NFL OL men are a bit trimmer to improve their speed. Every time I see a 320 pound OT trying to pass block a super quick 270 pound DE, my heart goes out to the OT.

Given that tech passes almost all of the time, the OL is almost always pass blocking, which is reactive (rather than run blocking which is proactive). If I trying to react to the moves of the rusher while I am moving backwards, that extra fat does nothing for me.

Dedfischer,

Are there quite a few tech OL guys playing on Sundays? One of the reasons that tech OL gives up few sacks is that the tech QB throws the ball quickly most of the time. Leach’s short passing game is a thing of beauty. If the tech OL guys played for UT and had to protect as long as our guys do, they would be giving up more sacks.

Why does tech use such big splits? It seems like it makes it that much tougher for the OL to stop a defender from shooting the big gap that results from those splits. It also gives the DL guy more room to spin out of a block.

The line splits force the best pass rushers (DEs) further away from the QB.

And open up passing lanes.

Pass rush worries are taken care of by the quick passes and screens, which is why it’s so important to slow the QBs roll, which is why Tech needs to do a lot more to counter that.

Kafka, Henry and Chris answered your question regarding the splits. Tech has 3 OL on NFL rosters currently in Manny Ramirez (Detroit), Dylan Gandy (Indy), and Daniel Loper (Ten) all from the last 4 or 5 years. A fourth, E.J. Whitley was drafted by the Cowboys, and blew out his knee ending his career. It’s all true about them not giving up sacks because of Tech’s passing game, but they’re not short on talent either. For example, there’s probably only a couple of guys on UT’s roster that could start on the OL at Tech (this season), but I don’t think there’s anyone as good as Vasquez or Reed. I never thought I would say that 20 years ago.

Watch tape of how Missouri has played Tech the last two years to see how it is done. Two defensive ends have returned picks for TDs after zone blitzes. We did exactly what Chris is describing, all sorts of goofy disguised defenses because they don’t threaten the run.

Or, watch OU against us in the championship game last year. Every time we went empty backfield, they moved Lofton over the slot, knowing we couldn’t threaten the middle of the line with a run. They realized that our only credible running threat in several formations was the end around to Maclin, so moving Lofton out of the middle helped stop that also. Totally agree with Chris, which is why Tech is not scary to me.

Mizzouri has owned our offense the last 2 years. Do whatever they do.

They used a base nickel using strong safety type personnel on the slots. They also picked up on Harrell’s weakness of throwing to the right 70% of the time to the hot read. They would then roll the safety over the top and let the SS covering the slot jump the route and try to make a play on the ball. It worked. The lineman got the hands up and knocked balls in the air resulting in TDs during both games.

I left out the part where they ran zone blitz’s and stunts on Harrell’s right side. In other words, they picked up on Harrell’s tendency and as Chis says, dictated where he threw the ball and then jumped the route.

The one time Mizzou didn’t get to him and Harrell threw back across his body to the left at the man coverage, it resulted in a 68 yard TD. You’ve got to make him throw it on his first read. If you don’t make it there in time, he’s good enough to beat you.

“they picked up on Harrell’s tendency and as Chis says, dictated where he threw the ball and then jumped the route.”

I find this hard to believe

Kafka,

 I’m not saying being a fatass makes you a good pass blocker, I’m saying you can be a fatass and also be a good pass blocker. You can’t be a fatass and be an effective run blocker.

 Think about the steps backwards you can take to pass-block, moving backwards and maybe to the side to cut off an outside rush. That is a lot less physically taxing than having to pull or trap or double-team and then go to the next level and block a linebacker.

The best zone-blocking OL in the NFL (Denver during the Alex Gibbs era) averaged 295 lbs across their front. They regulalry featured the lightest line in the NFL, while simultaneously leading the league in rushing.

Is ‘Chis’ pronounced like jiz?

1. The stunt you have diagrammed shouldn’t work against 6 H-Shallow. The back aligns on the same side of the shallow cross, meaning the back will check-release to the left with H-Shallow. This means the pass protection will be “Larry” with the C blocking the most dangerous man to the backside A gap. The LG will block Big threat, which means he takes the DT who plays in A gap.

2. As another poster pointed out, you really want to have your ends running in space with receivers?

3. If you go back and watch the OU NC year, the difference was not the offense. It was the defense, plain and simple. What’s so funny about Mangino “up[ping] the usage of shovels and draws” is that Leach runs as many shovel passes as any other team in the country.

