Fee Fi Foe Film: Rutgers Offense
Previously: Rutgers Defense
at least one guy’s celebrating.
It’s hard to overstate how bad the Rutgers offense was last year by the time they played Michigan. After they lost slot ninja/dangerous returner Janarion Grant and PFF fave-rave OT Tariq Cole this space said “they’re gonna die” multiple times, because “they’re not going to get a first down until Michigan’s emptying the bench” is not a prediction any reasonable person should ever make.
After the season once and current Tom Herman assistant OC Drew Mehringer left to join his former boss’s Texas staff, and Rutgers hired Jerry Kill. They also graduated 80% of their offensive line, their quarterback for most of last year, and six of the seven top targets. Two weeks ago, the seventh switched to strong safety. The two guys remaining on this team from last year’s diagram are now the 2nd and 4th running backs in the process of getting passed by a true freshman.
But they’ve got Cole and Grant back, plus the QB who finished the last five games of last year. And Kill has simplified the offense considerably. And they’ve got some freshmen who look alright. And they ran the ball well against Illinois. And they’re 2-0 since switching quarterbacks. And it’s been interesting. This time it might be different.
They’re just gonna die.
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Which game? Since the QB/philosophical swap is two games old and because nobody put Purdue-Rutgers on the Tubes, we’re sticking with Illinois, though I checked everything against the Ohio State evisceration.
Don Brown’s new 3-3-5 is neither schematically nor philosophically close to Lovie Smith’s NFL style Tampa 2, and Rescigno only threw 11 times in chart-time, but I figure we can learn more from watching their plays run successfully versus the young Illini defenders than 217 total yards versus Purdue or blowouts with a different quarterback.
By the way BTN cut into this game late so I missed Rutgers’s first drives. According to the box score that was a 1-yard run by Gus Edwards, a 5-yard run by Edwards plus a 15-yard personal foul on Tariq Cole, and a 15-yard run by Edwards on 3rd and 19.
Personnel: My sorta generous diagram:
Please remember this is relative; if some of these guys played for Michigan there would probably be more cyan and fewer stars.
I like all of their running backs. Grad transfer Gus Edwards is big and patient, and sets up his blocks very well. True freshman Raheem Blackshear is a fast little freshman demon who’s averaging 7.2 YPC and slowly taking more snaps from the seniors. Robert Martin and Josh Hicks, the dynamic freshman duo from 2014, are still around and both are still very effective.
The OL got physically manhandled versus Ohio State then played well against Illinois. Split the difference and four guys are hovering to either side of our “problem area” line. The fifth is an NFL prospect who might have been overrated last year because Rutgers got the ball out so fast.
Right tackle is a Bushell-Beatty situation: Kamaal Seymour occasionally mauls a guy in run blocking but he’s a big liability against a halfway decent pass rush. Also he’s dinged up with NJ.com floating an ominous possibility:
Right tackle Kamaal Seymour was replaced by Zach Heeman against Purdue. Turns out that it was due to injury, not a benching.
…
If Seymour can't go, Heeman, who has three career starts, is an option. True freshman Micah Clark also has played at right tackle in blowouts this season.
Heeman was a disaster in place of Cole last year and couldn’t handle Purdue. The center, Michael Maietti, is a redshirt freshman who should be good one day but right now he’s undersized and a liability in short yardage. At times this season Rutgers has moved right guard Marcus Applefield over to center and brought in another guard when Maietti’s getting overwhelmed. RANDOM GAP ATTACK Noah Furbush is going to be a very new experience for him.
I wanted to mention another QB I couldn’t fit on the diagram. Throughout the season Rutgers has been finding drives for true freshman quarterback Johnathan Lewis, who’s not a threat to start but will get some snaps to do Leidner things.
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Spread, Pro-Style, or Hybrid? Spread Borges circa 2011. Mehringer left an Urban Meyer spread that Jerry Kill is slowly transitioning to manball. For now, Ohio State’s base alignment—three-wide with a tight end offset and motioning—is still Rutgers’s base alignment, but the hybridization process has begun.
Basketball on Grass or MANBALL? A hybrid of inside zone, zone reads, and QB power. I counted 14 inside zone runs, 12 zone reads (including some Urban power stuff), and seven power runs, most of those QB power. Those three plays comprised 2/3rds of every snap in this game.
Hurry it up or grind it out? Grind, though still transitioning from a Meyer-style hurry up and wait. They don’t huddle, but neither do they get to the line with any sort of celerity.
