The Football Brainiacs

Here we go with the 2nd quarter my friends:

1. Great read again by Knight.  Check the purple arrow.  The d-end crashes, so Trevor pulls it.  The o line made Trevor’s reads really easy to make.  The wall’s of white notated by both lines here show our guys moving the line of scrimmage back.  We won the battles up front today.

1. (cont.) A second later, the end realizes the give didn’t happen, but Trevor’s got a foot in the ground and is upfield.  Rip, Clay and Sterling all make good blocks, and only the hustle of the d-end stopped Trevor from crib’n it.  Translated that means takin it to the house, scoring, etc for all you civilian types.

2. Two great blocks by Tyrus and Rip here.  I put a dot on Trevor’s helmet to show you how his eyes never come off of his read.  A lot of playing ball is about the eyes. Brennan’s able to get up in there for a gain of nine in a hurry.

2. (cont.) You can see the path of the run, and all of the blocking.  Coming into this game K-State was only giving up 137 yds a game on the ground.  It had me concerned.  Maybe they just haven’t seen an attack like ours.  It was really effective.

3. Third and short…under center…quarterback sneak!  We haven’t seen one of those since ‘Nam!  K-State wasn’t expecting it either, and since there’s no double a gap, and we’re under center, Trevor just has to fall forward to the left.

3. (cont.) Really good to see our guys playing on their side of the line of scrimmage.  The l.o.s. was clean all day.

4. Here we have another “naked” play.  It’s really set up well because of the run game.  Again we have a very clean wall on the turnback protection, and Trevor is one on one with the defender on the 25.

4. (cont.) Check that defender now.  Trevor has a good feel of how to set people up.  He has the defender convinced he’s gonna throw it.  As soon as the defender turns his shoulders, Trevor’s off and running.

4. (cont.) Before they can blink he’s already down to the 20.

4. (cont.) Once again our receivers did a great job blocking all day.  Here Durron Neal, who no doubt earned himself some more pt after his performance Saturday, does a great job staying with his man and helps Knight get all the way down to the seven for a gain of 23.

5. Another well blocked play by our O line.  If they didn’t get a game ball, somethin’s wrong.  See Rip’s block outside, the next picture I’ll show you how smart of a player he is.  In the blue circle, we see the relationship at the mesh point between QB, RB and DE.

5. (cont.) Pictures just don’t do this justice, so if you get a chance watch it again.  Trevor put a little shake on the de to convince him that he gave the ball.  Mueller’s a good player, and just got faked out and completely turned around.  Trevor’s around the corner and Rip, who I mentioned in the last picture, originally was going out to the edge, recognizes that the player is turned and running with the receiver.  He readjusts(see his hips sinking), because he knows the only player who can make the play is the one hes going up to now.  Really a heck of a heady play by Ripkowski.

5. (cont.) Look at all of the great blocks up front.  Rip, on the outside, left to right, Ikard, Daryl and Nila.  That lane is just pretty for Trevor to get up inside of.  Really nice looking play and a 14 play drive where all of the plays were runs.

6. This my friends is how you play o-line.  You have to be smart, decisive and able to think quickly.  I want you to watch Daryl and Nila(who I circled) for the next few pictures.  Daryl recognizes the safety walking up outside and points at him.  This signals to Ripkowski that the defender walking up is now Rip’s.  Since that player is in the C-Gap(outside the tackle), Daryl and Nila recognize that the D-End is going to slant across Daryl’s face into the B-Gap.  With that, they’re going to have to execute a combo block.  Where Daryl passes the D-End off to Nila, because he has to go up and get the linebacker.  The linebacker would have been Rip’s guy, but since they’re blitzing off the edge, Rip has to take the outside guy.  Get all that?  You have to be able to process that info quickly, and it happens even quicker…

6. (cont.) Here you see Nila flattened out a bit to be able to turn and get on the outside shoulder of that D-End.  When Daryl “feels” that Nila is taking it over, he’ll disengage and get up to the backer.  Rip is now going outside to the safety.

6. (cont.) All of this happened in less than a second, and now Nila’s taken over the D-End.  Rip has the safety blocked, and Daryl is up to the backer.

6. (cont.) We see all of the guys continuing our blocks, but Daryl adjusts again and does it very well.  That backer has decided to get over the top of Daryl, and so now Clay is going to cut it up inside of Daryl’s block instead of going off tackle outside(where it was initially designed to go).

6. (cont.) Normally that backer will shoot up into that gap inside of Daryl, but since he fought over the top, Brennan recognized it and cut inside.  Look a the lane opened up in there.  Ikard’s all the way up in Lincoln blocking his guy on the left, and this just shows how good of a teacher coach Bedenbaugh is.  This stuff just frustrates the heck out of d-coordinators.  When you have a good, physical o-line that it also smart, there’s not a lot that a d-coordinator can do to offset it.

7. On Clay’s big run off of 3rd and short, I was in the stands yelling “come back weak!”  “come back weak!”  The reason I was yelling that was because we had em outnumbered.  With Ikard, Irwin, Daryl and Rip, it’s four on four, and the plus one is Clay who makes five.  Check the box around the four defenders back weak(right).  I say weak since that’s the “weak side” of the formation since we have less players over there.

