GNFP Podcast (NOT vids) Vandy

Why? 7+ is five hats for OL and two more for whatever else. Cover 0 is every guy not in M2M outside in the box. Those bunch sets even bring the M2M into the box.

I doubt James is lying. The film will be out soon, we’ll see what it says.

 

This will obviously be on the film study:

Second run out of the half, 7 in the box, the 7th OLB pretending to sorta be interested in the two WR's really isn't, he crashes immediately, S on that side does also. If the S was on the way from the snap, that's effectively an 8 man box. The DE does come down a little on MJ, AR keeps, there is an OLB just standing there doing nothing at all besides watching AR, he stays outside shoulder, MLB also on the way after a cursory glance to the MJ fake to clean up AR forced back inside.

That's obviously just one play. But after the game a lot of fantakes on this were AR being "forced" to carry those first two (nope, that was the zone read, and he did it right since the DE went with MJ), and that there are just open fields of gold that AR won't accept. I doubt it. I bet we see this all day. That is a game plan, not an exotic one-timer run on a critical 2&3 from the opponent's 32 with only 29:40 left in the game.

But it is just one play, so maybe all the others show dramatically different concepts.

 

Well you can plainly see in the play in the Tweet above that it starts as a 7 man box, which effectively shuts the zone read down alone, but a S is also on the way, so it's really 8. Even if AR were to somehow just dump-truck multiple LBers you can watch the OTHER safety not look at WR help for a single glance, immediately steps sideways toward the box at the snap, and first non-lateral step is toward the point of attack. If that was a WR post, that S would have been a non-factor, he was simply not playing pass.

You can also see that the handoffs were simply not working, although we did have a couple break (one called back due to illegal set, one negated with a late hit.)

And "scrambling" may or may not work but that's far from a plan. It's more than a spy with AR, game plans revolve around his running, and rightfully so. It's more like the systemic passing game is just not set up to beat cover 0 and there is very little adaptation, for whatever reason, and forcing AR to hit M2M windows is obviously the way to go since accuracy is his issue. Even when we get it right, something is off enough to ruin it, like two missed bombs to the newbie WR. That could very well be Bowman being not on the same page or just challenging AR to throw to WR's instead of spots, but either way that is the actual plan, not flukey chaos.

I would, however, agree that anticipating M2M from FSU who has already shown it 40% for an entire season, two NFL-quality CB's, and film that screams to play M2M against AR and play all other available guys against his running SHOULD dictate more creativity, like running all routes to rails and see if FSU will vacate the middle of the field, like we did in the most absurd ways earlier in the year. Of course that was largely our DL just abandoning inside lanes also, but perhaps FSU will fall for this. I don't recall us trying this one time this season.

AR basically has two run plays: the ZR and the sweep. If everyone wants to see him run more, and especially given the asinine character shots people are taking at him, he'll need more DESIGN. A pass play is a pass play, and expecting him to run every other one is just simply not going to happen. He'll find someone to throw to most of the time, like all QB's do, right or wrong, and he also scrambles a lot more than everyone is pretending.

 

Agreed. It is part of why this ridiculous idea sweeping the boards that AR was the problem is so delusional.

But it also is limited, like AR missing JUST enough open receivers or being JUST inaccurate enough to hit the wrong hands to give you a fighting chance if other things go your way, like the plethora of horrendous play/coaching we got from virtually every other available source Saturday.

Minus just a couple boulders from the mountain of WTF, we probably still win. Don't drop a TD, don't literally give them a TD, don't have a DidIJustSeeThat interception on the wrong 30. Hold on to the pick 6. Get the sack instead of a facemask, come-on-man holding, etc. As in, literally just one of those things doesn't or does happen and it's likely an ugly but not really even that scary win.

The game plan is obviously to load up on the run, because it is lethal with both RB's and AR. And while AR can go for 400 and 3 TD's, maybe you can get enough mistakes or just merely out play the D and still win. It isn't a secret at this point, it's stone-cold lead pipe lock strategy.

 

No, we are not good enough to overcome almost every mistake makeable and hope AR can overcome all of that and his own limitations in the same game. A normal game of mistakes or even a couple more and we're fine at Vandy. But that debacle would require, like Heisman year Young or something that we certainly don't have and few do.

 

1) AR has a read to make on the ZR, end of analysis. He is not reading MJ's potential gaps, he is reading the DE or LB that is put in the conflict position. There is no "deciding" his bad matchup is better than MJ's. He can make a bad read here, but that's it.
2) Why would AR gain more than MJ? MJ is a specialist in running the ball, he doesn't do anything other than that. He is most certainly a better RB than AR. If you have to give the ball to your running QB or your running RB in equally bad spots, then you go with the RB 100 out of 100 times.
3) You aren't accusing AR of avoiding injury, you are just saying that exact thing the sentence before saying you aren't saying it.

 

It's pretty well-documented at this point we go into that 12 personnel shell in the RZ and things bog down. And typically it's run-run-pass out of it too. So far it's a perfect storm of bunching up the sets, two TE's who aren't dynamic (today, anyway), stubborn A/B gap running, and AR himself just doesn't seem comfortable in these sets.

So yeah, this philosophy either needs to go altogether or, I guess, personnel has to be upgraded to an almost mythical degree. I just don't see how the latter is realistic.