A Pivotal Play from the Army Game - 3rd Quarter

[Kgun7]

3rd Quarter, 8:30 remaining, 1st & 20 following the illegal procedure penalty (covering the TE)

#1 – Shirreffs initially reads Cover 2 Man with both OLB’s on the 2 TE’s

 

[Kgun7]

#2 – Pre-snap ... SS slides down and the FS slides over the top to a Cover 3 Zone

 

[Kgun7]

#3 - Play action so Shirreffs doesn’t know that 1 OLB blitzed while the other dropped … both UCONN TE’s release upfield

 

[Kgun7]

#4 – Johnson picks up the blitzing OLB and gives Shirreffs time to read the coverage

 

[Kgun7]

#5 – Meyers and Bloom run seam routes … ILB on a delayed blitz …

 

[Kgun7]

#6 – Shirreffs reads the short drop of the OLB … knows he will take a hit

 

[Kgun7]

#7 – Thomas comes out of his break … ball is already in the air

 

[Kgun7]

#8 – Over the OLB & in front of the CB … 15 yard gain

 

[Kgun7]

#9 – Stands in the pocket … pays the price. Without this successful play, the very next play to Beals might not have happened.

 

[businesslawyer]

Very well done. Would love for this to be a repeated feature.

 

[Dove]

 

[Husky92]

Thanks. For those of us who have only ever sat on the sidelines this is an awesome breakdown. Thanks again.

Also, great play by Shirreffs.

 

[Dogged]

Very nice Kgun!

 

[jbdphi]

Thanks Kgun. Miss the tale of the tape from the Uconn Blog as well. So interesting to see all the nitty gritty details.

 

[jdb50]

We have both guards and our center blocking one rusher. Samra has to get his eyes up and look to help elsewhere (to his right). BS will need much better pass blocking to be able to have a good game at Mizzou. The Oline needs to get quicker foot speed if that is possible at this point and better communication.

 

[Palatine]

It looks like Thor let the LB run free.

 

[Excalibur]

It looks like Thor let the LB run free.

I don't think so. It's likely that the assignment was called out pre-snap, based on the initial cover-2 look. I wonder if the TE didn't read the blitz at the snap and released upfield when he shouldn't have.

 

[Carl Spackler]

Nice, love it. I can write volumes, but the frames show it all.

FWIW:

The coverage shell read, from the QB, some would call that kind of set a quarters set, or a middle field open look, which would have the QB looking for an open route in the middle of the field, of which two are built into the play. The shift to the single DB deep in the middle, some would call a middle field closed look, or could be a 1/3's set, or even a half set depending on what's underneath, which would have the QB looking for an open route ouside the hashes toward the sideline, of which we have two possible built into the play call.

This play - is a great example, of offense being built to make use of the natural advantage that offense has - in that unless you're the Patriots - the defense doesn't know the actual play call and where the ball is going to go prior to snap, and if everybody does their job right, the QB just needs to find the open receiver the D gives you.

Nice. I just read something from St. Louis that described Verducci's offense as 'plodding' in nature. Nice word choice. There is nothing wrong with a slow paced offense, if it's being called and executed in the manner in which this single play reflects. It leaves a lot of room for creating havoc for defenses, if you're capable of speeding it up though. I guess we're 200 course level offense this year?

 

[Carl Spackler]

I don't think so. It's likely that the assignment was called out pre-snap, based on the initial cover-2 look. I wonder if the TE didn't read the blitz at the snap and released upfield when he shouldn't have.

That's possible about the blocking, but I don't think so looking at the snap shots. The #6 is what says it to me. That looks like a blocking scheme between the back and OL that did exactly what it should have done against that defensive front. To me at least. The TE's are going to have their keys too in the scheme, and if their read isn't coming on a rush, they run their route. If you want my 3 cents.

I think the key in this play, is what KGun indicates - the play of the QB position. I don't know how Kgun knows from the photo that Sheriff recognized the shift in the coverage shell, but the decision to throw the deep out pattern against the single safety middle closed shell was the right decision.

I don't remember who it was we were playing - Temple I think? Where the D did nothing except do this kind of shift pre-snap and it screwed our offense up so bad it wasn't funny.

Improvement.

 

[RedStickHusky]

Beautiful work K-Gun, would love to see more of these. Kudos to Thomas as well for a running a good route. That's no lazy rounded out cut, he's running hard at a sharp acute angle away from the corner. This was right after he had a great catch called back so props, as well, for keeping his head in the game and not letting the last play affect this one.

 

[RedStickHusky]

For the o-line gurus. Rather than throw a shoulder into the three-on-one, should Samra have dropped back to a read position? He may have been able get over to that delayed blitzer but I don't know if you can expect him to or if the scheme expects him to.