Complementing the Power O: Strongside Outside Pressure

love it. keep it up, longhornscott!

I like that every play you’ve drawn up here helps the playside OT through a combo block or at least an alignment advantage where he can down block. Any reach blocks are on the backside of the play on defenders who aren’t likely to make an impact unless the hold/alley just gets absolutely FUBAR’d. I swear to God I remember half a hundred instances of poor little Jason Glynn being asked to reach block a PLAYSIDE DT with no combo help whatsoever. I know we’re just starting to peel the onion here, but it already sounds like a symphony after listening to two cats fucking in a tin can-filled dumpster.

I don’t have a really accurate ‘feel’ for David Snow’s game beyond “I remember him sucking out loud at guard as a freshman, but last year he seemed to be a pretty good center.” What’s your feel for how effective our primary pulling options (who I’m reading to be Snow and maybe Walters?) will be based on what you’ve seen from them to this point?

Jason Glynn’s rollerskates only knew one direction: Reverse.

Love this stuff, Scott. Nice work.

I’m curious to see where Harsin plugs in Joe Bergeron.

At the same time you’re confusing the defense, you’re introducing a lot more complexity for your own offensive lineman. I’ve heard a lot of grumbling about our OL play for the upcoming year, but watching those videos I see (for a spring game) some good blocking efforts and the players seem to be in position. Is this your assessment too?

Great stuff.

I’m sure that the Greg Davis offense had the same type of cohesiveness, we were just too ignorant to understand.

The Power O when taken alone is a physical play, but one that can be attacked and marginalized. However, when we counter balance the base package intelligently the defense’s difficulty in the run game increases by several orders of magnitude. Bunch them tight then spread them thin. Hit them hard then challenge them to a footrace. Introduce doubt and punish it. To further muddy the waters for the defense, next time we will stir in the base weakside runs and eventually we will add in play action so that we can get the full view of how the base package will seek to exacerbate the defense.

If only you had written this paragraph several years ago, printed it out, and taped a copy to the bottom of every jumbo-sized tub of animal crackers in stock at Austin-area Sam’s Club stores, the tragedy of 2010 might never have happened.

nobis60,
The difference between the running package in the new offense versus the old will be night and day. Everything Harsin has installed so far makes sense together.

I like what I see from Snow, Walters and Hopkins. All of those guys can pull and all of them can dominate a down block. We are going to feature those abilities and that gives us ambidexterity in the run game which really adds to the threat of quick changes of formation strength through motion. I think those 3 are the heart of the offense going into the season.

pleaseplaykindle,
they look better than recent memory because they have assignments that lend themselves to actually driving defenders in most cases. However, I don’t think it would have looked near as coordinated if we were watching 1v1s. They still have plenty of work to do.

Excellent stuff as always, LS. One of the concerns about this series is the reliance on both the right tackle and tight end to both hold the power end and then make it to the next level of the defense. Considering that, aside from QB, that may be our two weakest positions on offense, and it’ll be interesting to see how Harsin, Searels, and Chambers coach up these two spots.

great stuff. the “flex outside zone” is also called TED (tight end down) in a lot of coaching circles (including at Boise)

10 yards minimum offense.

Dammit, now I’m starting to get optimistic about this year’s offense. Time to watch the spring game again.

Great stuff, thanks LS.

Brickhorn – well put! But then we wouldn’t be looking forward to the upcoming season quite as much.

Great stuff, LS.
 
Interesting how something as simple as the QB carrying out his fake on the inside zone creates a cutback seam backside. Look how the Hawaii DE reacted. If he pushes down and collapses as he should, that’s a one yard run.
 
Those are the little things that have been missing from our offense.
 
I’ve always thought of the Toss Sweep as a good momentum call when the rest of the running game is working or the defense is pinching down inside. It’s also a nice gut check on the other team’s corners and safeties to assess whether they want to mix it up in the running game.

“The Toss Sweep is a quick hitting assault on the alley that is designed to get the running back in space and get to second level blocks as soon as possible.”

“We will use Jet Sweeps as well to similar effect but the Jet Sweep will hit the alley even faster than the toss sweep.”

I don’t think that’s legal is it? I haven’t seen a quick hitting running play on the forty acres in a dozen years.

Not to give you any ideas, but I’d gladly pay 3 or 4 times the current admission price for more of this. Awesome stuff. Now we all expect much more of this.

In Jim Bouton’s book, Ball Four, fellow pitcher Mike Marshall mentions his random pitch theory. He essentially says that the traditional approach to pitch sequencing is too predictable and pitchers would be better off randomly selecting their pitches to keep the hitter off balance.

Whenever anyone complained about GD’s random offense, I always thought of Mike Marshall. Somehow though, GD’s offense was simultaneously both random and predictable.

Good to see Harsinwhite introducing uncertainty to the defense rather than the offense.

Great stuff Scott. It’s refreshing to know that thirteen years of tendencies and scouting reports won’t be biting us in the ass every Fall Saturday afternoon. Thanks for illustrating that fact with each one of your articles. Keep it coming.

backside -

A random playcall doesn’t buy you any advantage if the formation and personnel give the play away.

The lack of diverse play packages out of a given formation is what killed us under Greg Davis. It should come as no surprise that Texas was best offensively when VY and Colt were improvising with their feet. A scrambling quarterback gave our offense the diversity it was otherwise lacking. Not by design, of course, but by dumb luck.

Yes!! Can’t wait to see this in action next season. This offense actually had thought put into it from a macro conceptual level. Love it.

It was good to see actual downfield blocking with a hat on every defender, including hats on the heads of receivers. What a concept.

