Michigan vs Mississippi State Part Two: Analyzing Mississippi State vs Auburn

This continues the 5-part blog post series on the upcoming Gator Bowl.  Previous posts are listed here: 

Part One: Michigan's Offense vs Mississippi State's Defense


As we learned in the first post, Mississippi State possesses a strong run defense, and is a very resilient bend but don't break defense.  The Bulldogs have a strong defensive line and linebackers that could prove to make things difficult for the Michigan offense.  However, through watching the game tape of Mississippi State's defense against Auburn, there are some holes in their defense that I'll highlight here.

Michigan runs a spread-option offense, mostly consisting of the following plays:

• Zone Read plays, where Denard has the options to either hand it off to the RB, throw a quick WR Screen to an outside receiver, or keep the ball and run it himself.  This makes up the majority of Rich Rod's offensive gameplan when rushing the ball. 
• WR Screens:  As I said with zone reads, often, Denard throws a screen to the outside receiver if there isn't much coverage outside on the receivers and the defense is keying in on the running play.  This helps keep the defense honest and from having 8 defenders in the box every play.  Additionally, it's run as a diagrammed play, and wholly separately from the zone read.
• QB Draws and "QB Power" plays.  I call them QB Power, simply because the team has three or more blockers on the side Denard is running on, usually consisting of an offensive lineman pulling from the opposite side of the play, a runningback, and a wide receiver.  QB Draws generally are run up the middle of the play, while Denard (and Cam Newton in the example in this post) have enough speed to run the "QB Power" outside.

After the jump, with freeze-framed plays, I take you step by step through how Auburn exploited Mississippi State's defense with WR screens and QB draws. 



We'll start with the first play of the game.

Auburn opens the game with a Shotgun - 4 WR - Trips Left (3 WRs are set to the left) formation.  Similarly to Michigan, Auburn is a run-based offense that operates mainly from 3 and 4 WR sets.  Mississippi State, who runs a 4-3 base defense, opens in a 3-4 look, possibly just to give Auburn a different look than they've seen on tape normally.  Auburn is going to run a playaction screen to the left, a play Michigan runs about 10-15 times a game through planned WR screens or zone read plays. 

The MSU defense shows a blitz of the linebackers on the weakside.

Quick aside for more casual fans:  The "weak side" is the side of the play with less RBs, WRs, and TEs on it.  Generally the strong side is the side with a tight end on it.  In this case, there's no tight end, so whichever side has more WRs and RBs combined on it is referred to as the strong side. 

The weakside linebackers, both the outside linebacker and weakside middle linebacker B, aggressive, but largely irrelevant to the play itself.  The RB will run to the right on the playaction fake, and pick up the blitzing weakside LB #48 Emmanuel Gatling, the only player on that side with a legitimate shot at Cam Newton.  The trips formation of WRs to the left only has two men to block, the strongside OLB and the deep corner (which MSU uses a lot, similarly to our defense, to shield their weak secondary from getting beat deep).  2 blockers, 2 men to block, you can do the math.  

 
The entire MSU defensive line penetrates the Auburn offensive line, by Auburn's design, taking them all out of the play.  The left tackle actually lets the right defensive end run clear by him, so that he can go up field and block the non-blitzing MLB (#34).  Mississippi State's non-blitzing linebackers fall for the playaction fake slightly, drawing them in just enough to ensure a big gain. 

Mississippi State's aware linebackers caught on to the screen by now and are in pursuit.  #36 is blocked by the wide receiver as the play required and the other wide receiver is up field blocking the cornerback in soft, deep coverage.  The left tackle (#73) couldn't block #34 K.J. Wright before he saw the screen, so Wright is able to knock Terrell Zachary (the WR catching the screen) out of bounds after a 12-yard-gain. 

The WR screen is a staple in Michigan's offense, and Michigan needs to go to this often in the Gator Bowl.  After watching the whole game tape, I noticed that Mississippi State is reluctant to take their linebackers with above-average athleticism and awareness off the field, so they're rarely out of 4-3 or 3-4 defensive sets.  Whenever the defense's formation favors Michigan this strongly, Denard will throw the screen to the outside receiver.  One downside here is that Michigan's wide recievers aren't as dynamic, and aren't as big, so while WR screens usually are successful for the Wolverines, they won't be as successful as the ones that Auburn runs.  However, this play gives a good idea of what to expect against Mississippi State's base defense and Michigan can exploit this to their advantage, get the linebackers off the field, and return to the running game.

Auburn ran the screen with much success on this game-opening drive, scoring 7 plays later from a similar formation on a 39 yard WR screen, capitalizing on another aggressive linebacker blitz by Miss. St. 

Next, we'll look at an Auburn QB Draw drawn up for Cameron Newton.

Auburn lines up in a Shotgun - 3 WR - 2 RB formation.  Mississippi State counters with a 4-3 formation, aligning their strongside linebacker over the slot receiver.  This "4-3 Over Slot" formation as I'll refer to it, was easily the most-used formation through the game, giving Auburn (and Michigan when they face Miss. St.) a speed advantage.  Mississippi State's linebackers are actually very athletic, so the advantage isn't as pronounced as you would think.  Another interesting note about this formation is that their defensive ends start the play from a standing position rather than with their hand on the ground.  They did this a lot against Cam Newton, leading me to believe they'll show the same look often against a faster QB in Denard. 

Auburn is running a play that can be called "QB Power", or simply a QB Draw on this play.

The Tigers run the QB Draw to the left.  Cameron Newton will have a 3-blocker caravan to lead the way for him.  Every offensive lineman is blocking the man to their right except for the right guard, who pulls to the left side of the formation, to account for the unblocked DE.  The WR runs a go route down field, forcing the cornerback to turn his head and follow him, effectively taking that cornerback out of the play, leaving Newton with a LOT of open pasture ahead.  The two runningbacks lead the way for Cam, creating his running lane.

The right guard is laying on the ground, having gotten enough of a block on the defensive end that he has no hope of catching Newton.  The RB will set a mediocre block on the LB running free (#34), slowing him up enough to allow Newton to continue full steam ahead, while he still has one lead blocker.  The WR at the bottom has ended his route as the CB is pretty much helpless at this point to react and catch Newton.

Choose the Red or Blue: Cameron Newton chooses to TRUCK STICK two players for the hell of it

The final block has been set, and Cameron Newton SHOULD be running to paydirt, however, he followed his block a little too religiously.  On this play, Denard would take the path with the blue arrow for a touchdown or simply fall to avoid a hit.  Cameron Newton, being the 6'6", 250 pound monster he is, decides to simply run over the linebacker (again #34) AND safety in front of him, pushing them for another five yards, ending the play with a 15-yard gain.

Denard obviously doesn't have the passing arm that Newton has, and doesn't have the pure power to run over a linebacker, however, Denard has just as much potential to break a simple QB Power/QB Draw play into a touchdown as Newton does, thanks to his 4.3 speed and great running instincts. 

Looking at these two plays we can take away that while Mississippi State was a good run D, they CAN be exploited by QB Draws (of which we run 10+ a game), and they're susceptible to WR screens (again, run often by Michigan)  especially when they have their strong front-seven on the field and few players fast enough to get to the play in timely fashion.