Complementing the Power O: Passing in the Power Sets

Apologies for the garbled audio on a few of the clips and the ridiculous length of this piece. It got out of hand.

Glad I didn’t go to bed early tonight. Great stuff as usual,

The thing I love the most about this series LS is that we are actually looking at a real, tried and tested scheme. Luckily, it makes good players great… and hopefully great players awesome. Five stars for pulling back the curtain.

Boise State’s film against Bud Foster and Va. Tech is an excellent example of how a well conditioned scheme combined with players who excel at focusing on execution can overcome wide talent discrepancies, and make even great DC’s seem average.

Thank you for this piece and really the whole series in general. Incredibly informative and very well done.

Awesome. More please. Very clearly explained too.

Well played, sir. The entire series illustrates a fundamental backbone and foundation for a quality offense to stand on it’s own merits—-all that’s missing are the well coached subjects with the ability to remain flexible at decision making time. While most are concerned with the OT position I still believe the interior three make or break the power “O” package. The design of the play (action) has built-in safety nets for the island blockers (OT’s)—-it’s the savvy decisions (on the run—-pass included) of the pulling guards that streamline the effectiveness of the series.

The biggest concern at this point (for me) is the lack of nation wide pursuit for bodies that fit the tight-wing composition with powerful flexibility and adaptability. Our roster has 5,837 guitar pickers (oops, TE’s) but 99% either can’t catch a cold or won’t bite a bisquit. Finding another half-dozen Bergeron types (shame he will be spread too thin as it is—-he’s a keeper) should be higher on the priority list (strictly my opinion but we can’t find real TE’s in this great state evidently) than casting misplaced WR’s (like Mal Williams) in a role designed for physical minds and good hands people.

Thanks for the football pice Scott—-it’s about time you earned your keep.

interesting you day, t-football. i’ve been asking for a couple of months, anyway, why we aren’t focusing on recruiting tight end(s), and the closest thing i’ve gotten to an answer, and that indirectly, is that we have so many ‘tight ends’ in the program that we can’t afford any more right now.

huh???

but what do i know? actually, not that much.

great series, scott, and much appreciated. it really helps us all gain a better understanding and a confidence that we are moving in a sound direction, even if it takes a while to bear fruit.

‘say’ not ‘day’. butterfingers.

great stuff.

and despite how it looks pre-snap thats exactly how you want to attack quarters coverage- with play action (that and attacking the flats).
Quarters is sending both safeties as the force players. Its a very aggressive coverage. But just about every team runs quarters coverage and a ton base out of it.
This is great though I am glad that the PA pass is gonna be a big part of our game. Cant wait for this season.

Time for the burnt orange turf.

Considering our talent our offense should be a beautiful sight to behold this year and for many more to come.

Manna in the desert.

Water from heaven.

Awesomeness.

Great, great breakdown as usual, LS. Since I’m hung over and have nothing better to do this Sunday, I’m going to re-read the Power O run sets posts and see if I can ID the particular plays in those posts that each play action detailed above mimics. And you know what’s awesome? Even if they aren’t all covered in those posts, THEY’LL BE IN THE OFFENSE. We’ll be showing defenders a varied array of powerful run sets and forcing them to commit while systematically punishing them for their choices – both the choices they make pre-snap from an alignment standpoint and the choices (or hesitation) that occur post-snap as they try to diagnose what’s happening. It’s easy to forget that this is what a good offense is SUPPOSED to do.

For anyone that wants to develop a better understanding of offensive football and to discuss it at a high level, it’s tremendously instructive to just sit down with a blank piece of paper and start to draw up some running plays. The type and formation don’t matter – pro set, wing t, spread – just start drawing it up and figuring out who should be blocking who. The first thing you’ll likely realize is that you are never going to get all your little O’s to successfully block all those little X’s if each X can just race to the point where the run is designed to go from the snap – speed and angles are going to dictate that your O’s will have to do some superhuman shit if that’s the case. When you can get some of those X’s to take a false step, or even just hesitate for a half second, things change dramatically. Suddenly your O’s are getting to block down on those defensive line X’s, get off combo blocks and still be able to cut off those linebacker X’s, and get those strong safety X’s caught up in the wash. (This makes me think how fun it would be if Sailor could pull ChrisApplewhite out of his cryo-sleep and get him to marry up some flash X’s and O’s as a complimentary illustration to this series’ YouTube clips).

