UW Film Study: Iowa Hawkeyes
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The Washington Huskies returned to Husky Stadium for this year’s rendition of Friday Night Lights. However the team did not show up to play, as they got routed by the Iowa Hawkeyes 41-24. The offense was stagnant out of the gates yet again, while the defense finally collapsed after being the team’s lifeline during the first five weeks. The Dawgs quickly went down 27-0 and saw their starting QB leave the game before halftime. Backup Elijah Brown entered the game and injected some hope into the team as the offense was able to move the ball down the field. Granted Iowa was playing off coverage as the game was well out of reach, he still showed poise and composure, hopefully proving to deserve further opportunity to right the ship and lead UW for their first win in conference play.
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To the film.
Offense: Glimmer of Hope?
I’m not going to sugar coat things. The first half offense was bad. It was bad for all the same reasons why it has been bad through the first five weeks of the season. Demond was holding the ball too long and was taking unnecessary pressure/sacks. When he wasn’t walking himself into pressure, it was because the offensive line was giving up pressure too quickly for Demond to overthink things. Not only that, but even with a reinforced and reshuffled line featuring Landen Hatchett back at center, Kolt Dieterich at LG, and John Mills primarily playing LT, we still couldn’t get the run game going. -3 rushing yards overall. For the whole game. That’s unacceptable, and the OL would probably agree.
However, it’s not all doom and gloom here on Film Study. Instead of beating a dead horse and rehashing the same points we’ve made week after week, we’re going to focus on what might be a glimmer of hope; Elijah Brown and the rejuvenated passing attack. After replacing an injured Demond late in the 2nd quarter, Brown’s quick trigger passing breathed life into the offense and helped rattle off 21 points in the 2nd half. There’s no guarantee that he’ll be able to carry any of that momentum into this week’s game against Purdue (where it’s trending towards Demond being unavailable), but there are a few things for us to get excited about with Brown at the helm. Let’s break those down.
3rd Quarter – 13:54 – 3rd & 6
Over the last couple of weeks a consistent theme that we’ve highlighted on Film Study was that our passing attack was out of rhythm. Well, we lamented Demond Williams’ play, but the more concise way of phrasing it was that his play erratic and kept the offense from finding its rhythm. He wasn’t making sound reads pre and post snap, his timing to throw was off, and his feel for pressure was hit or miss. When Elijah Brown stepped in at QB against Iowa, we saw a night and day difference.
For those that stuck it out and kept the game on or stayed in their seats past halftime could probably feel the rhythm and execution, even if they couldn’t quite put a finer point on why it felt that way. Things just started to work. This play is an example of Brown’s better ability to process the pre-snap look, progression through the reads, and his anticipation when making the throw.
On this play we’re facing 3rd & 6, and at this point, every down was a passing situation. We’re running a Smash concept to the left side of the formation and a Levels concept over the middle. Smash (Corner route + a shallow route like a Hitch or Out to the same side) is a pretty versatile 2-route concept that has answers to Cover 2, Cover 4, and man coverage. Levels on the other hand is a great Cover 3 and man coverage beater. Between these two concepts, Brown can narrow down his options with his pre-snap read to give himself an easy post-snap read.
Iowa’s showing a 2-high pre-snap coverage shell, but the safeties could rotate post-snap into a 1-high shell (indicating Cover 1 or Cover 3), so that doesn’t give an obvious indicator. The CBs both playing off the line, which is consistent with Cover 3, Cover 4, or a soft Cover 2, so again there isn’t an obvious indicator there for Brown. The best pre-snap clue he has to go off of is the coverage match ups for our inside receivers. On the field side (right), we have Decker DeGraaf (TE, #86) in the slot being covered by an LB. On the boundary side (left), we have Chris Lawson (WR, #8) in the slot being covered by a DB. Typically, defenses will want a DB on a WR when running man coverage, and the the nickel DB on the field side when running zone. The nickel DB is on the boundary side, so Brown has a good indicator that it’s either Cover 2 Man or Cover 1 if the safeties rotate.
Circling back to the concepts, Smash gives Brown better options against man coverage, so he should be looking there as his primary post-snap read. The Corner route is where you want to go on Smash when facing man coverage, especially against Cover 1 because you’ll have 1v1 coverage with the deep safety out of position to help against the outbreaking route.