4. In response to: “The point isn’t to show some all encompassing coverage with no weaknesses. The point is that you can run some goofy shit if you know a pass is coming and get away with it. It’s easy to look at the chalkboard and say "well, harumph, why don’t you just . . ." but it’s a lot harder in live action when you’ve never seen it before.”

The problem is you haven’t taken practice time and execution into consideration. Go ahead and draw up all the goofy stuff you want to get in a QB’s head, and then try to have 11 players consistently execute it while remembering it only takes one goofy defense gone wrong and the offense has scored a TD.

I know this post might be getting a little long, but it drives me crazy to see fans talk about the “fatal flaw” of so and so’s offense. You might not agree with what Tech does or how it does it, but they are the team that has consistenly been among the top offenses year in and year out with tier three players.

I wouldn’t call Crabtree (or even Harrell) at tier three player. They have had great talent at WR and some at RB (and OL as ded pointed out). Tech is top 3 in offense because they try dam hard to be in top 3, winning the game isn’t the only objective with Leach. Eating up clock or taking the foot off the pedal is not something he believes in.

I guess my final thought would be like dick is saying. I agree with a lot of what you wrote, Chris. However, this year we’ll know a definitive answer. Of all the Leach offenses at Tech, he’s never had this good of talent to run it. I wouldn’t trade OL, WRs, or QB with anyone else in the conference to run this specific system. Leach has recruited enough talent to create mismatches at almost every position vs. in the past where he only had one or two. The Lewis kid out of College Station has the potential to be an upgrade to Amendola, if he can traslate his practices on the playing field. RB is the only place I have any concerns, but if Shannon Woods can return back to 2006 form, he’s an upgrade from the production Williams and Henderson (underrated short yardage runner) used to provide. And, we’ll never get another Michael Crabtree and he’s gone in the spring. If it doesn’t work this season, it’s never going to.

And, you don’t have your d-ends “running in space with receivers.” You use them to clog the passing lanes on the crossing routes and short hitches. Two years ago, Xzavie Jackson had an pick6 by dropping back into Harrell’s hot read lane (which was to the left, not right…next play, Moore jumped his hot read right for a pick6).

I think Jackson actually picked off a pseudo-screen.

You are right dedfishcer. The play he picked off was jailbreak screen that he read and made a great play on. Not really a coverage interception; the interception after that wasn’t entirely Harrell’s fault. Robert Johnson screwed up his out route, forcing Harrell to make a bad throw. Johnson should not have settled on that play, but when he did it allowed the defender to pick it off.

As far as what I said about Tier three, let Tech’s personnel at the skill positions speak for itself.

QB-Kliff Kingsbury, B.J. Symons, Sonny Cumbie, Cody Hodges
RB-Johnny Mack, Taurean Henderson, Shannon Woods, Kobey Lewis, Aaron Crawford
WR- Mickey Peters, Trey Haverty, Wes Welker, Nehemiah Glover, Joel Filani, Jarrett Hicks, Robert Johnson, Danny Amendola, Eric Morris, Michael Crabtree

Some of these guys have proven to be nice players, but the most highly recruited skill position player Tech got was Crabtree, and even he was overlooked by some of the bigger schools because he played QB in high school, if I remember correctly. As great as Harrell has turned out, he still was not offered by Texas or OU, and maybe not even by A&M. When I say tier three players, I don’t mean how well they have turned out in college. I mean that Tech usually has to get the scraps after Texas, OU, LSU, and A&M are done.

Chris you make some good points about the coverage. However you are over stating the simple nature of the Leach offense. You are not considering the screens, shuvel passes and now the direct snaps. Its very simple just watch the game winning drive of the Gator Bowl. Teams think they have the field covered and they do! Then the middle opens up, the difference with the Leach spread is the OL splits. That is why a quick guy like Tauren Henderson/Wes Welker was so successful. The space created and the burst of speed is just enoough to get to the next level. The LBs are watching for the slant and the crossing routes and give up 6-12 yards.

Also its what makes the Leach crew so exciting to watch in person. You can see the gaps created by the defense. As soon as the QB see the gaps he starts handing off, or throwing short in the middle. Not really something you see with the out of date TV coverage.