The Football Brainiacs

Image via Soonersports.com

Against West Virginia this past weekend, Oklahoma gave up over 500 yards. The first half was especially rocky. Given the less than stellar performance at certain points during this game, I wanted to really go through each defensive play of the game. I’ll try to continue to update this first half post throughout the day. If the length is a little overwhelming, you can skip down to the posts where I’ve highlighted a touchdown play.

1st QUARTER

1st SERIES

– 1st down: Jordan Phillips isn’t quite able to hold the point of attack and WVU runs between the tackles for a decent gain.

– 2nd down: OU is playing Cover-3 on the near side and man on the far side. Striker comes off the edge and even against a three step drop, he gets to Trickett for a big sack. Watching Q.Hayes in man coverage on a post here really gives you a sense of why OU needs players like Kahlil Haughton. Hayes is asked to do much of what you demand of a CB and more. Haughton brings a similar skill set, in that he can legitimately play man coverage but brings more length and open field striking ability.

– 3rd down: Next play OU is going to show five man rush, bring four, and play coverage behind it. WVU is going to throw a boundary screen, and Chuka reads it perfectly. The concern I have here is how slowly Dom seems to read this. He does a nice job of evading the initial blocker, but if Chuka doesn’t read this Dom would have never been in position to slow that screen down. He tries to carry the receiving threat coming out of the backfield, but it’s just not necessary. The safety has him in man.

Summary: First series OU does a nice job of getting pressure and still guarding against the screen.

2nd SERIES

– 1st down: Show Cover-2 shell and then shift to a single high safety with Julian backing off his initial press look. Striker gets a great jump off the edge, but WVU again throws a boundary screen. Evans does a good job of reading it early and is able to keep himself from getting walled off then forces the play back inside. WVU picks up some nice yardage here. They’re doing this early to try to slow down the pass rush. Striker is such a threat off the edge that I would have liked to have seen Phillips or the boundary end rush and then drop just to preemptively attack their screen game.

– 2nd down: Here again their offensive line is going to get some great push against our defensive line and really blow the left side of the DL off the ball. Results in a 1st down.

– 1st down: Tapper is going to blow this running play up. He comes off the ball and destroys the guard allowing the other defenders to stuff the ball carrier for minimal gain.

– 2nd down: Twice in a row WVU is going to motion Kevin White and force OU to bring Ahmad Thomas down to cover. Expect to see that a lot against Baylor. Here they’re going to do it because they see Wilson and Q.Hayes in man coverage to the field, so they’re going to create one-on-one match-ups without any safety help. WVU is going to run a little switch route, which creates a bit of a pick on Q.Hayes. Julian is going to be in press here and moves his feet nicely. But I wish OU would have their press corners get a little jam just to disrupt the natural pick that these kinds of routes create. Q.Hayes stayed in phase with the WR, but for some reason at the last minute he pulls up. Fortunately, the ball was overthrown.

– 3rd down: OU comes out in their nickel package here and Byrd comes in at safety with Q.Hayes moving down to nickel. This ends up being a tunnel screen. Byrd triggers better than any safety I’ve seen in OU’s secondary. He reads this play before just about anyone and is there in an instant. The problem is Hatari is reckless when he comes downhill. A couple weeks back, he not only missed the tackle but he knocked Steven Parker out of the play. This time he misses the tackle, but gets just enough to trip up Kevin White. I love how quickly he reads the play.

Summary: Pretty good defensive series here for OU, but already you can see Holgorsen is using motions and screens to see how OU adjusts to what they’re doing.

3rd SERIES

– 1st down: This starts out as a Cover-2 look, turns into a man free press look, and ends up in a Cover-3. Julian is in match-man and the receiver is going to come back and find the ball. Geneo was playing the curl flat zone and with OU, the DE is going to loop outside and have contain on the QB. Geneo needs to find the receiver in his zone quicker and get himself in the path of the ball to force the QB to look somewhere else. This is a decent completion.

– 2nd down: In this next play, WVU only needs about four yards for the first down and they’re gonna run a quick curl/hitch route. Julian is going to turn out of his stance, shuffle, and bail immediately. I just don’t understand this call. There is no curl/flat help by any other defender, which means this is Julian’s guy. Why bail? I just don’t like his technique in this situation. He should be pressed up on this receiver and playing straight back pedal man-t0-man. Just seeing too much of that Nick Saban technique in what OU does with their corners right now. Not a fan of it myself. The WR drops the ball but it should have been an easy completion.

– 3rd down: And that’s exactly what he does on the next play. Julian gets up on the WR and gives him no room. Squeezes him to the boundary, and Trickett has no room to make the play.

Summary: This looked like Holgorsen trying to see if he could pick on Wilson. Julian did a nice job of showing that he can change direction with the smaller shifty outside WR.

4th SERIES

– 1st down: WVU tries to run a reverse, Geneo reads this beautifully, and they stone it.

