Film Study: UCLA Bruins

The Washington Huskies overcame their road woes, as they took down the UCLA Bruins 48-14 in Pasadena. Defense and Special Teams were the stars of the game, as they forced 3 fumbles and returned a FG for a touchdown. The offense started off slow but then maintained a balanced attack, as both the passing and ground games got it going, leading to a consecutive week scoring 40+. The Dawgs look to get healthy and be at full strength for this week’s rivalry game against 0regon, where they look to play CFP spoiler.

To the film.

Offense: Back to Basics

In the two weeks since the offense’s disappointing performance at Wisconsin, and since I publicly questioned whether Fisch could call an offense that was more than “hero ball” relying on Demond Williams, Jonah Coleman, and Denzel Boston, the Husky offense has been looking like a well-oiled machine. Granted, neither Purdue nor UCLA are particularly competitive squads this season, but the level of competition isn’t enough to account for the rhythm, efficiency, and simple competency that the offense has exhibited despite also playing with a completely reshuffled offensive line, without their WR2 and WR3, and missing Coleman and Boston. I don’t want to call it addition by subtraction since we’re clearly a better team with all of our starters, but maybe something adjacent to it. I think Fisch is getting back to his play calling roots by letting the system do the work now that he has no other option.

In Big Ten play, we’ve been run a 47/53 pass/run split, whereas over the last two weeks we’ve shifted towards a 38/62 pass/run split. That’s a noticeable shift in how we’re approaching the run game. More specifically, it’s indicative of how Fisch has reemphasized the run game in the play calling and has found ways to game plan effective run schemes. That success in the run game has created a positive feedback loop within Fisch’s system by significantly improving the effectiveness of our play action. What was the common thread between the run and pass improvements against UCLA? Under center formations.

According to Sports Info Solutions, Demond’s run ~17% of all pass attempts this season out of under center formations (50 total). Against UCLA, we’ve run ~46% of our pass attempts (12/26 attempts) out of under center formations, and 11 of those 12 under center attempts also had play action. Demond’s an efficient passer overall, averaging 72% completion & 9.1 yards per attempt on the season. His efficiency improves a bit when you isolate just his play action pass attempts, averaging ~75% completion & 9.4 yards per attempt. However, his efficiency noticeably improves when you isolate all of his pass attempts out of under center formations, averaging 78% completion & 10.6 yards per attempt. In this game, when we combined play action and under center formations, even with large single game volume, Demond averaged ~82% completion & 12.1 yards per attempt.

That’s a whole lot more numbers than we usually include in Film Study, but I found it interesting that the numbers backed up my observations. Fisch’s offensive system has always utilized under center formations and play action as a foundation for the passing game, and while the offense has evolved to incorporate more shotgun to take advantage of Demond’s skill set, getting back to basics appears to be paying dividends while the team is dealing with injuries. Let’s take a look at how Fisch is utilizing under center formations to enhance the passing attack.

3rd Quarter – 5:32 – 1st & Goal

First up we have an under center play action concept from the high red zone that Dezmen Roebuck scored a TD on in the mid-3rd quarter. On this play design, Fisch is incorporating a little bit of everything. We’ve got shifts, motion, hard play action (back facing the defense to sell the fake), and max protection layered on top of a very basic 3-route concept. We’ll get into the concept in a bit, but I wanted to use the clip above to highlight the rhyme and reasoning behind all the window dressing in this play.

First there’s the shift. The offense initially lines up in a empty 3×2 shotgun formation that had Adam Mohammed (#24, RB) lined up on the 3-WR side. Shifting from a 3×2 empty formation to a 2×2 under center formation can force the defense to tip two things that Demond can scan for pre-snap. One is how the second level (LBs, CBs) react to the shift as a man/zone indicator. When Mohammed shifts into the backfield, you can see #32, LB Isaiah Chisom, mirror him from the perimeter back into the box. This is an hint that they are running man coverage. However, UCLA’s slot corner #28 also flips sides of the formation after the shift, so it’s not certain that they are in man coverage just yet. If Demond can get confirmation from another indicator, then he’ll know what type of coverage they are running. Put a pin in that for later. The second indicator to check from the shift is the safety movement. UCLA is starting in a 2-high coverage shell, but they could still be disguising their coverage since it’s easy to rotate into a 1-high shell post-snap. Since the safeties remain static after the shift, even though there is now a running threat with Mohammed now in the backfield, Demond can feel pretty confident that it’s some variation of Cover 2 or Cover 4.

After the shift, and just before the snap, Demond sends Chris Lawson (#8, WR) into Jet motion. This motion causes UCLA’s #28 to chase him across the formation. This is the confirmation of man coverage that Demond was looking for after the shift. Knowing that it’s man coverage out of a 2-high shell, he can safely assume that he’s facing Cover 2 man, also known as 2-Man Under to some. This is the exact coverage look that we’re hoping for on this play concept.

The concept, Double Cross or Crossers as I was taught to call it, is a common man coverage beater play design that is often paired with play action and heavy protection. The main component of the concept are the two deep crossing routes from opposite sides of the field, but there is often an underneath check down option (like Lawson in the flat) included in most Crossers play designs. The Crossers concept is more or less a downfield variation of the Mesh concept where the crossing routes utilize their long route development and defensive traffic to gain some separation against man coverage. Instead of the routes being run in front of the LBs like in Mesh, Crossers have the crossing routes intersect behind the LBs. This is why pairing Crossers with play action, where the LBs can get drawn up into the LOS, is so common. It buys more space for the routes to develop, as well as uses the play action to mitigate the risk of a LB undercutting the routes. The addition of play action and heavy 7-man pass protection is a necessity on this type of notoriously long developing play, and it’s simply a smart move by Fisch that makes sure that we have the time to execute the play after all of the trickery did its magic.

