The Football Brainiacs

Image from Soonersports.com

This will be the first of a two-part post where I’ll focus on Baylor’s ability to beat teams deep. Check back later today for Part B.

Baylor has been blowing the top off defenses all year. Be honest. A lot of you are afraid they are going to do the same to us. The stories about Baylor’s speed have spread far and wide – all of Baylor’s WRs run a 4.4…backwards, etc. No doubt Baylor has some great receivers but they’ve had great receivers for the past couple years so I’m not sure much has changed there. We decided to look at how Baylor blew the top off of Kansas St. and I have to say that it probably had less to do with speed and more to do with breakdowns in coverage/missed assignments.

Kansas State gave up five TDs against Baylor. I’ll summarize the first four for you since JY already talked about the fifth one in his Monday post:

1st TD –  was a long drive but Kansas State actually stopped Baylor on a 3rd and long. A late hit drew a 15 yard penalty and extended Baylor’s drive. Baylor’s explosive offense or Kansas State’s mistake? I say K. State’s mistake.

2nd TD – Baylor hits a 93 yard pass to Tevin Reese. This play is about Baylor taking advantage of busted coverage. One could debate who busted because there are different ways to look at this but the bottom line is this isn’t so much about Baylor’s speed as it is about confusion in K. States coverage. Baylor is in 5 wide receiver set with trips (3 WRs) to the right. K. State is playing quarters coverage. Baylor is going to run the #2 receiver (marked in the image below) deep for a wide open TD. To most people it looks like another example of Baylor’s speed. But here’s what really happens:

The two possible players responsible for the error are the nickel (playing over the #2 receiver – circled in bluish purple) and the safety (playing inside the #3 receiver). But with the LBs aligned over the DEnds and given how decisive the safety is at the snap I’m going to assume the safety is playing man on the #3 receiver and the nickel (circled in blue) is playing blue coverage which means he’s got to read that #2 receiver and if the #2 receiver goes deep he has to man up on him.

As you can see in the image below the safety does his job. He mans up on the #3 receiver (dashed red line) and the LB plays the short wall of the #3 receiver (solid red line). But look at the DB circled in blue. He’s supposed to have his eyes on his receiver (the WR he’s connected to with the dashed blue line). Instead his eyes are inside and he hesitates. Tevin Reese, the receiver, isn’t hesitating at all. He’s just running down the field. The DB has a moment of hesitation and poor eye discipline and by the time he realizes what’s happened Reese is gone and its a quick six.

Again this, to me, is an assignment bust. The DB doesn’t play his assignment properly and he makes life too easy for Baylor. Check back in a bit and we’ll show you two more Baylor TD’s that were caused by busts and I’ll tell you what I think Oklahoma needs to do to make sure they avoid giving up the big plays.