Lawson does a great job of winning the outside release at the snap that gets the DB’s back turned to the QB and screens the DB from the space that he’ll need to break into. Brown reads the post-snap rotation into Cover 1 and throws a perfectly timed pass low and away from the DB in a spot where only Lawson could make a play on the ball. If you watch the clip at the top carefully, Brown actually throws the ball before Lawson makes his break (i.e. great anticipation pass). It’s a sign of good chemistry with his receiver, and it’s indicative of a QB with high confidence in his reads. That can be a double-edged sword, but it’s a pre-requisite for QBs without elite physical traits (ex. Jake Browning).
4th Quarter – 0:33 – 3rd & 18
Jumping all the way to the end of the game on one of Brown’s last passes, we wanted to give an example of how Brown’s timing and rhythm within the structure of the play design is elevating the offense’s ability to execute. Here, in a 3rd & forever situation, we’re in a pickle. There’s not a whole lot of plays on the call sheet that are designed for this kind of situation. The defense knows they can sit back and defend the sticks or dial up pressure with margin for error. Any play call in this situation will require either impeccable execution or Herculean individual effort because you just can’t scheme up an easy 18-yard gain.
Fisch has a middle of the road call with another version of the Smash concept to the field side and a back side Deep Dig route to the boundary. This gets paired with a 7-man protection scheme that should give Brown and the receivers some time to make a play. Like the last play, the Smash concept should be the primary read since it gives the most options, but the backside Dig gives the same Cover 3/man beating option opposite of the Smash concept that Levels did in the last play. Brown just needs to know what he’s looking for post-snap to know where to go with the ball.
Like the last play, Iowa is playing 2-high safeties with the CBs off the line, so again, there isn’t much to go off. The key for Brown’s pre-snap checks is our 3×1 formation. Defenses hate 3×1 formations because it limits their ability to play basic 2-high coverages while still maintaining advantageous coverage numbers. We’ve talked about this on Film Study before, but on defense you want to find ways to get +1 in the box against the run and +1 to the field in coverage. Folks are probably familiar with +1 in the box against the run (i.e. getting 1 more defender in the tackle box than there are blockers), and it’s a similar concept in the pass. In coverage, the field side (the wider side of the field relative to the center) is the side with more space to cover, so that’s the side you’ll want to have an extra defender to tighten up the soft spots in zone coverage.
Against a 2×2 offensive formation (2 receivers on each side), this is done by simply plopping your nickel into the field side slot (leaving a CB, nickel, and one deep safety covering 2 field side defenders, +1 for the defense). Against a 3×1 offensive formation, the defense has fewer options. You can either bump over your LBs to the field side (thereby opening up a weak spot in your run fit towards the boundary side) or rotate your safeties towards the field side and lock your boundary corner in MEG coverage (Man Everywhere he Goes).
Brown may or may not have known exactly what the defense was going to do to account for the 3×1 formation, but by following his eyes during his drop back, you can tell he was expecting some sort of post-snap movement from the defense to account for the 3×1 that wasn’t being adequately covered by the pre-snap alignment. During his drop back, Brown’s eyes start off on the left, but by the time he hits the top of his drop, they are snapped over to the backside Dig after he sees the Iowa safeties rotate towards the field. He does a one hitch gather then rifles a pass over the middle on time to Justice Williams for the long 1st down conversion just after he makes his break and gets maximum separation. Fantastic timing from Brown that was only possible because he went into the play with a good idea of what to expect and could make his way through his reads before his footwork told him he had to get the ball out.
4th Quarter – 6:36 – 2nd & 9
On this play, Brown showed great poise in the pocket by delivering a quick pass on time, on target, and while facing pressure inside our own end zone. On this play, we’re running a set piece-type situational play call to the inside two receivers to our trips side. This is a nifty riff off of a Follow concept. Typically, Follow is a 2-route concept with in-breaking routes (usually a Slant paired with another Slant but tagged with a heavy outside stem that sells it as an outbreaking route first). We’ve got the same idea going here but with the routes flipped to be run as outbreaking routes.
The main goal of the concept is for Lawson (the inner most WR to the left of the formation) to threaten the nickel DB #11 right at the snap and force him to widen out into the flat. That allows Trez Davis (WR, #12) to threaten the LB with his in-breaking stem before breaking outside into a widened passing window.