7. (cont.) Irwin’s coming off of his combo up to the backer, Rip’s burying the blitzing linebacker, Daryl has his guy kicked out, and the block that made it go was Durron Neal’s block on the safety.  The safety is the one guy who could have blown this up had Durron not gotten him.  He’s coming straight ahead and has his power behind him.  You leave the corner unblocked since you hope your tailback an outrun him, and he doesn’t have leverage anyway.

7. (cont.) You see how much less humanity is playside since they have to line up players where ours are.  The only guy who has a shot at making this play is the corner who is flat footed standing outside of Daryl’s block on the 40.  Clay gives a little shoulder dip and cuts straight upfield(vertical) off of Durron’s block.

7. (cont.) Once that happens it’s all over.  I drew a line around the side of the play where it happened to illustrate how effective you can be when you scheme to numbers.  Less people playside = less people who have a chance to make the play.  Clay outran that corner just like we had hoped…as well as everyone else.

8. Really impressed with our pre-snap recognition.  The safety’s flying up, so Rip’s gotta pick him up.  Going back to Coach Bedenbaugh again, the guy has taught our front so much in just a year.  Think about all those young bucks who’ll have time to learn year over year over year.  Our O-Line could become filthy in the next few years.  The vets we have now only have been learning under Coach B for not even a full year yet.  The improvement year over year can’t be mistaken.

8. (cont.) Rip takes that blitzer, and Tyrus recognizes since his guy is going down inside, he has to get up to the backer.  Sterling is up on the safety, and play after play after play, we simply just gashed them.

8. (cont.) Look at all of the great blocks a tick later.  Clay must have been ecstatic about the expressways that were opening up in front of him.

8. (cont.) One more time and he’s down to the 40 before he gets touched.

9. What can be lost on me sometimes as I watch a game in the stands is how big a play actually was.  I guess going back to my playing days, you’re more focused on going and getting it, rather than the magnitude of it.  This play right here gets us three points before the half.  The drive ultimately stalled and we weren’t able to punch it in, but on 3rd and 10, when they had hit big play after big play after big play you don’t want to give them the ball back.  Trevor just settles in, and drops it in between three defenders for a gain of 25.  What’s going to make Trevor so effective is his footwork.  He’s so athletic that he’ll be able to refine it relatively easy, and looking forward, we have a lot to be excited about.

9. (cont.) Sterling runs a really sharp route, and the ball is gone as he’s into his break.  This isn’t bad defense by K-State.  It’s just really great execution.

10. Need I say more?

10. (cont.) On 2nd and 5, Brennan ends up slipping, but if he is able to stay on his feet, he most definitely gets the first down.  In falling down he got three yards, so who knows,  he may break a tackle and end up scoring here.  If we get the first down, we still have all three timeouts and the clock stops.  We had to burn one here, so sometimes it’s the play that wasn’t that ends up getting you.

11. On a side note, it’s funny how different interior linemen(guards and centers) are than exterior linemen(tackles).  As we were walking up to the stadium yesterday, my friend Scott asked me if I used to be one of those tough guys that didn’t wear sleeves in the cold.  I said…”Hell no man!  Those guys are crazy!”  It was funny and we all had a laugh.  I explained that there were a few guys on the team that always used to get on me and say it was intimidating to the other team if we didn’t wear sleeves.  I just never bought into that logic.  In this game, I thought it was telling too that Tyrus and Daryl both had sleeves on while Nila, Gabe and Bronson are tough guys…yeah…no sleeves.

Anyways, for the next few pictures I want you to watch the K-State safety and Durron Neal.

11. (cont.) This was Durron’s first career start, and he played really, really well.  He had the key block on Clay’s big run earlier, so don’t roast him here.  As he gets more experience he’ll learn that he has to attack this safety.  If he makes this block, then Clay walks in untouched.

11. (cont.) Here, Durron is having that not so fresh feeling, after realizing that his guy is going to make the play…

11. (cont.) The corner here(left purple arrow), has outside responsibilities, so if Durron had blocked that safety, the lane is wide open for Clay.  O line gets the bad rap, but a lot of times it’s just one block, or one player that makes the smallest mistake.  Durron’s going to be a stud for us, so he’ll get this down.

12. Trevor has to know the situation here.  You have no timeouts.  You only have 21 seconds left.  If it’s not there throw it away.  You absolutely cannot take a sack.  He also has to understand that he only has six people to block seven.  The linebacker’s body language tells Trevor he’s coming.  He has to process all of this information and know what his contingencies are.

12. (cont.) Our o-line and Brennan do a great job picking up the six they can block.  The linebacker’s in a sprint now, and Trevor has to feel that.

12. (cont.) Now, all of the six we can block are still blocked, and right before this Trevor thought about throwing it.  If he just goes ahead and gets rid of it, it’s only second down, so we’d get another shot at the endzone.  He did a good job not turning it over, and he was aware of the time he had since he got up and spiked it with seven seconds left.  This is just a little youth for him, and probably the only time all day he showed his youth.  Hunnicutt came in and knocked one through to put us up 24-21 at half, but you wonder if we don’t take the sack here, if Brennan doesn’t fall down on the stretch play, and if Durron makes that block, if we’re up 28-21 at half instead.