[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the breakdown.]
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Quarterback Dilithium Level (Scale: 1 [Navarre] to 10 [Denard]): New quarterback Giovanni Rescigno was the heir to Shane Morris at De La Salle, and still has enough wiggle that Rutgers will make it part of their offense. He’ll power through some tackles and get maybe 15 carries a game, but he’s not on McSorley’s level. His extra gear won’t make him go faster but it can power through a tiny crack between tacklers for a couple extra yards. He gets the definition of a 6.
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Dangerman: Left tackle Tariq Cole is an NFL OT prospect who last year dropped 65 pounds and become a PFF fave-rave. As of a month ago PFF had him giving up just four hurries, zero hits, and zero sacks allowed on 113 pass rush snaps. That was before Ohio State—they haven’t mentioned him since. He’s probably the best left tackle in the conference and at least the best pass protector, but that’s really not saying much in this year’s Big Ten. 11W thought Cole fought Bosa to a stalemate so this will be a good opportunity to see how Winovich and Gary stack up.
Janarian Grant is the ideal slot bug, dreads included. He has ridiculous feet, runs great routes, and possesses an exceptional feel for holes in zones and how to train his quarterback to find him in them. He has 7 YPT and 10.5 YPC this year despite the new offense and an awful QB situation; most of that is after the catch. Grant played just four games last year and still finished third on the team in total targets. You shouldn’t kick or punt to him.
Gus Edwards is a grad transfer from Miami (YTM) and started there much of last year. If you recall the name he was rated the #1 fullback in the country by Rivals in 2013. Edwards isn’t a fullback, but he’s a good enough blocker to make those QB power runs and effective part of the offense. He’s also a plus pass protector and will run through all soft tackle attempts.
The thing that impressed me enough to get the star is he sets up his blocks well.
Most backs would see that big gap outside from the DE shooting way upfield, and the faster ones might get the edge. Edwards finds the SLB (#2) heading out to close that gap, catches his eye, presses the hole, and as soon as the LB takes a step to the wrong side of a block, Edwards turns upfield.
His size makes him hard to bring down at any speed. This is a TFL he turned into 8 yards while wearing a linebacker.
This was mean.
And then there’s the true freshman earning more snaps behind him. Raheem Blackshear is the next wiggly Big Ten back we’re going to have to spend a long time being immature about when our broadcasts are interrupted by his highlights.
You don’t want him matched against McCray either.
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Zook Factor: Rutgers only punted from their own end. When Rescigno scrambled for 9 yards on 3rd and 10 they went for it on 4th and 1 in their own territory; Edwards fumbled. Here’s the very sad field goal attempt again.
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HenneChart: Only 11 passes, one a screen, so this is meaningless:
| Opponent | DO | CA | MA | IN | BR | TA | BA | PR | SCR | DSR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Illinois | 2 | 3 (1) | - | 2 | - | 2 | 2 | - | 1 | 60% |
The box score is 5/10 for 89 yards. The chart shows no bad reads, two very well-thrown balls that hit Grant in stride for extra chunks, and two thrown where his receivers had no chance. He also had six called runs or zone read keepers that averaged five YPC. If this was O’Korn’s day we’d take it with mere moderate grumbling.
On the season Rescigno has a 120.1 QB rating on 30 attempts. Last year he had a 102.6 rating on 163 attempts, with 5 TDs and 5 INTs. If he was on Michigan we’d probably cyan circle him and clamor for a redshirt freshman. Rutgers fans are clutching “He’s 2-0 as a starter this year!” and waiting for Lewis to be ready. The Kyle Bolin era is mercifully done.
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OVERVIEW
An identity in transition:
| Formations | Run | Pass | PA |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gun | 26 | 11 | 2 |
| I-Form | 3 | -- | -- |
| Ace | -- | -- | -- |
| Pistol | 7 | -- | -- |
| Heavy | -- | -- | -- |
An identity:
| Down | Run | Pass | PA |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 20 | 2 | 1 |
| 2nd | 13 | 4 | -- |
| 3rd | 3 | 5 | -- |
Not that anyone’s been around for all of it, but Rutgers is on its fifth offensive coordinator in five years. That undersells the whiplash. In 2014 they brought in Ralph Friedgen to go West Coast. Then it was his assistant Ben McDaniels who installed a 3-step under-center quick passing offense. Then Mehringer came and tried to make them an RPO outfit based on the slot receiver (who got injured 4 games in). Now they’re becoming something like the brutal Minnesota power outfit that once killed 11 minutes on a drive against Michigan.