– 2nd down: OU is playing man free here and, again, WVU is going to test Julian with a curl route. Julian is going to play off about eight yards and back pedal. He’ll break on the ball and give up the completion, but stop the receiver immediately after the catch. He’s high in his back pedal. If he’s lower, he comes out of his back pedal quicker. I can’t see what he does here because he goes out of the screen, but I remember seeing him take a false step on t-step in the Tennessee game. Technique is paramount at corner and makes the difference between a completion and a PBU.

– 3rd down: This is a 3rd and 1 and again WVU really gets a nice push against our defensive line. They get the 1st down easily.

– 1st down (TOUCHDOWN): So up until this point, OU has played really well on defense. Primary critique, oddly enough, would just be the defensive line losing some battles in short yardage situations. But there’s been pressure on the QB and good coverage. WVU has been targeting Wilson the whole time. Now, however, they’re going to attack Zack Sanchez. OU is in man free here. Kevin White is going to give Zack an outside release at the snap, then come back inside and blow right past Zack.

When I initially watched this happen, Sanchez looked like he played it lazy as if he thought he was going to get help over the top. But after watching it a few times, this is just a situation where Sanchez loses a battle on a great route and to a very big and very fast athlete. When Sanchez sees the route go back inside, he is able to flip his hips quickly but he just doesn’t have the burst to get up field with an athlete like White (and I’m not sure many people do).

A couple other things to note in the picture below:

1. First of all, typically against Cover-1 you want to send your receiver inside towards the safety help. However, the way coach Saban plays this (and I’m assuming OU does as well) is if the WR aligns more than half way to the boundary, you force the receiver outside and use the boundary for help. If he’s further inside, then you force him that same direction towards your safety. Zack gives him both. On his initial hop at the snap, if Zack gives more ground backwards and inside on the release, he can stay in position for any route. This seems especially important given the fact that he doesn’t have the size to even remotely slow down White when he comes back inside. In fact, attempting to get his hands on White once he came back inside didn’t do much more than slow Zack down a bit.

2. Notice Trickett’s eyes here. He’s looking off the safety. Thomas is going to continue to backpedal on the same line he’s currently on.

In the picture below, notice how high Julian is in his stance on his backpedal. His back needs to be bent more so that he’s lower in his backpedal.

Secondly, notice the clock. Striker has taken less than a second to beat his man and earn a path straight to the QB.

In this last image look at Ahmad Thomas’ depth. Granted, Kevin White is in full stride here and Thomas is just completing his turn but he absolutely gets blown by. I can’t see when he actually makes his turn (camera goes out), but based on the image below one would think OU would have back end speed to at least make this somewhat competitive. It wasn’t.

Having said that, Kevin White is a smart receiver. Once he beats Zack, he’s not just going to get deep. He’s going as wide as possible.

5th SERIES

– 1st down: This is the last play of the 1st quarter and WVU is actually going to go under center here with a double tight set.

Chuka is going to get pushed back on the double team, but there still isn’t much space. In my estimation, WVU grabs six yards here because the play side LB doesn’t blow this play up. If he comes right off Phillips’ rear, then he either stones this play for maybe three yards or he forces the RB to bounce it outside where Q.Hayes has contain. Instead, he hesitates which allows the lineman to get to the second level and gives the runner the ability to gain some steam.

1st Quarter Summary: Outside of the TD, OU is playing good defense. There is plenty of pressure on Trickett. The underneath zone defenders are closing up lanes. And despite being picked on by Holgorsen, Julian is holding up well against a smaller quicker receiver.

 

2nd QUARTER

5th SERIES (Contd.)

– 2nd down: Holding call pushes WVU back.

– 2nd down: Offsides call on Tapper makes it 2nd and 7.

– 2nd down: Coverage is man free and Julian just gets beat inside. Really can’t knock Julian here. Tough to play that route in off man coverage. Especially 10 yards off. Don’t know why OU plays it like this. On the pass rush They use a TE to help against Striker. OU doesn’t get a push from Tapper because he hesitates at the snap…is clearly still thinking about the previous off-sides play and doesn’t get a good jump, giving Trickett a nice pocket to throw from.

– 1st down: WVU motions Kevin White and I would assume Sanchez is going to become the force player against the nub (he’s playing the outside contain against the TE who is the furthest outside player).

Sanchez actually floats pretty far inside and Geneo beats his man to the outside (see the red arrow below) and forces the ball inside (see the blue circle and arrow) right to Sanchez. I mention this because perhaps OU plays the CB inside in this scenario. Either way Sanchez meets the running back in the hole.

Below you see Sanchez has the ball carrier in the hole but doesn’t have the strength to stone him and the RB grabs 3 yards after contact. The RB is 5’9 185 lbs. Down the road I expect to see this play a lot in order to do two things…isolate Thomas is one on one coverage to the trips side (where the receiver motions to) and force Sanchez into the run game. Get a bigger back and it’s going to be that much harder for a smaller CB like Sanchez to bring him down in this scenario.

Tons of credit to Sanchez for being tough and stickin his nose in there despite being injured. But you see why OU isn’t recruiting small CBs anymore. At 6’1.5 183 lbs, PJ Mbanasor as a 17 year old high schooler is already bigger than many of the CBs we have on campus including Sanchez.