Konichiwa B*****s

It’s super gratifying to know it was informative enough to engage someone who already knows a lot about football.

It’s meant to keep things moving and avoid feeling like the video is droning but if it’s distracting for some, I definitely will definitely post another version with no background music.

switching my handle to “The Beard”

We could have “Breakdowns with The Beard”. Sometimes it’d be about football but sometimes I’d just breakdown on camera.

Does that come with a dowry?

there will be more but this one was a chore.

Had to teach myself some new things and that’s can be a slow process if I’m not well caffeinated.

Should have another video feature dropping in the next week although probably not a playbook spotlight.

I bet this post will make ESPN Sports Center’s “Lines of the Day” segment.

It’s easier to talk about now that we have a well constructed run game but there were a number of problems with our run game over the years. Part of the issue that we always had under Davis had to do with not introducing enough doubt into the defensive front… that’s not just misdirection, it’s having run plays that inherently disguise each other. It’s something I’m going to try to explain more fully in the near future. The obvious exception to that was the zone read under Vince because if the front flowed with the blocking they could be wrong… devastatingly wrong.

Our inside zone for the majority of Davis’ tenure was not as physical as the inside zone you see from Texas today. There are several dynamics at play there and one of them is that over the past 15 years the branching of Inside Zone and Outside Zone has become more clear and they have both greatly benefited from the inclusion of gap schemes that bring back the possibility of down blocking.

Under Davis we were very focused on positioning in both inside and outside zone and we tried to make them look exactly like each other with the first step. That meant that in both plays were we starting with lateral steps. Since the front didn’t have to really worry about the backside of the play, they were able to flow with the blockers and attack them causing our blockers to either have to give ground or fail to get the proper leverage to execute their assignments. We weren’t the only team who experience that problem but we didn’t proactively problem solve it and the results were ugly.

Ironically, heading into 2010 we overhauled our run game schematically and actually had a much more updated and realistic approach. But at that point we were so far behind the curve and struggled with old habits and effort that it didn’t matter. The scheme is one part, but if you want a physical run game it has to be part of everything you do as a team.

one thing about zone blocking is that not all zone is the same. The specific blocking techniques vary a ton and the way you coach, constrain, and call a play are crucial to it’s success. Texas has a physical culture these days and you can see it in every aspect of the program from play design to practice pace. There were definitely issues with our play deisgn but probably more precisely the problem was with how we surrounded our zone plays and our approach to practice time, recruiting, and S&C. The run game was not GD’s jam.

Philosophically, I’m a big fan of pairing Zone and Gap schemes together which I think we do very well.

on Gap Scheme that I think you’ll find to you liking. And I did a feature months ago on Pin N Pull if anyone hasn’t seen that:

I teach/tutor math & physics.

Had a grandpa who was a really patient, awesome guy. We used to watch 49ers together sometimes when i was a kid and I think watching with him made me start to pay attention to the details. But also I just love the interplay of strategy and physical ability that play off each other in football. Nothing else like it.

of town for about 10 days. He was putting out a lot of content before he left.

we couldn’t afford him anyway. HE DOES IT FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME.

is LHS’s user page: link

Scroll down; every LHS post is there. Some of the youtube links are broken but I think they can be found with a little Googling.

The nice thing is that both backs have a number of strengths and that means that they may both excel in more situations than most running backs. Longhorn fans know they have a lot of ball handling talent on campus right now but I don’t think they realize just how much. The next two-three years are going to be fun.

I think Joe has a skillset that is really scary from a defensive perspective. As you can see in a lot of those clips his has the ability to bounce out and cut back in a way that you just don’t expect for a back his size. It’s one of the main reasons why the Ricky comparisons keep popping up. Inside Zone is really nice for his skillset as well as the lead plays we run. If there was an area of weakness as a runner last year it was that he didn’t always help his blockers out / take advantage of holes because he was a little too quick to cut or bounce. So it’s been really encouraging to hear about his progress with regards to patience.

I love Brown as a runner. I don’t think he’s quite as dangerous as Berg but his is a damn efficient runner and in a game where my line was having to fight for every inch, I would take him in a second. I think he’s probably a better option early in games when the defense tends to be harder to run on. From a gross offensive strategy perspective he’s a guy that can turn a lot of 0-5 yard opportunities into 5-10 yard gains and that’s huge from a game theory standpoint.

I think both guys have enough tools that they can be effective at anything the playbook. Practice is a live experiment at seeing where they feel like they each guy produces marginally better but I think it will have more to do with how our offense matches up with the defense that determines which plays we lean more on from week to week.

Then you add in Gray. Along with D. Johnson, and Monroe as ball handlers that bring explosive threat as constraints to our running concepts. I think we may have as much or more raw running talent on campus right now as at any time in our history.

that linemen are generally some of the smarter kids out there. They have arguably more to take into account on every play than anyone else on the field, except for the QB.

I know you were kidding, just wanted to throw it out there.

but if you compare what some teams are doing with their zone implementation now you see a lot of the most effective teams are getting away from that tight definition of initial footwork and having their covered defenders take better advantage of their position instead of trying to lure the defense into over pursuing. This is a direct response to how accustomed defensive linemen have become to attacking that uniform step and ripping themselves into the backfield.

We didn’t update our approach with our zone under Davis and I think understanding how to manipulate the front was something that he just struggled with throughout his tenure. There’s a reason why the only time we could successfully deal with a heavy blitz team was when we had a badass QB… Davis understood solutions to problems through the passing game.

And I think you will a lot of programs have pulled it into what they are doing. Our sweeps actually accomplish a lot of the same things because it’s forcing the linebacker who already has a little too much on his plate to make an inside or outside decision. The obvious difference is that stick/draw is an actual read so theoretically the linebacker is always wrong. You’ll see stuff like IZ with stick routes too popping up a lot I would guess. There is a question of how far downfield the refs are going to allow blocking to flow before they call it and I think you’ll see teams testing that boundary this year.

It’s not some sort of unstoppable concept though. All you have to do is attack that stick from an unexpected coverage (like a safety rolling down or a corner sneaking in) and your QB is reading the wrong man. Is not dissimilar to how the scrape exchange rose as a response to the zone read.

Here I was struggling with trying to understand the stick/draw concept (what the hell is a stick/draw?) and you have to throw in your bit about voice over mixing.

I’m heading for the liquor cabinet!

So, pretty much a normal day then?

and a lot of has to do with how the first level defender is reacting to the combo. I certainly don’t know the specific coaching points there. Main thing is that you want to keep your shoulders square and stay on track as you work that combo and then continue on your track upfield and get a hat on anything in your path. You just do not want to chase a block to the inside.

Your description on a combo is right on. A zone combo specifically refers to combo blocks that flow toward the playside where Gap combos are based on down blocks on the first level and then getting to a second level target.