I’ll always believe two things about Greg Davis – one, that he stole 95% of the plays that he ever called, and two, that his fundamental confusion with the failures of the run game was that ‘the damn X’s never do what they’re supposed to do.’ For much of his tenure, our offense was a mish-mashed mixup of plays stolen from everywhere – the Broncos, the Colts, colleges, and even Houston Madison (although those worked pretty well thanks to VY). Except for the built-in constraint offered by the zone read, defenses never had to work hard to diagnose or take false steps when clubbing our run game – the offense just wasn’t a coherent whole that would have forced them to do so. That’s why I’m at least 9-wins optimistic for 2011 – our offense is just going to be a damned quantum leap from what we saw last year.

Since the first post in this series I’ve shared TexasFootball’s concern that our biggest deficiency from a personnel standpoint looks to be in the TE/H-back role, but I’m holding out some optimism that blocking angles and defensive hesitation will help make up for the fact that Jason Witten isn’t going to be walking through that door.

This series has also given me some thoughts on our OL deployment. I don’t claim any strong knowledge of our 2011 OL personnel beyond what I’ve read here and other places, but a consensus seems to be that Trey Hopkins may be our best option at either left guard or left tackle. Traditionally I’d bias towards putting the best guy at LT to save the QB. Since this offense’s success will be so predicated on establishing a power run game – which, in turn, will likely be driven first and foremost by our interior OL – I wonder if we won’t be better served deploying Hopkins as a mashing, pulling guard. With our emphasis on the run game, extensive use of the three-step game and heavy dosage of play action, it seems that this offense will greatly limit the number of times where the LT is asked to get on an island and protect the QB on a deep drop when the DE knows it’s pass all the way.

This series is fantastic – hope the next installment is out soon.

I don’t know about it being beautiful this year. These posts are encouraging but it’s still on the QB to make the right read. Fucking Gilbert chose to throw to double covered Ahmard Howard instead of Mike Davis one on one streaking down the middle.

Texasfootball,

I view the offensive line similarly. I think in the spread sets there could be more of an issue but hopefully the quick game and the screens will give us some constraints.

I am hopeful that we can find two or three out of our tight ends and h-backs who will do the dirty work and are mentally up to the challenge even if they don’t have the whole physical package. The rest of the guys at that spot need to be encouraged to seek out other challenges in life. There’s talk that Bluiett may be an answer at tight end eventually, but it’s hard to see anyone in the near term being an actual offensive weapon.

I view this year as an opportunity for our offensive personnel to build a mental and physical vocabulary of spacing and leverage. I think they have no choice but to become better fundamental football players in this system. I hope enough of our fanbase can recognize progress even if all the pieces aren’t in place to start. 2009 warped a lot of perception about some of the holes we were developing on offense.

I’m glad you read the series. Anytime I can lure you into sharing a thought or two, I know I’ve done my job.

PVogel,
I view Quarters as conservative in that its trying to deny 4 verts first and foremost. But you are right that it can be taught aggressively. You can attack shallow and outside all day against quarters if you want to… but you are requiring all that execution for minimal upside. I just wanted to illustrate how Harsin is not passive in his “take what the defense gives you”.

The play action is going to be integral for us and I think rightly so when you look at the make up of our team right now. I’m pretty excited about that too.

nobis60,

I think you’ll find the majority of the play action comes from inside and outside zone looks. Those create a lot of the lateral movement the offense wants. But in reviewing Boise State’s film there are examples of play action from Power O, Counter, inside zone, and outside zone. Harsin definitely isn’t afraid to turn just about any run action into protection but it does require a level of confidence and decision making from the offensive line. We aren’t going to step in and get the level of protection for our quarterbacks that Moore got last year, but I think we will be there within a year or so.

Glad you have enjoyed the series. I think there’s a few more in me if I can find the time and attention to draw them out.

This piece has convinced me that all you need out of your QB in a well designed and executed system is intelligence. It’s almost all about making the correct read because the throw doesn’t typically have to be perfect in 1 on 1.

