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Rice Football Film Room: Texas review and Baylor preview

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Rice football has three games in the books and a lot of film to look through. This week Carter reviews Texas and previews Baylor.

Hey everyone! Welcome back to the film room. Not a lot of positives to take out of that Texas game, sadly, but I do want to highlight one play that shows some great work by the Rice football front seven on defense. Then we’ll switch things up and make this a preview column by looking at a particularly illustrative play from Baylor’s offense in their win against UTSA, so y’all can get an idea of what to expect from them on Saturday.

TEXAS: UT Ball, 2nd and 3, 8:04 3rd quarter

Setup

Texas is in an 11 personnel shotgun spread set. The back is behind Ehlinger and to his right and an H-back to that side of the line. Rice is showing a three man front, with JaVante Hubbard at a 0-tech nose and Myles Adams and Kenneth Orji as stand-up defensive ends.

Prudy Calderon is off the line to the strong side, ready to either cover the H-back or contain a backside QB run. Blaze Alldredge and Anthony Ekpe are at off-ball linebacker, and George Nyakwol has crept up in between the two and is already blitzing into the A-gap at the snap.

The Play

It looks like this is a zone read, because Ehlinger appears to be focusing on Myles Adams at the snap. Since Adams has to go around the H-back, he doesn’t crash quickly enough to tackle the back, and so Ehlinger makes the right read and hands it off. It could be that it’s a called hand-off, with the H chipping Adams long enough to keep him from making the play, but it looks more like he’s trying to get to Prudy Calderon in case Ehlinger keeps it.

Blaze Alldredge’s is the star here. He flows to the B gap, stacks and sheds the right guard, and slides into the backfield to make the tackle. But the rest of the Rice front is great on this play as well. The right tackle can’t stay engaged with Ekpe, who might have managed to stop the play for no gain had the back gotten by Alldredge.

Hubbard backs the reaching right guard two yards into the backfield, as does the 182-lb Nyakwol with UT’s 300-pound center (!!). Both are eventually overpowered, but not till after they’ve clogged up the interior gaps. Orji turns the left tackle perpendicular to the line to seal the edge, preventing the back from bouncing the play outside (which is critical—if Orji doesn’t hold the edge, the back is gone by the time Alldredge sheds his blocker). Even Adams stays in pursuit long enough to have chased down the back if Alldredge had merely plugged his gap instead. It’s a loss of one.

BAYLOR: BU Ball, 1st and 10, 9:45 1st Quarter

Rice Football

Setup

Here’s a play from early in Baylor’s win over UTSA in Week 2. I picked it to illustrate the kind of headaches an aggressive spread run scheme like Baylor’s can cause. Baylor’s in 11 personnel, with all three receivers and the back to the right and the TE to the left. UTSA is in a basic 4-man front nickel package.

The Play

The base run play here is called GT Counter, in which both the backside guard and tackle pull to clear the way for the running back. It’s a popular play these days, in particular being the staple of Oklahoma’s run game. It can be run out of a number of variations and with a variety of options built into it, so it’s a versatile play to have in your book.

Here, it starts with a basic spread option read. The backside defensive end is left unblocked, and the QB will read him, exactly like zone read. If he stays wide, the QB hands it off. If he crashes inside, the QB keeps. Here the DE does what’s called “attacking the mesh”—he sprints upfield to the mesh point, hoping the QB won’t make the read quickly enough and that he’ll be able to make the play no matter who has the ball. It’s a good way to defend these plays if you’ve got a really athletic end, but it’s risky because if the QB decides quickly you can get burned.

Here, Charlie Brewer does what every QB should in this situation (handoff as quickly as possible), and the end takes himself out of the play. From there, UTSA has clogged the middle enough to force Trestan Ebner to cut it back, but once he does there’s nobody in between him and the first down marker, and it’s a big play all the way to the red zone.

The Roost Podcast | Rice Football vs Texas review and Baylor Preview

But this isn’t just a basic option run play—it’s an RPO. Take a look at the innermost slot receiver (what the defense would mark as the No. 3 receiver). As the outer two receivers clear out and set up to block, he goes out for a screen. So actually Brewer’s read here is probably that if the end doesn’t crash inside (or attack the mesh), he pulls the ball out and throws the screen. Some teams, Oklahoma included, will run plays like this but keep the QB run option, making it a true triple option with the screen replacing the pitch.

That play pretty well encapsulates the basic idea of Baylor’s offense. They’re built around a couple of core run concepts, which they use to build out a playbook filled with option runs, play-action and RPOs.

