The source for Rice sports news

Rice Football Film Room 2019: North Texas Review

By

Rice Football is on a winning streak and the offense is starting to click. Take a look at some of the highlights in this week’s edition of the Film Room.

Hey y’all, welcome back to the Rice Football Film Room. Great to be celebrating another win, ain’t it? Rice’s defense put on a master class in this one, holding Mason Fine and the North Texas Mean Green offense to under 250 total yards and a mere 14 points. In celebration of that effort, we’ll highlight the early pick from Rice’s starting Swiss Army Knife . . . er, Viper Treshawn Chamberlain

You Had Me At A Glance

Setup

It’s UNT’s second offensive drive following a punt and a Rice field goal. So it’s 3-0 Owls, and Fine & Co. have the ball 1st and 10 at their own 25, less than five minutes into the game. They’re in a pretty standard 11 personnel shotgun look, with the TE lined up off the line and outside the LT at H-back.

Rice responds with a 3-3-5 look, with 3 linemen, Antonio Montero and Blaze Alldredge in the box, and Kenneth Orji playing the edge at off-ball strongside linebacker. Rice has two safeties: Chamberlain is lined up in the middle of the field about seven yards off the ball, and the other (I can’t see the number but I’m pretty sure it’s George Nyakwol) is deeper and just inside the numbers to the boundary.

The Play

Hey, we know this one, don’t we? It’s the Glance RPO, a play Rice has run to much success this season, usually to Brad Rozner. The single receiver runs a skinny post (or “glance”) route, and if the safety to that side stays deep (either to bracket him or bail into a deep zone), the quarterback throws. If he comes downhill to play the run, the quarterback hands it off. Nyakwol flows to the line at the run action, so Fine thinks he has an easy read, pulls the ball, and throws the glance.

The key here is some trickery by Rice DC Brian Smith and Chamberlain. Presnap, Fine and the UNT offense don’t see Chamberlain as likely to impact this play. He’s lined up to the strong side and fairly shallow, so they may expect him to move into the box to give Rice numbers against the run. He could also be bailing into a deep zone: perhaps to the middle of the field if Rice is in Cover 3, or maybe even all the way to a deep quarter in the wide side, if Rice is playing Cover 6 (Cover 2 to the short side and quarters/Cover 4 to the wide side).

More: Previewing Rice Football vs UTEP in Week 14

But Chamberlain does neither of those things. Instead it looks like he’s playing a sort of Robber coverage, meaning that he sticks in the shallow middle of the field, reading the QB’s eyes and “robbing” any shorter crossing routes. This, I assume, was a look by Smith intended specifically to counter RPOs, which are often run out of these 11 personnel spread looks. Nyakwol moves to the box to play the run option, and Chamberlain is in place to cover the shallow crossing routes these plays involve (often slants), while also being able to fill late against a run to his side.

Fine actually does a really good job selling the run action, and you can see Chamberlain briefly biting on it before realizing that the QB still has the ball. But at that point, he knows exactly where the ball is going and makes a brilliant break on the ball to grab the pick.

I’ve mentioned on The Roost Podcast before how difficult it is for QBs to process in real time when a defense changes its look post-snap, particularly on quick-read plays like these. This time, it’s Rice that uses that to its advantage. The ensuing interception sets up a crucial early touchdown for the Owls.

Plenty of big plays

Here’s where I note that I wanted this to be an all-Chamberlain column and break down his game-sealing pass breakup, but I couldn’t find video of it anywhere. Disappointing!

I’d give you the big Rozner catch on Rice’s final drive, but it was more of the same of what we’ve seen lately: Stewart put a catchable ball in the area of a single-covered Rozner, who boxed out like a power forward and came down with the ball. Great play but nothing I haven’t shown you before, and the camera is zoomed so tight at the beginning you can’t even see the formation.

So! We’ll give Rice’s other Harvard grad transfer his props. Here’s Charlie Booker’s first Rice touchdown.

Let’s Hit the Book . . . er

Setup

It’s the very first play of the second quarter. Rice has the ball 1st and goal from the 8, up 10-0. They’re under center in 22 personnel, with Booker at RB, Brendan Suckley at FB, Jaeger Bull at inline TE to the right, Jordan Myers being the other TE to the left (I’d say at H-back but he’s so far outside the tackle he’s really more of a slotback), and Rozner as the lone receiver. UNT responds with a five-man front and a whopping ten total players in or very close to the box.

The Play

This is an ISO run, which I believe I’ve mentioned briefly before. The difference between ISO and most plays using a blocking back (“lead” plays) is that lead plays are designed for the blocker to hit the hole and block whomever he sees first (most of these are gap runs, like power or counter), whereas in ISO the blocker has a specific player he’s aiming to block right from the beginning (usually, and in this case, the middle linebacker). ISO is designed to go up the middle, through an A-gap (to either side of the center, i.e.).

This is excellently blocked to the playside, with true freshman walk-on center Isaac Klarkowski and RG Brian Chaffin double-teaming the nose while LG Nick Leverett does a brilliant job getting inside of his man and sealing him off to open the gap.

More: Isaac Klarkowski, the latest Rice Football walk-on success 

Suckley blasts the MIKE back four yards and to the opposite side of the field. The weakside ‘backer for UNT has actually done a nice job sifting through the wash and is in position to make the play, though; it kinda looks like Chaffin was going to come off the double on him, but he diagnoses the play too quickly for that to happen. But Booker does a nifty jump cut and slaps him aside as he bursts through the hole. From there it’s all green grass.

Boy it sure was nice to break down plays from two successive wins. Here’s hoping Rice Football can close the season with a third in El Paso this weekend.

