As my last post here I want to go back into that topic which has had so much to do with Texas offensive production in the last few years. The running game.
Texas has been basing their offense in the zone running game since part-way through 2003. With Vince Young it was a devastating because Vince provided the ultimate backside threat for teams. If you tried to stop the blocked run you were leaving yourself vulnerable to Vince Young taking off and getting loose in your secondary, a terrible possibility.
So the inside-zone was the base play for achieving those scenarios. Then Colt McCoy replaced Vince Young and the offensive transformation began. The inside-zone was far less useful with Colt because he wasn’t nearly as dangerous keeping the ball and the coaches didn’t want him to have to keep it because it put him at risk and potentially distracted from his talents in the passing game.
So OC Davis made the switch to the outside zone as the primary play because it allowed them to keep the same blocking system and could be run out of the 3 WR, 1 TE formations, or the 4 WR formations. Then things broke down. First Jamaal Charles left school early and the running game was revealed as a collection of solid blocking efforts that were just enough to spring the fastest player on the field loose but not a lesser player.
They never switched out of basing in the zone-running game but Greg Davis tried to add other stuff to give the Longhorns some options when teams like OU would just shut down the running game. However, the personnel wasn’t really suited for it and the execution was frequently terrible except against tired 2nd half defenses.
So, we come to 2010. Texas has a new quarterback, 3 new starters on the OL, sophomore running back and lots of young receivers. Greg Davis has a pretty consistent passing game scheme that has proven to be excellent over the last several years. His problem has been finding a running game system that holds up and can be adapted to the strengths and weaknesses of the team in a given year.
Well, last year I argued that they should use the inside zone. Early this offseason I was expecting them to stay with the outside zone and practice it harder hoping that the replacement of Chris Hall with David Snow would result in success. However, upon examination of the Greg Davis passing game scheme it becomes apparent that it’s most effective and coherent part of the offense. Yet it takes a lot of practice time to build the necessary timing and recognition with the quarterbacks and receivers.
The zone running game is similarly stringent upon having tons of practice repetitions. You can’t have the zone as a part of your running game at the College level and feature other running plays and a passing game like the one Davis uses. Something will suffer, and Davis has chosen with his personnel (and I can only assume practice time) for that to be the running game.
So, I have a solution. I think Texas should abandon the zone-running game that they helped launch into prominence with Vince Young and start over. Texas is producing great, big pass-blocking lineman, spread quarterbacks and spread receivers. So they should feature a running game that can be played in spread formations and not rely on the quarterback running. With that in mind, I present the following base play, it’s a trap play with origins in the Wing T formations of yesteryear (before Darrel Royal even) that was originally run with a fullback. On a texas fan thread I encountered a coach saying that Texas should run the “run-and-shoot” offense, which is another old offense you can find remnants of in most modern schemes. I’m not necessarily entirely sold on this suggestion but I do think the trap play should be incorporated as a mainstay in the Texas offense because it can be run from the shotgun and it fits the current personnel well.
I call it, the Von Trap Family series:
Trap plays work to create down-blocking angles in the middle of the line typically by pulling the left guard and allowing the defensive end on the other side of the line to come free. The guard can then broadside that end away from the play. Allow me to demonstrate.
First we have the power-trap play.
What’s good about the trap-plays is that it creates favorable angles for the offensive lineman to attack defenders. The Left tackle can just block the end across from him further in the direction that end would typically be racing towards. The Left guard will pull to the right where the left end has been left unblocked. He will then nail the end and drive him away from the action.
The Center attacks the defensive tackle to his left and pushes him away from the path of the running back. The tight end, having left the end across from him alone will advance to the 2nd level aiming for the weakside linebacker but he’ll typically block whoever gets in the way. The right guard will chip the defensive tackle towards the Right tackle and advance to the middle linebacker.
The running back should have a big hole between the Center and right guard to advance through and then he can read the action from there. The safeties are up to him.
All these plays are drawn against the 4-3 under front but can be adapted to face other fronts. In these we can see that the center must make a downblock on the nose tackle. With Hall this was still doable because the angle was good, with David Snow all the more so.
Now, if the play is successful in gashing the defense up the middle for yards it sets up a series of pass plays that are already within the Texas arsenal:
If they move in a linebacker instead of covering the slot receiver they are vulnerable to the play-action bubble screen. Or just the bubble screen:
If you throw this to Marquise Goodwin in that scenario good things can happen as we saw against Alabama.
Similarly if they drop the free safety into the box to help against the run they leave themselves vulnerable to deep play action passes.
Now the Free safety has been drawn in too close and the left corner has no help as the receiver runs a deep post. Garret Gilbert throws it over their heads…touchdown. Or maybe the quarterback just finds someone else like the tight end running vertical or the X receiver on the right, or whatever other routes Texas runs on the play. I won’t pretend I put much thought into the routes other than the post that the safety has left open, but the tight end running vertical keeps the other safety from stopping the deep post without helping against the tight end.
The Von-Trap can also be run with 4 wide receivers provided that the defense moves a linebacker out to line up on the receiver. If he doesn’t than the offense should be throwing anyways.
The blocking angles aren’t as great here though so it’s useful to have another play for the 4-WR offense to employ. I recommend one that Texas might more freely use with a better center in the middle of the field. The normal shotgun play, the running back draw.
The tackles both start moving laterally as though they were in pass protection. This allows the defensive ends to run upfield and take themselves out of the play. The left guard gets some help from the Center in moving the tackle to the left and then the Center advances against the linebacker. The right guard follows the lead of the tackles and just seals off the other tackle. The quarterback has to sell the play like he’s looking to pass before handing off to the running back who can probably shoot up the middle between the center’s block and the right guards’. The lineman can also line up in pass protection stances to help sell the pass.
I like this trap play because it features down-blocking (which is easier for big guys like Huey, Hix, or some of the other newly acquired recruits) and it’s easy to work out ways to run it without in the shotgun formations Texas uses to the extent that I was able to invent it myself just adapting the play from the run-and-shoot scheme. However, there are a number of other running schemes that can, and should be implemented with the offense in lieu of a zone-running game that Texas has shown little ability to execute.
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