So, which of the 4 QB’s is the best at reading coverages? Obviously GG is (still) guessing out there, but are any of the others any better?

you guys dont think mj or bergeron can fit into these sorts of h-back/te spots? come on.

speaking strictly for myself, of course.

we are going very hard for a few very special oos kids to fill known existing holes in the team. my great belief is that harsin makes his living practically off good tight ends, and we don’t have a proven war horse of that stripe.

i personally have been a huge proponent of mcfarland and of bergeron, but nothing is golden yet about either, though i understand both are showing a lot of promise. i’m hoping and assuming, really, these guys and the ones already in the program, including irby, are impressing the coaches, and that’s why we haven’t pushed the issue this season. i’m also wondering if they don’t think onyegbule — whose name i still don’t know how to pronounce — might be a prime candidate in a year or two after some chassis work by bennie. bodies by fisher is a thing of the past. now it’s bodies by bennie.

I need to go back and read this again, but damn LHS, you are f*cking golden.

meant to mention hearing that bluiett is a real possibility, too.

I think Bergeron is a full back in this offense. And while the fullbacks occasionally take on the h-back role, it is distinct from the tight end position who also play part time in the h-back role.

I hope McFarland can contribute… I was responding more to the lack of tight end targets in the next class considering the definite need.

If nothing else tight end and full back will no longer be viewed as the positions where people land because they couldn’t cut it elsewhere.

Awesome piece, LHS. Every Texas fan should take the 8-10 minutes it takes to study it. And then go back and read your previous efforts. Best Harsin tutorial on the web by a wide margin.
 
Some thoughts:
 
- The slant/run option highlighted in clip #1 is such an easy throw and catch when the defense refuses to respect the possibility of a throw. Although it’s usually going get you 5-8 yards and a first down, there’s always a decent shot of a big play, particularly if the D crashes their safety to stop your short yardage run. Basically, you’re now running a slant 1 on 1 and it’s nothing but green turf if the corner doesn’t make the tackle. That’s what I like about Boise – even their most mundane plays have a realistic scoring potential built into them.
 
- Receivers who will run to open grass instead of dumbly running a route or drifting into safeties are a huge asset. As are ones who catch the ball.
 
- The cut-up of Gilbert’s decision making really highlights one of my reservations about him: at LT, he played in a largely one-read offense where he knew where he was going with the ball before the snap. He hasn’t shown the ability to see the field yet. Greg Davis’ tutelage only regressed him. We badly need a QB who can keep his eyes downfield and see the play develop for Harsin’s offense to truly shine.
 
- Harsin’s ability to force the deep ball with max protect is a wonder. And playing LB or DE against him must feel like an extended mindfuck.
 
- We now have an offense with intention, not improvisation, as its primary component. I expect the Connor Brewer model of QB to be our preference going forward.

Texasengr, I believe the prevailing thought is that McCoy makes the best reads, but he also throws a putrid deep ball and that will be big in this offense.

Scott, how much of Boise’s success was based off repetition, continuity, and having everyone on the same page? Tough question to answer, but I’m curious if our guys will be able to fully grasp this offense, or grasp it enough to make it effective in the first couple weeks.

I’m still worried sick about QB.

In the midst of the clusterfuck that was 2010, I was drooling over some pieces on BSU, Petersen, and Harsin. One of the things that intrigued me was a statement by one of them that every play they run can score if the D does what they expect and all O players carry out their fakes and blocks, and that regardless of the outcome of any play, it is never considered a failure because they learn what the D will do in response to the shift, motion, and post-snap action, and they give the D a look at something that will be contradicted later in the game and condition the D to respond incorrectly in their reads.

I can only believe that every player on the O is absolutely salivating over the prospects of what they are going to be making happen this fall – linemen, backs, receivers… and especially the QBs.

One of the points I’ve belabored is that the HarsinWhite O does not make its major requirement all-World athletic ability, but rather – first and foremost – intelligence, followed by athletic competence: everything else is gravy.

I am fairly sure we have at least a decent amount of athletic talent on the team, and with good coaching and good – no, make that excellent – schemes, plus a renewed sense of motivation (sadly lacking last year), we are going to be pretty damn happy with what we see this season.

(PS – is it just me, or did it seem to others that McCoy did a much better job of making his reads that the only other QB who got major snaps in the springer?)

I just wonder how much will be implemented fromthe new offense by this fall. They have been running the same system, with the same type of players, for a long time at Boise State. i hope our kids are bright and hard working enough to pick up everything the coaches are throwing at them.

- We now have an offense with intention, not improvisation, as its primary component. I expect the Connor Brewer model of QB to be our preference going forward.

Which makes me hesitant to go along with the popular line of thinking that Swoopes is our guy for 2013. Maybe Harsin can mold him more into his ideal QB but that would take time and if Swoopes wants to be the man right away Texas might not be for him. Brewer is the ideal QB for Harsin’s offense and in 2013 there’s another similar kid; probable Aggie Kohl Stewart.