I made the Oklahoma comparison a couple of times, and it’s similar to what they do in their run/option/RPO packages, but without the Air Raid passing roots of Lincoln Riley. It’s more wide open than the old school offense Matt Rhule ran as the head coach at Temple, but it’s still built on running the football. It’s relatively simple for the offensive players to run but deceptively difficult for defensive players to recognize and stay disciplined on the plays. Hopefully Rice football is up to the challenge.

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Rice Football Film Room: Breaking down Owls’ offense vs Wake Forest

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Rice Football dropped their first home contest to Wake Forest on Friday. Carter Spires takes us beyond the box score, unpacking the Owls’ offense and more.

Hey y’all, it’s Carter, and welcome back to the film room! This week we’re gonna be breaking down a couple of plays in the passing game. We’ll take a look at two plays from the Rice offense, breaking down the emergence of playmakers at wide receiver and quarterback. Then we’ll look at one for the Rice defense to highlight the growth in the secondary and show that sometimes great offense just beats great defense.

Play 1 | Wiley Green to Brad Rozner

Rice Football, Brad Rozner, Wiley Green

Setup

It’s Rice’s second drive of the game, 6:06 to go in the first quarter. Rice is down 14-0. It’s second and 10 from the Wake 44. Rice has 11 personnel (1 back 1 TE) on the field in a spread set with two wide receivers stacked to the field (the wide side of the field), and Wiley Green is in the shotgun with Aston Walter behind him and to his right.

Bradley Rozner is the “Z” receiver to the boundary (the short side of the field), which is the strong side here because the TE (can’t tell which one) is lined up on that side. Wake responds by showing a split safety look, with the corner playing off Rozner and “rover” (a hybrid OLB/S/nickel similar to Rice’s Viper) Luke Masterson playing the seam about 7 yards off the line of scrimmage.

More: 5 Takeaways from the Owls’ Week 2 game against Wake Forest

The rover is Green’s key on this play, which after a bit of back and forth with myself I’m fairly sure is an RPO (more on that in a bit). Rozner is going to run what’s called a glance route or skinny post—that is, he’ll stem his route vertically, then break toward the middle of the field at a shallow angle. If the rover bails at the snap (i.e., if Wake is playing Cover 2 to that side to bracket Rozner), Green will hand the ball off to Walter, because in that case, Rice has 6 blockers to Wake’s 6 defenders in the box.

If the rover flows downhill at the snap to play the run (based on the alignment of Wake’s front, I think he’s responsible for the strongside C-gap, between the tackle and the TE), then Wake has the numbers advantage in the run game and Rozner is in single coverage, so Green will pull the ball and throw it to him. Since there’s no middle-of-the-field safety in this coverage, a completed pass to Rozner here could mean a huge gain (and it does!)

The Play

On whether this is an RPO: the broadcast the color commentator identified it as such because LG Nick Leverett pulls at the snap, but that can sometimes be window dressing for a play-action pass. The rest of the OL doesn’t exactly fire downhill (look at Clay Servin). What sells me is that RT Justin Gooseberry, after a quick double team, climbs to the second level to block the linebacker, which he wouldn’t be doing if it were a called pass. So I’m fairly certain this is an RPO.

It’s a pretty easy read for Green. Masterson is creeping downhill even *before* the snap. He’s already taken a couple steps forward by the time Walter reaches the mesh point. As such, Green doesn’t even have to hesitate at the mesh point; he quickly pulls the ball and flips it to Rozner, who does a great job of breaking his route in time to box out the corner. He makes the catch, slips the corner’s tackle attempt, and makes it all the way inside the 5 on the play. First and goal, Owls.

Play 2 | Tom Stewart to August Pitre

Rice Football, Tom Stewart, August Pitre

Setup

2:16 left in the 1st quarter and Rice is down 14-7. They have it 2nd and 7 on the Wake 26 on Tom Stewart’s first full drive at QB. Rice is in 20 personnel (2 backs no TE), in another shotgun spread set. Rozner is the lone receiver to the boundary. August Pitre is wide to the field. Austin Trammell is in the slot, and Stewart is flanked by Nahshon Ellerbe (right) and FB Reagan Williams (left). Wake is again in their nickel personnel, showing a split safety look.

The Play

At the snap, the safety and both outside corners bail deep while the nickel back and linebackers drift into shallow zones. The TV camera is too zoomed in for us to tell exactly what happens, but since we later see the safety running towards Pitre from the middle of the field, it looks like they bailed into Cover 3 (in this case a very basic 3 deep/4 under pure zone coverage) from the split safety look.