Subscribe on Patreon for exclusive Rice football recruiting updates, practice notes and more.

Recent Posts

Rice Football 2019: Week 10 Marshall Press Conference quotes

By

Rice Football head coach Mike Bloomgren made closing comments on the Southern Miss game and set the stage for the Owls’ Week 10 game against Marshall.

More: Rice Football game preview for Week 10 vs Marshall

Offensive lineman Shea Baker and defensive end Kenneth Orji joined Rice football head coach Mike Bloomgren at the podium on Tuesday. The trio made closing comments on the Southern Miss game and looked ahead to their Week 10 game against Marshall.

From Mike Bloomgren

On the changes the team is making on offense…

“We’ve made a few changes in terms of how we’re going to prepare. I don’t feel like we’re getting the message delivered to the players in the right way by some of our assistant coaches on offense. So we’re going to take away the game of telephone. Coach [Jerry] Mack is going to talk to the entire unit when he talks and they watch film together. He’s going to treat it very much like an NFL operation in that regard. We’re going to make sure that we are all singing out of the same hymnal because they are hearing one person deliver the message and that’s going to be Coach Mack.”

On changes to the offensive scheme…

“We’re going to simplify this system so it won’t matter if somebody is experienced in the system. If they have the ability to help our football team now, we want to make sure we can give them that opportunity to be on the field. I look back at some of the quarterbacks we had at other places. They were Year Three in the system, and all this stuff was easy for them, and they would use their athletic ability as well. Right now, I’m afraid that we can paralyze some guys and their athletic ability could get stunted by having them think too much at the line of scrimmage… We’ll see how this goes this week. We’ve got a great plan in place. I talked to Coach Mack for a while last night and I really like where this plan is going.”

On Tom Stewart’s status against Marshall…

“Last week, Tom (Stewart) was taking all the reps with the ones. He ended up having a back issue during our walk-through and wasn’t able to play. Right now, he’s still working through it. If you’ve ever had one of those muscular things where your back locks up, I don’t know if anybody knows the exact timetable, but it’s getting better. He’s improving and we’re optimistic that we’ll have him for this weekend.”

On the plan at quarterback beyond Stewart…

“We’ve got some things that we’re going to kick around this week and give some people some opportunities. We’re going to do some things this week to simplify the offense so we can play a little bit faster and not let anything be limited by age or experience in the system right now. I believe in the West Coast offense. I believe that pounding the rock is the way we’ll win championships here. Right now, I’m not sure if that’s exactly our best way; just to go with someone that can get us to the right play because we’re not executing at a high enough level. So right now, we’re going to kick everything around.”

On homecoming…

“It’s awesome. One of our big donors has actually become a friend of mine, it’s his 30th Homecoming. I know that there are going to be some great people [who] come back and come to watch us play. Hopefully, we can put on a great show for them and find a way to get a W for them to really help their celebration on Saturday.”

From OL Shea Baker

On the potential for the offensive line’s production going forward…

“I guess a good way to describe it is really frustrating because I know that we can do better. I know our potential to do better. And to have the inconsistency in drives, or to be performing really well one quarter and in one quarter, not performing well, it’s just it’s really frustrating because I believe so much in our system and our coaches and the brothers beside me that I know we can do better than what we’ve been doing.”

From DE Kenneth Orji

On his growth and confidence…

“Jumping into the starting lineup, the only difference for me was that my playing time doubled. It doubled my playing time so I had to be able to prepare for being on the field a whole lot longer and, pretty much, learning the system is something I’ve been used to doing.”

Subscribe on Patreon for exclusive Rice football recruiting updates, practice notes and more.

Recent Posts

Rice Football Film Room: Texas review and Baylor preview

By

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.

Subscribe on Patreon for exclusive Rice football recruiting updates, practice notes and more.

Recent Posts

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

By

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.

Subscribe on Patreon for exclusive Rice football recruiting updates, practice notes and more.

Recent Posts

2019 Rice Football Season Preview by The Roost

By

 

The staff of The Roost is pleased to announce the release of the 2019 Rice Football Season Preview, a 143-page digital magazine detailing everything you could imagine about the Owls’ upcoming season.

This preview is the culmination of months of research, interviews and analysis. Consider it your one-stop-shop as you prepare for the Owls’ 2019 season.

Available as a downloadable PDF for on-the-go access, this preview contains the following:

1. A breakdown of every position group on the team

Who are the favorites to start entering fall camp? What sort of production should you expect from returning starters? Which of the incoming transfer players should make their mark the quickest? Answers to all of those questions are included, as well as notes on every single player on the 102-man roster.

2. An exclusive interview with head coach Mike Bloomgren

We sat down with coach to get his honest evaluation of where the Rice football program is right now and how he views the progress the team is making as they approach 2019. He’s sticking to a process, one which he remains confident will bring success to South Main.

3. Previews of each 2019 opponent and all 14 CUSA Teams

Supported by local beat writers and experts who cover each team, this section has a wealth of knowledge about every CUSA Team and all the Owls’ 2019 opponents.

Rice fans will want to familiarize themselves with the teams they’ll be facing this year. Get to know which players each squad will have to replace, which newcomers could make noise in 2019 and what outstanding questions those in the know have about their respective squads.

4. A complete 2019 Conference USA Football Preview

Available separately to purchase, everyone who purchases the 2019 Rice Football Season Preview will also get The Roost’s 2019 Conference USA Football Preview. We made our picks for preseason honors, top games to watch in 2019 and a closer look at how every team in the conference stacks up.

Don’t need any more convincing? Get a copy for yourself today

Buy Now

 

Subscribe on Patreon for exclusive Rice football recruiting updates, practice notes and more.

Recent Posts