As a kid who grew up an Oilers fan, I learned to hate the Run and Shoot offense. It was great for putting up a lot of points against mediocre defenses, but would collapse when you played the Steelers of the world.

I know that Texas didn’t run the Run and Shoot, but to me it always seemed like one of its pink pantied sisters.

I’ve wanted a return to steamroller offense since Ricky left campus. Things look hopeful.

Question.

The Wishbone involved real-time reads by the QB to know whether to hand off to the FB, keep or pitch. Other offenses require the QB to read defensive sets and option the play prior to the snap.

Am I wrong that this Power O series requires none of that? That it instead depends on rapid development to create superior offensive numbers at the point of attack? $64,000 question: Does this make our QB’s life much simpler than in previous years? And if that QB is GG, does it help keep him from being up in his head as much as he seemed to be last year?

I get how it works for the linemen. But I’d appreciate a little more insight into what this does for our backs, including the QB.

Harsin reminds me of the kid who when playing battleship has a very definitive strategy for finding his opponents ships.

Davis reminded me of the kid who after getting a hit at A-1 would yell out M- 16 ignoring the success he just had and not even realizing his next shot isn’t even on the freaking board.

The best strategy for Battleship is to move your ships around.

Downfield blocking by WRs is huge. Watch any VY highlight and you’ll see receivers killing it downfield. Somehow that concept disappeared. I’m hopeful we’ll see it come back.

PVogel,

Thanks, I haven’t heard that terminology before. It make sense… it’s part of the series of gap runs where the tight end blocks down. Do you know if Boise State runs the arc play on the strongside? I only have a handful of Boise State games from last season and I haven’t seen it but it fits perfectly into the progression.

Scipio,

Yep. Attention to presentation is one of Harsin’s trademarks in his play design. The threat is real because Boise State will literally turn any backfield action into a play fake.

Getting Malcom Brown square in the alley will never be a bad choice. The sweep can go bad but I agree that it’s an important part of the run game. Harsin isn’t afraid to take his lumps on a negative play… he’s still going to challenge the defense throughout the game. With the integration of gap runs and zone runs it revitalizes a lot of plays against the front that we were seeing less and less of.

Trips,
It’s a new day. Breaking this stuff down is helping me cleanse.

OldTimeHorn,
There are some decisions to be made by the QB in terms of getting in to the right play… but Harsin is involved there too (with signals from the sideline). The Power O is not a read play… there’s no option. However there is a backside quick slant packaged with it which the QB can decide to go to at the snap if he likes the spacing there. I would say that this system has a much more diverse set of responsibilities for the offensive players but they are also much more reasonable tasks than what was asked of them in the previous system.

Great stuff, LS. Cogent explanation of the basics of a coherent, integrated offensive system. How novel.

One of my fave things about we’re seeing is that the HarsApple O demands that players be both mentally and physically competent, but they needn’t be All-Universe on either count, as the plays are designed and called to keep the D off-balance and guessing… as opposed to former years, which … never mind, we all know how it worked (or didn’t work, more to the point).

Thanks, Longhorn Scott. I have a hunch Gilbert, assuming he has staying power, will be more comfortable in this scheme.

10 yards. Minimum.

LS, I’ve enjoyed your breakdown of the new “Power O” based running game. I especially appreciate the clips, both of us an Boise. One question:

Just out of curiosity, do you know if any of our opponents used a similar playset against UT in the last few years? With the Big 12 going primarily “West Coast,” maybe they haven’t, but I was curious because I’d like to know how (or if) Muschamp was able to defend it.

Thanks again! I could read these all summer! (If only the summer mags had breakdowns like these…)

hoju,

There’s a bunch of teams that run the power play but most of them run it from spread sets. The Air Raid offense’s don’t use motion and extra blockers in the same way that Harsin’s offense does, but I think you will see similarities in the screen game and the passing concepts when you look at our spread sets. I would say the closest analog in our conference in Oklahoma’s offense although their run game is focused more on the the zone runs and builds off of them. But they have a similar mix of power sets and passing sets.

A lot of what Muschamp was able to accomplish came from having a really talented front 7 and high level play from his corner backs, and Earl Thomas (I’m thinking 2009 here). Muschamp did a good job of varying the defensive calls on 1st and 2nd downs and had a great man deny defense on 3rd down. His players knew their assignments, knew their techniques and were very talented… and he gave the offense a moving target. Conceptually I would say the best thing Muschamp did was bring the concept of the defense learning a lot of different looks and responsibilities by specializing some of his players and then having a group that could morph to play the core roles in different looks.

In some ways Harsin’s offense hits the same chord. He has some mutable players that play a lot of different roles allowing the offense to function from a lot of different looks (and flow between them pre-snap) and then specialized roles for guys with a limited but effective skill-set.

The BSU toss sweep against Utah embedded above looked to have been doomed from the outset – three defenders on two WRs – someone’s either not blocked at all or the FB has to adjust and pick up the third defender, ain’t it?

As it was, neither of the WRs made much of a block, and the FB circled inside and obstructed (I guess we can call diving at his feet an obstruction?) but didn’t block his man. Is this a pre-snap alignment that the QB should see and check out of?

Just curious, what do you use for running the “film”? I haven’t looked very hard, but I’m assuming there’s some decent software – I’m still a knob-and-button kinda guy… still miss that jog-shuttle wheel, and trying to mouse that kinda stuff doesn’t work too bueno for me. I’d assume that like audio software there’s A-V software that has a “work surface” with those good ol’ knobs and buttons (probably at a breath-taking price).

Great stuff, Scott – highly appreciated here. Thank you, very much.