I’m confident Harsin will put the tight ends we do have in places to be successful but I’d like to see them target one in this cycle. Ok St. commit Ramacher is ideal for the Boise St. system.

Scipio,

Thanks for adding your thoughts. As always, a lot of insight there.

Agreed on the upside aspect of that quick slant. I’ve always been partial to that play and the drive route because I grew up a Niners fan. I had a couple more paragraphs written up on it that got cut because I felt like I was overcookin the grits, so I’m glad you hit on the potential there. Basically, that play makes it so that if a defense wants to outnumber the protection on the weakside (which is exactly where I would want to attack the passing game in these formations), they either have to give up a body against the Power O or they are going to give our offense a 1-on-1 with our best receiver. That’s a significantly greater risk than most DCs are going to want to take. Also, the implications of that little wrinkle on 3rd and short shouldn’t be overlooked. Perhaps obvious, but there’s hardly any route that develops better rhythm and timing between a QB and a Wide Receiver than a quick slant. As I said, it’s the first thing I’ve noticed on film that I hadn’t seen in some form on Boise State film so it’s damn encouraging that it’s smart on a couple levels.

I do want to make it clear that I’m not trying to pile on Gilbert with the play I highlighted. As Scip points out, the nature of the error was discouraging because he made the wrong read on essentially a two man route and he was in the best possible situation: stable pocket with a lot of time and space to throw and the routes were featuring his better throw: the deep ball. It calls into question his ability to see the field as the play progresses. However, the main point of the highlight was to show how great the execution by the offensive line was on that play and how the play action pass in the power sets is going to put our quarterbacks in good situations.

rowdy,
That’s my read on McCoy as well. Short of some Rookie of The Year antics, I think McCoy is going to have a hard time putting the pressure on the defense that we need him to with the deep throws.

As far as execution goes, I basically view this year in that vein. I think it’s going to take the majority of the season to go from executing plays to just playing our brand of football. And the truth is that we are razor thin at a number of key spots. When that’s the case you have to expect to be shorthanded through at least part of the season. All that said, I believe the skeleton of this offense is strong and as long as we focus on that early and build from it each week we are going to achieve a high level of play by the end of the year. And that’s exactly how I will judge this team, by how they progress not by their record. If we lose 4 of the first 5 games of the season but we are playing great football by the end of the year then I’m a happy man.

papadev,

I think the base offense will be there by game 2. But Boise’s overall playbook was pretty extensive last year, I don’t expect Harsin to put in all the same packages. He will have some extras in every gameplan though. The point is that the base offense will be there every week and we will keep getting better and better at it. Don’t fret :]

I fell in love with Ramacher’s film the first time I saw it. The kid loves to block, looks like a natural pass catcher and has the athletic ability to be his high school’s Wildcat QB.

If you get the chance, you take a kid like that in every recruiting class.

I love it. This is a great series.

Keep up the great work, Scott.

I want to take this series behind the middle school and get it pregnant.

LHS, thank you very much! That is just awesome!

The three verticals play made my pants tingle, by the way. I only recall a couple of times where we even tried that before this coming year and one of them was a 92 yard touchdown pass from Simms to Johnson at Houston in the Erector Set Bowl.

I think we really do have the personnel this season to run the ball effectively. Walters is a future NFLer and Snow is a solid center, if only we could get merely average QB play we might be on to something.

This is why Youtube was invented. Awesomeness, LHS.

Ash/Brewer seem like the perfect QBs for Harsin’s system. The million dollar question is how much of a leash does the staff Mack give Gilbert if he is slow to pick it up? 3 games? 6? 11 + directional bowl?

Someone get Tim DeRuyter a binkie and blanket

I very much admire the way LHS integrates short videos with his lucid prose. If Scott’s skills weren’t first rate, I’d be falling asleep after the second paragraph. Now I feel like I actually know a little something about what to look for and why things will work (or fail). Compliments.

Do we feel like we have a pretty bright bunch of OLs? That’s an unprejudiced question as I have no idea either way. If we do, I would imagine they’d be delighting in the challenge and anticipated results. If we do not, I worry that the fakes and feints will be half-hearted or bungled and we’ll have a real mess on our hands.

I’m optimistic about things this year. Very optimistic. If we just show the kind of improvement LHS seeks, I think the recruiting train keeps rolling and we return to our form as a national monster.