Both Trammell and Pitre stem their routes vertical at the snap. Trammell breaks his off into a curl (a type of comeback route, often used to find holes in zone coverage) a couple of yards past the first down marker. He’s briefly open if Stewart fires the ball out right as he breaks his route, but it looks like Stewart wants Pitre all the way*.

It’s difficult to tell what route Pitre is running, again because of the camera, but it looks like he breaks his route inward just before disappearing from view. But by the time the ball reaches him, he’s breaking back toward the sideline, meaning this is some kind of double-move, either a post-corner or post-out.

More: Previewing the Owls’ Week 3 game against Texas

Either way, he finds some space under the outside corner’s deep third and above the nickel’s shallow zone. (The nickel might have been in a position to make the play, but he spent a long time lingering to make sure Reagan Williams wasn’t going to leak out of the pass protection and catch a checkdown underneath). Both are closing hard as the ball’s in the air though, so the window ends up being a tight one.

It’s a perfect play from both Stewart and Pitre. Stewart puts the ball high where only his guy can get it, and Pitre shows off his leaping ability to high point the ball and come down with it. First and goal, Rice. They’d tie the game on a zone-read keeper from Stewart the next play.

Play 3 | Jamie Newman to Scotty Washington

Rice Football

Setup

Sadly, I probably shouldn’t *only* show Rice’s best plays in this column. I want to highlight this particular Wake TD though, because it dovetails with what Matthew and I said on the pod this week. Several times against Wake, the Rice DBs were in position to make a play and were simply beat straight up by Jamie Newman’s pinpoint passing and the size and athleticism of his gargantuan receivers.

That’s frustrating, but it’s better than getting beat because you were out of position or couldn’t stick with your man in coverage. This play was bad for Rice, but it shows some promise for the Rice secondary (or for Andrew Bird, at least) in conference play.

Wake is in an 11 personnel shotgun spread set, with two receivers to the field, and the RB and H-back both lined up on the offense’s right. Rice is in their base defensive personnel, which we’ll call a nickel here, because Treshawn Chamberlain is most definitely lined up as a DB rather than a LB. They’re showing a five-man front with a Cover 1 man-under look in the secondary, with Chamberlain as the deep safety. They’re playing press-man on the outside receivers, as is preferred in DC Brian Smith’s scheme.

We’re mainly concerned with Andrew Bird, lined up as the boundary corner on Scotty Washington (who checks in at a whopping 6-foot-5, 225 pounds), but I do wanna highlight the versatility of these Rice defenders. The Viper role often has nickel DB/outside linebacker responsibilities, but Chamberlain is playing deep safety in Cover 1. Blaze Alldredge, the starting weakside (“Will”) linebacker, is lined up as a standup defensive end. George Nyakwol, the starting free safety, is basically playing linebacker. These guys can do it all!

The Play

At the snap, Rice sends all five defenders on the line. Antonio Montero and Nyakwol follow on a delayed blitz**. Unfortunately, none of Rice’s players on the front can beat their blocks in time to affect the throw. Newman gets the ball out fast enough that Montero and Nyakwol don’t have time to get home even though they have numbers to that side with both blitzing.

Meanwhile, Bird plays outside leverage at the snap, wanting to seal Washington off from the sideline since he’s got help to the middle of the field. Washington stutters the outside, getting a clean release. Bird does well to recover, staying engaged and in phase with the receiver throughout the route.

Both of them see the ball in flight when they’re at about the 5-yard line, and Bird even manages to negate Washington’s height advantage enough to get a hand in at the catch point. Unfortunately for him, Washington is not only four inches taller than he is, but 50 pounds heavier as well, and I’m guessing that a fair amount of those 50 pounds are muscle. Washington hangs on to the ball, and it’s a TD for Wake.

The Roost Podcast Ep 7 | Wake Forest recap and Texas Preview

It didn’t work this time, but in this play you can see exactly what Brian Smith wants this defense to be against the passing game. Physical man coverage on receivers paired with aggressive and hopefully confusing pressure from the front. If Jamie Newman were a little less accurate or a little less comfortable in a compressed pocket, or if Scotty Washington were even 2–3 inches shorter, this play goes as planned for Rice. As Rice’s players continue to develop in the scheme (and in the long term, as the staff continues to recruit players who fit it), they’ll get even better at executing.

