The Football Brainiacs

This is the second half of a post where we looked at a zone run play that yielded 12 yards for Texas. We’re going to take a look at the very next play here where Texas tries to run essentially the same play. But this time we are not only going to hold the point of attack better, most importantly, we’re going to be gap sound!

1st and 10, 13:15 2nd Quarter

Take a look at the line of scrimmage just moments after the snap.  Texas isn’t getting any push and Jordan and Tapper are eating double teams but aren’t giving any ground. Again, the tackle is going to wash down Chuka but this time Chuka is going to regain his leverage even quicker than he did on the previous play.

Brown is going to look for that same gap. We don’t have a safety at the line of scrimmage. Instead, he’s just outside the box (you can see him coming into the screen by the referee) and Striker has outside contain. Also, notice that both Dom and Shannon are completely clean and free to make plays here. Texas blockers can’t physically beat us so no one is able to get to the second level and get their hands on our LBs.

In the image below the blue arrow is pointing to Malcolm Brown and the path he tried to take. But you can see that the safety and the linebacker are waiting for him in the hole completely unblocked. Shannon isn’t going to give Brown any space and Chuka is going to end up throwing his blocker off him and he and Hayes are going to stuff this run.

Something important to note is that even though Chuka is going to get washed down into the A gap, because Jordan Wade holds the point of attack at the snap he forces their strong side guard to stay on that block. Jordan winning the POA at the snap is the battle within the battle. He forces Texas to commit two guys to blocking him which leaves the second level defenders unblocked and with Chuka throwing his blocker off at the last minute there ends up being three of our players in the hole to make the play.

While we are better at the point of attack on this play than we were in the last play, the gap integrity is key. Great defenses play with great effort and discipline.

And that just happened!