Looking at the clip, the route combo works to perfection and Davis is working his way into a 7-8 yard window of space and the LB fighting to break to the outside with him. What’s impressive on Brown’s part is that he stands tall in the pocket and lets the play develop before stepping into his pass while a blitzing LB is barreling towards him from the backside B-gap. We don’t like to make a habit of calling out individual players for bad performances, but Trey Cooley’s got to do a better job in pass protection if that has been noted explicitly as the reason why he’s still getting snaps in the rotation.
4th Quarter – 12:00 – 2nd & 10
Finally, we wanted to highlight that while Brown does seem to have traits that improve the overall flow of the offense, he can’t fix them all by himself. The offensive line is still a work in progress when it comes to consistent pass protection. Not every sack is on them, but this one is.
I don’t really know what this play design was supposed to be with the TV angle I could find, but it does appear to be a shot play type of call with the outside two receivers going deep on long developing routes and a quasi-7-man protection. From a protection perspective we have Decker and Cooley running check-releases where they’re looking for immediate pressure in their vicinity before releasing as checkdown options. Decker’s running a shallow Drag type checkdown route and Cooley’s running into the flat. For both, their goal is to disrupt a rush and then get open. A quick chip block should be enough to slow down a pass rusher and allow an OL to gain control of the block, but that doesn’t really happen here.
As you can see from this snip taken at the top of Brown’s drop back, there are three defenders who either beat their OL already or are about to. The worst one is the DT up the middle against Champ Taulealea (RG, #73). Even with a chip block from Cooley, Champ is totally turned around. For Champ, as well as Geirean Hatchett, they have been struggling with the timing of their punches and stopping their feet upon contact. Neither are undersized or lack the strength to hold up inside, but they are often lunging while trying to engage. This gets them off balance and makes it hard to maintain a good base to anchor against bull rushes or mirror the defender if they try to work around them.
The edge pressure getting up field past Azzopardi and Mills aren’t quite as bad as Champ’s whiff. Yeah, you don’t really want your RT sling shooting the edge up field because he lost position, but that’s something that does get coached as an emergency technique. Throw a guy past the QB’s deepest drop back point and it buys your QB a split second to climb the pocket. Unfortunately, the pocket is already collapsing. I really do think that if Champ didn’t miss his block, Brown would’ve had a chance to climb the pocket and dump off the pass to Cooley in space towards the boundary flat for a decent gain. This is why interior pressure is a QB’s kryptonite.
Defense: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
This was by far the worst defensive performance we’ve seen since Ryan Walters took over defensive play calling last year. Start to finish it was an ass whooping that was only made worse by the fact that the defense made an unusually large number of mental errors. We allowed 263 rushing yards on 6.9 yards per carry. We only forced 4 punts out of 11 possessions. We gave up 202 passing yards and 3 TDs to a back up QB (albeit a pretty good one). That is not up to standard.
After rewatching the game, I’m afraid the blueprint to beat us is out there. The play calling was just too well scripted in the right situations to think otherwise. Our flaws are known, our tendencies are predictable, and it’s far too easy for teams to get us out of our comfort zone. It all starts with our inability to stop the run consistently without a talent advantage and without relying on heavy safety help. Ironically, after years of lamenting poor DT play and EDGEs focusing too heavily on stopping the run instead of pass rushing, it was our DTs that held up reasonably well and our EDGEs who got taken advantage of in the run game. We got gashed up front and our 2nd and 3rd level defenders started to overcommit to run support. This aggressive play started the death spiral. When the safeties started to overcommit, we started to take haymakers from the play action passing game. The only thing that stopped us from falling into this spiral up until this point was the fact that no other opponent had this level of commitment to the run game and run game design. Let me show you what I mean.
1st Quarter – 0:24 – 1st & 10
So this was the play where it all seemed to go wrong for the defense. Not only was this the confluence of multiple issues that plagued us this game, but it also set off a desperate spiraling of leaning, reaching, and undisciplined defensive play. It all starts up front.
