Pin and pull

For this blog, I have consulted a Div. II offensive assistant coach, someone we’ll just call “Coach.”

Following Kansas’ 31-14 victory over South Dakota, I heard many Jayhawk fans suggest that coach Charlie Weis should ditch the Wildcat (or Jayhawk) formation altogether.

I wanted to ask our expert “Coach” to see what he thought. Below are three of KU’s unsuccessful Wildcat plays from Saturday’s game.

After watching the clips, Coach says KU has different issues on each of the three plays.

On the first play, KU actually has a numbers advantage if you look before the snap. KU has five blockers on the left side of the line to take care of five South Dakota defenders: two linemen, two linebackers and a safety.

Coach says KU is trying to execute a “pin-and-pull” technique here. The two tight ends (Trent Smiley and Jimmay Mundine) have the objective of “pinning” the South Dakota players in front of them back to the inside. KU’s left tackle (Aslam Sterling) and left guard (Ngalu Fusimalohi) then “pull” around the outside to block, along with Tony Pierson out of the backfield.

Pin and pull

So where is the breakdown? As the red arrows show above, USD’s linebacker and defensive tackle stunt on the play, in essence looping around each other to confuse the offense.

With this extra movement, Mundine — the inside tight end (yellow line) — misses his pin block completely.

Instead of three on three, it’s now USD with a four-to-three numbers advantage toward the bottom of the screen.

4 on 3.

Though the linebacker that got by Mundine doesn’t make the tackle, he does force the left guard Fusimalohi to block him (blue circle above). That leaves a second USD linebacker unblocked and unimpeded, and he’s able to pull down Matthews.

Coach says the Mundine missed block is the key to the play. If he’s able to seal his man — or if he and Smiley communicate better on the fly and switch their assignments to block the two stunting USD players — then Matthews likely scores a touchdown. Instead, he’s dragged down at the 5.

The second play actually is a different play from the Wildcat formation, with Coach diagnosing it as a double-option. Here, Matthews can either run it himself or pitch to Tony Pierson behind him.

Double option

Once again, KU appears to have a numbers advantage. With good KU blocking, South Dakota is left with one linebacker to defend both Matthews and Pierson.

Coach says Matthews job here is to attack the linebacker’s outside shoulder to make him commit. If the defender shades toward the outside, Matthews should cut inside and run past him. If the defender commits to Matthews, he should pitch it to Pierson, who then would have lots of running room.

Matthews' attack point.

There’s one problem, though: As you can see from the picture above, Pierson is in no position to accept a pitch. Coach labels this as “bad pitch relationship,” saying Pierson should be further back and toward the sideline to make himself an option for Matthews.

He never makes it there. With no other options, Matthews is forced to turn upfield right into the linebacker, who makes the open-field tackle.

Coach says Pierson’s positioning isn’t necessarily his fault. Remember where he was to start the play?

Alignment

Pierson is aligned on Matthews’ right when the play is going left, meaning he will really have to hustle to get in proper position on the other side of Matthews.

Coach says KU can do a few things to help him. Many times, teams will motion that back presnap to the left side, which gives him a bit of a head start. KU also could run this play out of the Pistol formation, which would put Pierson directly behind Matthews instead of to his right.

Coach also says a lot of times on these types of plays, the quarterback will catch the snap then take a step back, which allows the back to get an extra step to the outside.

Though these might be tweaks for a future game, they don’t happen here, and the result is no gain.

Coach says there’s little KU can do to prevent the third play from being a failure.

Corner blitz

The Coyotes have seen enough of Matthews to realize he’s not much of a threat to pass, so they send a corner blitz. Though receiver Josh Ford at the bottom is supposed to block the corner, he can only watch as his man runs right by.

This is a read-option play, so Matthews is reading the outside defensive end, whom KU leaves unblocked on purpose. That end immediately crashes towards running back James Sims, and Matthews makes the correct read to keep the ball.

End crashes.

It doesn’t make a difference, though, as the cornerback has a running head start and immediately is there to wrap up Matthews for no gain.

Notice at the bottom of the screen that because of its blitz, South Dakota has rolled a safety to cover KU’s No. 1 receiver Josh Ford with minimal help deep. If Ford were to run a vertical or out route, he’d basically be going one-on-one against a safety — a huge mismatch in football terms.

Basically, South Dakota is daring Matthews to throw it, and Weis’ next step could be calling for Matthews to heave a pass. Doing that not only would take advantage of the mismatch, but it also might prevent run blitzes like this in the future.

Though KU didn’t have much success with its Wildcat plays Saturday, Coach says it’s not time to ditch the formation. Having this package on tape — if nothing else — makes KU more unpredictable and a tougher scout for opposing defensive coordinators.

“It’s easy to give up on things real quick,” Coach said, “but I would say the problems they had are very minimal problems, and they’re easily fixed.”