“Apologies for the garbled audio on a few of the clips and the ridiculous length of this piece. It got out of hand.”

It could have been three times longer and I would have read every bit of it. Actually, I’m inclined to call you a slacker for it’s brevity.

The video clips to illustrate each point are what make this series such a jewel—a real gift to the X/O novices like myself. Thanks for the considerable time and effort this must have required, LHS. My recurring thought reading the series has been: so, this is what a real offense looks like.

I also could not agree more that improvement is a much more important metric for this season than wins and losses. This gets back to the reason for my handle. I first started prowling these boards in 1999 when the first big recruits started to roll in and expectations were getting out of hand. My “hope” for the program was consistent improvement. Never more true than in 2011.

LHS . . . Can’t say thanks enough for your whole series. I’ve never been an Xs and Os type, and I’m too old to change, but you’re getting me at least somewhat educated in that area.

My question — sorry for its long-winded nature. To set up: I see us starting sophomores at both guards and one tackle, a freshman playing a lot at RB, a grab-bag at TE/H-back, and a couple of sophomores and a true freshman getting a lot of the snaps at WR. Plus, the unknown QB situation. How likely is it that Harsin can get this group educated (re-educated, really) and functional? And how long might that take?

Just read through the whole series. Excellent work, great research.

great stuff LHS!

LHS, I’m not impressed. You completely overlooked off-cycle plays as a key component to any offense. Plus, you failed to mention the key to winning football games: SCORING OFFENSE. You clearly know little about the game.. Now back to my peanut butter sandwich and crosswords.

edsp,

there’s no real way to know how well we will be able to get the group educated. I do know that Harsin seems to have an extremely organized approach and comes off as a very clear thinker. There isn’t as much complexity as you might imagine… all of the run plays really just break down to about 5 blocking series for the offensive linemen. So while the offense is fairly complex as a whole, the individual learning curves are not insane. My guess is that is takes half the season for us to gain any comfort level in the offense… we may be executing prior to that but I think we’ll be playing brain first instead of the offense feeling natural for our players. I think it will probably be into next season before our team is truly fluent in this offensive system.

One thing I do know about Harsin 3rd hand is that he will repeat a play in practice as long as it takes to get it. Practice repitition will be key this summer.

I think UT is fully operational in the Harsin offense around 2013. The most underrated component of the Boise State system was repetition. They didn’t make mistakes, they weren’t out of position, and they executed consistently. You didn’t see a whole lot of true freshmen playing on the Smurf Turf. The starters were, by and large, 3rd and 4th year players.

^If the offense takes 3 years for players to learn then it’s probably too complicated for the NCAA – I doubt Boise State was the magical exception to this rule.

The fact that their starters are largely 3rd and 4th year players is a fucntion of 1) the fact that pretty much every single team, from 1-120, has starters that are predominantly upperlcassmen 2) unlike other top 20 programs, most of their players are not really good enough to go early entry.

he will repeat a play in practice as long as it takes to get it.

Hmmmm… do you suppose that means that if we run the sweep from the Jumbo, the lead blockers won’t run right by tacklers?

i’m going to bet that blockers that run right by tacklers — unless instructed to do so for some reason — won’t be blockers very long. they’ll be yellers of encouragement, and some of them will be pretty old yellers.

Could qualify as old yaller, mebbe even high yaller. Damn sure yalled my throat out last year when I saw that happen. Thought: them boys mighta walked through that a coupla times, but they surer’n hell didn’t by-God practice it.

Tips…understand your concern about going all in with Swoopes vs a more Conner Brewer type. How would a dual threat work into this offense? But, then I think, Harsin has never really had the luxury of working with a stellar, dual threat guy…just think of what he might come up with if given that extra dimension of play? Intriguing to think what all he and Major might be able to do.

To make BSU’s offense work, you will have to stop going after the so called 5-star recruits, who are premadonnas. When Harsin got to Texas he was frustrated because alot of your players couldn’t grasp the complex offense that he is trying to teach.

Boise beat Oregon twice with RS freshman and sophmores. Only 2 seniors that started the 2009 game.
The poster who commented that Harsin won’t move on to another play until the present one is mastered is entirely correct. Harsin will also use personnel groups so that they only have to know some of the plays but know them well. This keeps more players focused and interested.
If Tx can get a qb who can read defenses a third as well as Moore, you’ll have a winner.