Smart play design and a great result.

4th Quarter – 7:21 – 3rd & 4

One more under center play design that I wanted to highlight was this bootleg dump off to Decker DeGraaf (#86, TE) for a late TD. Play designs like this bootleg aren’t new to the offense. We’ve run them through out the season and several times earlier in the game. However, we had been calling them at a lower clip during conference play than we did in the non-conference slate or against UCLA. This play design is a Flood concept paired with the play action bootleg, which is a staple of the Shanahan and McVay offenses that Fisch has drawn much of his offensive inspiration from. Flood is a 3-level vertical stretch passing concept designed to attack perimeter coverage on the side of the bootleg. In this case we have Roebuck running a deep Corner route from the boundary side, Omari Evans running an intermediate crossing route from a tight alignment on the field side, and a quick check release route into the flat from DeGraaf. Since most zone coverages don’t have more than two defenders defending the sidelines, the 3-levels of routes usually has someone open. More often than not, the defense will prioritize defending the deeper two routes, leaving the underneath route (like DeGraaf’s) open for a catch & run opportunity.

One of my criticisms of the offense has been our inability to consistently create catch-and-run opportunities outside of the screen game. Under center formations allow us to utilize more of these bootleg concepts that can feature the talented pass catchers, including DeGraaf, without needing to rely on lower probability deep shot plays.

Defense: Takin’ It to Them

The defense really stole the show in Pasadena. Over the course of the season, the Ryan Walters’ unit has quietly improved week-over-week and is now really starting to flex on lesser opponents. Often times its difficult to notice the slow in-season progression, especially on defense, and its even harder to identify what’s actually driving the improvement. Sometimes it’s the emergence of a few key contributors. Other times it’s shuffling players around to different roles. Rarely is it a wholesale change in scheme or identity. I won’t go as far as to say that we’ve witnessed a wholesale change, but we have seen a major shift in Walters’ play calling to better suit the talent of the young emerging players, and the combination of new contributors and the shift in play calling as allowed a more aggressive and physical defensive identity to emerge.

Fans often think of man-heavy defenses as more physical and aggressive since they often blitz and run press coverage at a higher rate than zone-based defenses. However, Walters’ shift towards zone play calling has put our LBs and DBs in better positions to play downhill against the run and pass. Instead of chasing guys across the field, our players are rallying from depth to the ball, improving not just our tackling in space but also the physicality of those tackles. Let’s take a dive into a few examples.

1st Quarter – 2:08 – 1st & 10

First up we have this nice forced fumble play from the 1st quarter that was set up by a fast rallying defense playing out of Walters’ new favorite coverage looks, 3-DB Tampa 2. We broke down Walters’ version of the 3-DB Tampa 2 coverage in our Illinois Film Study article, but at a high level, it’s the conventional Tampa 2 coverage (Cover 2 with the MIKE sometimes dropping into deep middle coverage) with safety Alex McLaughlin playing the hybrid MIKE role. At face value, most can see the value in playing this version of Tampa 2 with McLaughlin on the team. If Esteen and Clark can play as conventional Cover 2 safeties, then it allows us to get the best of both worlds from McLaughlin’s skill set. McLaughlin is a great box safety with range to play both underneath and over top, as is required in Tampa 2’s MIKE role. However, the hidden value of playing Tampa 2 is how it allows us to play our CBs. Instead of our CBs being responsible for deep coverage or man coverage, like they would in Cover 3 or Cover 1, Tampa 2 makes them responsible for playing the underneath flat zone while still having 3 DBs play quasi-Cover 3 over the top. With big and physical DBs like ours, letting them play enforcer in the flat, rather than playing clean up tackler from deep coverage, is a huge advantage.

As you can see better on the replay angle, Dylan Robinson (#6, CB) isn’t the the player that forced the fumble, but he is the player that set up the play against the WR screen. Robinson is sitting in the flat and quickly takes on the blocking WR at the line. This forces the ball carrier back inside towards Clark coming downhill to make the tackle. This is a way better tackling angle for Clark than if the WR was able to break up the sideline, which is what would’ve happened if Robinson was bailing in deep coverage. That theme of setting up favorable downhill tackling angles for our DBs is really important, and this is a great example.

2nd Quarter – 7:15 – 3rd & 2

Keeping in the theme of setting up downhill tackling angles and getting our DBs involved more actively underneath, we have this fantastic play by Makell Esteen. Esteen has played a lot at our free safety role this season, and too often I found that his responsibilities left him in a position where he wasn’t really influencing the play or was not set up to make a play. Against this Read Option play, he made a fantastic TFL in a short yardage situation that has been few and far between this season.

As you can see a bit more clearly on the replay angle, Esteen is set up all the way in the deep center field spot but comes flying down towards the line right at the snap. I’m not sure if we have a Cover 1 or Cover 0 call here, but it’s definitely man coverage. Either way, Esteen has clearly been coached to attack downhill from his deep position given the down and distance situation. I’m pretty sure we’ve got a scrape exchange situation going on here with Manu (LB, #9) being responsible for backside contain, but Esteen’s quick diagnosis of the play and downhill tackling angle allows him to reach the QB on the keeper well before Manu. That reaction time is the difference between a 3rd down stop and a conversion, and is another example of how more active play at the line from our DBs has been a really big component of our defensive improvement over the season.

Also, quick shout out to Bryce Butler (DT, #92) playing nose tackle on this play. His ability to eat the double team in the middle keeps Manu free to make the clean up tackle assist with Esteen.

Awgs’ Bonus Play(s) of the Week

Thank you Alex McLaughlin for capitalizing on this absolute horrendous fake FG attempt.