On this play, Iowa has 12 personnel on the field (1 RB, 2 TEs) and we match with 4-3 personnel. Knowing that Iowa is a Zone run heavy offense, we’re playing a version of the 4-3 Under front. The 4-3 Under is presents similarly to our 5×1 Penny front that we run out of our nickel personnel (5 defenders on the line for both) but we are running it with heavier base personnel. We have Isaiah Ward (EDGE, #91) stood up on the weak/boundary side of the front, Darin Conley (DT, #33) and Elinneus Davis (DT, #90) bumped over to the boundary side of the center, Logan George (EDGE, #12) kicked inside in a 4i alignment, and ZRS (LB, #23) walked up on the line outside of the TE. As we’ve discussed before, a 5-man front like this can be effective against a Zone run scheme because it limits the number of double teams the OL can get at the snap. However, with six blockers against five defenders on the LOS, plus the second TE in motion working the Slice block, we’re still going to face at least one double team.
Reading the defensive front for those double teams and likely creases is part of the RB’s pre-snap reads in a Zone scheme. Similar to how a QB would read the defense pre-snap to whittle down his options and have a short list of post-snap reads that are most likely to be successful, the RB does that with gaps. Looking from the replay angle above, the RB should have a mental picture of where the OL’s Zone blocking assignments will shake out. He should be anticipating that the double team will create the most movement up front and the crease will open somewhere around the double team. In this case, it’ll likely be either in the backside A-gap between the center and LG, or it’ll open up off the LT’s left hip. Ideally, the RB is hoping that with the Zone blocking flowing to the right, the double team will wash George out of the picture, the Y-TE picking off the LB (Buddah, #0) at the snap, and the Slice block kicks out ZRS to create a wide open lane on the backside cutback.
As you can see from the replay angle, this is exactly how the blocking shapes up. George gets washed three gaps over, the TE gets up to Buddah, and the Slice blocking second TE seals the backside contain coming from ZRS just long enough for the RB to get to the second level. Those blocks alone got this play 3-4 yards, but it was the post-snap execution of the combo block (double team first, then peel off to the second level) that springs this for a 10+ yard run. The LT and LG get George moving sideways with the initial double team, but are keeping an eye on Manu. Manu doesn’t trigger downhill right at the snap as he’s reading where the crease will form, but by the time he sees it, the LT peeled off the DT and seals off Manu from the run lane. This is clinic tape type of execution of a Zone combo block.
With the run lane formed, and both second level box defenders picked off by the TE and LT, it’s an open field tackle drill between the RB and RDA. Playing form deep and not taking a great initial angle, RDA whiffs on the tackle and the RB is off to the races.
So that’s what happened. What should you take away from this play? Well for starters, we didn’t put George in a good position to succeed. Despite being 6-4 and 265lbs, you don’t want to put your EDGEs in a position where they need to take on a double team, especially from two OL. That’s simply not a winning proposition no matter how talented you are. Second, the pre-snap motion that we didn’t focus on, plus the Slice block that followed it, provided some eye candy that slowed down our LBs’ reaction time seeing the gaps develop. This gave just enough time for the LT and TE to get up to our LBs without them already clogging the hole. Finally, McLaughlin is clearly our best open field tackler. RDA is fine, but he’s far less consistent. You’re looking for a consistent open field tackler to play back there, otherwise you’re basically playing 10v11 if the ball carrier gets into the open field. We were already playing without a +1 advantage in the box (McLaughlin was playing up near the LOS but was split out wide over a WR and wasn’t in good position to make a play on the run). If you’re worried about the run, you need to think about how you’re deploying your defenders to account for that threat.
2nd Quarter – 5:53 – 1st & 10
Building off of what we just broke down on the last play, we have another example of a very similar set of issues on this run play from the second quarter. Again, Iowa is in 12 personnel running Zone Slice, but this time it is to the left side of the formation. We are again playing 4-3 personnel, but this time we’re playing a more conventional 4-man front.
Like we did on the last play, let’s take a look at what the RB is seeing pre-snap to develop a game plan for post-snap. Based on the defensive front’s alignment, he can see a combo block shaping up between the LT and LG on the front side of the play. This is because we don’t have a defender sitting in the play side B-gap to occupy the LG, so it’s a free double team up to ZRS on that side. On the backside, the RB has the usual cutback lane getting pried open by the Slice block. Again, RBs want to follow double teams because that’s where the most movement will be generated to open up lanes.