So there you have it. We asked for some playmakers to step up for Rice in the passing game, and they did that against Wake. (I didn’t break down a play for Austin Trammell, but he was stellar as well). And while this weekend’s game against Texas is going to feature a similarly capable QB and even more enormous receivers, not many C-USA teams can replicate that. If Rice’s secondary maintains this level of play when they get to the conference games, the results will look a lot better.

Notes

*I’m not entirely familiar with this route combination (a hitch from the slot with a post-corner or post-out from the outside receiver), so I can’t tell you for certain what the read for the QB is. It seems to be the same basic principle as a smash concept (which is a corner route from the slot over an outside hitch)—that is, you put a high-low stress on the curl/flat defender. If he stays shallow to rob the underneath route, you throw the deep route. If he goes deeper into his zone to take away the vertical route, you throw to the underneath receiver.

**For Nyakwol this is probably a “green dog” blitz—i.e., he’s assigned to cover the RB in man, but if the back stays in pass pro, he blitzes.

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Rice Football Film Room: Breaking down the fourth down stop vs Army

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Dig deeper beyond the box score. Carter Spires breaks down a key defensive sequence for Rice Football in their Week 1 game against Army.

Hey y’all! For those that haven’t listened to The Roost Podcast yet (and you should!), I’m Carter Spires. I’m a Rice grad (B.S. Physics, 2013, Jones) and a huge college football fan. In addition to the podcast, I’ll be popping up here at The Roost to do a weekly review piece where I highlight a couple of important plays from the previous game.

My particular interest in covering football is in strategy and tactics: schemes, formations, play calls, decision-making, and the like. I want to know why a particular play turned out the way it did, in a more complete way than “X threw the ball to Y.”

Sometimes those answers are simple, but sometimes they’re not. So my goal in this column is to dive into a few plays a week and really try to break them down in detail, so that we can really understand what happened. A smarter football fan is a better football fan, I think, so hopefully I’ll get smarter in writing these and you’ll get smarter in reading them.

Sound good? Then let’s get started.

First Quarter (11:43) | 3rd-and-1

This week we’re looking into Rice’s close, heartbreaking Week 1 loss to Army in which the Owls’ defense held Army’s flexbone option offense to a mere 231 yards rushing (4.1 YPC) and 14 points. Most of those yards and all of those points came on just two drives.

While the result of the game wasn’t what Rice fans wanted, the stellar defensive effort (against an Army team that dropped 70 on our crosstown rival Houston Cougars their last time out) was enough to give hope that these Owls will be a lot tougher to score on than in recent years.

Let’s give credit where it’s due. Here’s a closer look at the defensive performance, highlighted by a sequence on Army’s first offensive drive, in which Rice made consecutive short-yardage stops on 3rd-and-1 and 4th-and-1 plays to force a turnover on downs.

Rice Football, Army, gif

The setup

Army is lined up in their standard flexbone formation—QB under center, fullback (or B-back, in the flexbone terminology) a couple of yards deep, two slotbacks (or A-backs) lined up outside each tight end, and two wide receivers split wide. In this down and distance, Army’s running a play called “zone dive”—a quick-hitting run play that’s a staple of their offensive scheme.

It looks a lot like the “inside veer” option which is the first component of the “triple option” often associated with this offense. However, instead of a true option play where a defender left unblocked and then read by the QB, zone dive is a called handoff to the B-back. Zone dive is such a fast-developing play that it’s almost impossible for the defense to prevent the B-back from gaining a yard or two.

More: 5 Takeaways from the Owls’ Week 1 game against Army

Rice responds with a defensive formation called the 46 front, often called the Bear front due to its association with the dominant defense of the 1985 Chicago Bears. The Bear front involves putting five men on the line of scrimmage, with an additional linebacker just off the line to the strong side.

It was once a base defensive formation for teams like those Bears, but because of it’s almost exclusively focused on stopping the run, it’s rare in football these days. Still, most defensive coordinators keep the Bear front in the playbook for short-yardage situations and for use against these flexbone offenses.

Here, Rice has Viper Treshawn Chamberlain lined up off the line at OLB. DEs Anthony Ekpe (top/offense’s left) and Kenneth Orji (bottom/offense’s right) lined up at 7-technique DE (in the C-gap between the tackle and slotback), DTs Elijah Garcia (top) and Myles Adams (bottom) lined up at 3-tech* (outside shoulder of the guard), and NT JaVante Hubbard lined up at 0-tech (head on with the center).

The linebackers and safeties are still playing their option responsibilities to prevent Army from catching Rice off-guard, but for the linemen, their assignment is clear: defeat your block(s) and tackle the back before he can get the first down.