Circling back up to the clip at the top, you can see that combo block level Jacob Lane (EDGE, #48), and with ZRS moving up to replace him as outside contain, the whole left side of the front is blown open. We still had an opportunity to stuff this play for a medium gain at this point in the play, but again, our LBs were slow to fill gaps. If you watch carefully, Instead of Manu moving downhill at the snap to plug the play side B-gap, he takes a false step inside and takes himself totally out of position to square up on the RB following the double team. Fortunately, the open field tackling from RDA was better on this play, so the run was limited to a 13-yard gain. Regardless, we again fell victim to double teams blowing up our EDGEs and our LBs not being able to limit the damage before ball carriers got up to the third level and open field.
2nd Quarter – 9:12 – 3rd & 1
You want to know how badly your team is getting gashed by the run game? Look at how they defend play action. Once you get to a point like this where dump off passes to a FB in the flat are so wide open that they can run 20-yards untouched for a TD, you know the run threat is getting into the heads of your defenders. Thus starts the death spiral I was talking about in the intro to the defensive section.
Iowa is in a short yardage situation at the edge of the red zone, and we’re playing a Goal Line type package here with jumbo personnel packed on the line and everyone else playing man coverage. Iowa’s running a basic Crossers concept off heavy play action with a FB leak. What you see in the clip above is that our second level defenders, guys like RDA, ZRS, and Manu, are so worried about the run, that they are completely ignoring both their pass coverage responsibilities and their basic fundamentals.
When coaching up run fits against offenses that utilize a FB, players are taught to follow the FB because they will lead you to the ball. FBs aren’t there just for eye candy on a run play. 99% of the time they are an integral part of the blocking scheme. They will either be lead blocking for the ball carrier or creating a cutback lane for the ball carrier, so it is always important to get a hat on the FB. If it’s a run, you’ll want someone to get on him to squeeze down the gap he’s trying to create, and in the pass, someone’s got to cover him. Where I’m going with this is someone should’ve been paying attention to the FB. No one did because they were so fixated on trying to get a hand on the RB in the backfield.
This snippet might be the most damning of the whole game. While the ball is still in the air, there are three different receivers wide open who could’ve either scored or gotten the first down, and the fourth has a step on our two DBs in coverage. Under no circumstances should a fundamentally sound, disciplined defense be leaving this many options open downfield.
2nd Quarter – 5:15 – 1st & 10
Just to prove that the last play wasn’t a one off and that our defense was so paralytically worried about the run that they totally forgot about their assignments and fundamentals, here’s another example of play action getting the best of us.
Again Iowa is running a 12 personnel, heavy play action passing concept against us (Flood), but this time they added in an End Around fake for some additional eye candy. Instead of us blowing our fundamentals and assignment against a FB, we instead botch our coverage hand off downfield.
You can see a bit better from the All-22 replay angle that we’re playing a kind of Inverted Cover 2 where we move the deep safety (McLaughlin) underneath post-snap and then drop the CBs into deep half field coverage.
What gets messed up is the exchange between our CBs. Dylan Robinson (CB, #6) fixates on the End Around action and follows the WR clear across the formation while Emmanuel Karnley (CB, #3) is expecting to be able to hand off #7 on the Crosser to Robinson. With Robinson vacating his deep half field coverage post, both the Crosser and the TE on the deep Corner get wide open for the TD.
3rd Quarter – 7:10 – 1st & Goal
That last play wasn’t the only time motion or backfield action got Robinson and the DBs mixed up in coverage for a costly mistake. This TD was yet another blown assignment that I’d bet was caused by our desperate attempts to stop the run.
Again, Robinson is following the pre-snap motion across the formation but no one is there to pick up the coverage assignment on the side that he’s vacating. We have a CB blitz bringing Karnley from that side, but no one is there to pick up #2 that Karnley is lined up over. Without knowing the exact call, I don’t know if it was a zone coverage call where Robinson forgot that he wasn’t supposed to follow the motion, if someone like RDA (the nearest DB) was supposed to bump over to pick up the WR in coverage, or if there was a check built into the play where in the event of motion, the blitz was supposed to be called off. Regardless, this was just a really disappointing overall performance against Iowa when it came to mental execution and playing assignment sound football.
Awgs’ Bonus Play(s) of the Week
Shoutout to Elijah Brown for scoring his first (non garbage time) TD as a Husky!
*Note from Coach B: I know Awgs already threw in the “non-garbage time” qualifier, but let’s also not treat that Touch Pass Jet Sweep against EWU like it’s a real passing play.