How it happened

At the snap, the left A-back goes in motion to show Army’s triple option look. But this isn’t an option play. Army QB Kelvin Hopkins opens up the right and no Rice players on that side of the line are left unblocked (the right A-back is on Orji, the tackle is climbing to the second level, and the RG is [trying] to block Myles Adams). So Hopkins isn’t reading anyone, which is the hallmark of a true option play; therefore, this is a called dive play to the B-back.

To the left side of the offense, Ekpe is left unblocked. The idea here is that he won’t get there in time to make the tackle until the ballcarrier is past him. The offensive tackle moves inside to cut block** Garcia, who is brought to the ground but does well to keep moving and stay involved with the play. The left guard and center combine to double-team the 264-pound Hubbard, who stands his ground against the center but (understandably) loses his balance when the 310-pound LG Jaxson Deaton plows into his side.

To the right side, the right tackle appears to quickly try to double team the 3-tech (more on him in a second) before climbing to the second level (he loses his balance and falls, but Blaze Alldredge has “scraped” outside of him by then so he likely wouldn’t have made that block anyway).

The Owls’ defense executes

Our key players here for Rice are Myles Adams and Kenneth Orji. On zone dive, the fullback is reading the block of the playside guard. If he drives his man outside, the back hits the A-gap between guard and center. If the guard drives his man straight back or inside, the back hits the B-gap between guard and tackle.

At the snap, Adams gets his outside shoulder into the guard’s inside shoulder, clogging the A-gap. The slotback tries to block Orji and does a pretty good job pushing him back, but Orji manages to maintain inside position, squeezing the gap. So by the time the back gets the ball, there’s nowhere for him to go. He takes a step, hesitates, and by then Myles Adams has fully beaten the guard’s block. Adams makes first contact, stopping the back’s momentum, and then a whole host of Rice defenders arrives to finish the play off for no gain. Now it’s 4th and 1.

First Quarter (10:04) | 4th-and-1

Rice Football, Army, gif

The setup

On this play, Hopkins does a reverse pivot once he has the snap, which makes the play look like it’s going to be “rocket toss” to the motioning A-back. It’s actually just another zone dive, this time to the left side. Nothing fancy. Again, Army is hoping that the quick-hitting action of this play will allow them to grind out a yard before Rice can manage the tackle.

Rice is lined up in the Bear front. Army blocks the same: the backside end (Orji) is unblocked. The A-back blocks the playside end (Ekpe). There’s a cut block on the backside 3-tech (Adams) and a double team on the nose (Hubbard).

This time, though, it looks like the playside guard and tackle actually manage an effective double team on the playside 3-tech (Garcia). Treshawn Chamberlain is unblocked and doesn’t bite on the motion by the backside A-back, but I think Army’s hope was that even if he didn’t he wouldn’t be there in time to make the play. And he may not have been, if not for Anthony Ekpe and Myles Adams.

How it happened

Adams, who I hope this sequence has proved will be one of Rice’s most disruptive linemen all season, is so quick off the snap that the backside tackle has no chance of cutting him—in fact he lands behind Adams’ heels. Check this frame: Adams has already crossed the line of scrimmage by the time the handoff is made. He may have managed to make the tackle himself even if no one else had managed to beat their blocks.

Rice Football, Army, Myles Adams

Ekpe, meanwhile, has driven through the attempted block of the slotback. Even though he’s falling down as he does it, he drives to the fullback’s feet and totally arrests his momentum. He can’t wrap up, but his efforts slows the fullback enough. Adams and Chamberlain arrive to make the tackle, followed by another swarm of Owls (a parliament, perhaps?), and it’s Rice ball.

This was a really crucial effort from Ekpe and Adams here. The playside linemen, playing 3-on-2 against Hubbard and Garcia, have cleared out enough space that any extra bit of momentum for the fullback might have allowed him to fall forward for the first down.

Well, that was a lot to say about just two plays! Hopefully it was all enlightening and that it got you excited all over again about the level of intensity this Rice defense brought in the opener. It’ll be a totally different challenge this Friday against Wake Forest. I’ll be back next week to run through some film from that game with y’all.

Notes

*They might be lined up in a 2-technique, head-on with the guards, but it’s hard to tell based on the angle of the camera. Either is an option in the Bear front.

**A common tactic for option offenses, in which the offensive player goes low to “cut” out the legs of a defender; not to be confused with an illegal chop block, which is when a blocker goes at the legs of a defender who is already engaged with another blocker.

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