The last two guys are at least competent, and Jerry Kill’s manball isn’t a huge leap from an Urban Meyer (via Mehringer) spread.
Just by not having their best two players out, the Scarlet Knights should be noticeably improved from last year. They’ve got a lot of good running backs. Their quarterback is the guy they spent all offseason and half of this one trying to replace. They’ve got a good left tackle.
They’ve also got a 6’1”/280 redshirt freshman lined up opposite Mo Hurst. The right tackle is bad, hurt, and if he doesn’t play the backup options are a known disaster and a true freshman they ripped the redshirt off of.
They’re probably going to die.
At least Kill isn’t going to Borges this up by trying to unload all sorts of new concepts while still running the old ones. The offense he called against Illinois was extremely simple, the bulk of it three plays: a simple zone read (occasionally with a puller instead of zone), inside zone, and QB power, by which I mean they run power but the quarterback is the ballcarrier and the running back a lead blocker.
Rutgers ran that and another one in the first half from unbalanced sets. In the second half they put a TE to the short side like normal human beings, and still ran this successfully.
As you may recall from the Rodriguez days Michigan invented a nifty counter to go with this, where the QB starts to run then pulls up and pops it over the crazy aggressive linebackers’ heads. They showed it against Ohio State:
Those plays are all, of course, runs. Their success against Illinois was being able to keep it on the ground while sitting on a 28-10 lead. If they fall behind, there’s not much of a passing game to get them back in. Put them in 3rd and long and Rescigno gets O’Kornian in the pocket. Occasionally he’ll Grant and convert, but they don’t have the talent to stress Michigan’s defense like Penn State could.
October 27th, 2017 at 10:23 AM ^
Nice Job, Ace.
October 27th, 2017 at 10:32 AM ^
A much needed comment.
October 27th, 2017 at 10:57 AM ^
Poor damn Seth
October 27th, 2017 at 12:43 PM ^
Acey said ten percent.
October 27th, 2017 at 6:55 PM ^
October 28th, 2017 at 4:22 AM ^
October 27th, 2017 at 10:25 AM ^
These were a lot better when Ace wrote them
October 27th, 2017 at 10:34 AM ^
LaVert Hill with the much deserved dangerman. Thank you.
October 27th, 2017 at 10:38 AM ^
Did someone slip Seth some decaf and muck with his screen tint? Isn't this our offense? Good LT named Cole, good RBs, good slot receiver named Grant. Otherwise bad and inexperienced OL, bad QB, young receivers, simple MANBALL scheme and no passing offense whatsoever.
On the upside, our defense has basically repped against this offense every day since spring camp.
October 27th, 2017 at 11:48 AM ^
It would be our offense if you could ever describe the play calling as "simplified".
It seems Harbaugh prefers his offense to be the equivalent of studying thermodynamics while juggling chainsaws.
October 27th, 2017 at 12:42 PM ^
The offense is simple. Too simple. So simple that defenses are keying on it.
It's no secret what kind of offense Harbaugh prefers to run, which to your point, he'd be having them doin' thermodynamics and tossin' power tools. But he's very much not running the kind offense he prefers. He's been giving O'Korn max protect 2-man routes and through the non-conference slate the team was running inside zone on the ground. College offenses don't get any simpler than that. It was so simple that they started mixing in some gap plays a few weeks ago and the run game got better.
October 27th, 2017 at 12:54 PM ^
October 27th, 2017 at 5:42 PM ^
Considering he throws it to the wrong guy even on two man routes I don't see how having more options is going to improve things.
October 27th, 2017 at 1:07 PM ^
Just so we're clear, I think we're both right.
The team isn't running Harbaugh's offense, it's running what it's capable of.
Harbaugh's offense is complicated.
I think both of those things are true.
I also think that Harbaugh's offense is overly complicated, and he falls in love with the idea of outsmarting the opposition. Basically, it's the opposite of Carr's idea of running something dead simple and getting away with it because you're bigger, stronger, and faster than the opposition. I would suggest that both ways can work, but that doesn't mean either is a great idea.
October 27th, 2017 at 2:29 PM ^
I think you're seeing the same things but differently. I don't necessarily think that means we're both right. Fact remains, the plays for now have largely been dirt simple. I do think it means you have a different opinion of Harbaugh's plan.
For some years now I've compared Harbaugh's style to Borges' using something I'm more familiar with, music. MGoBlog has used this analogy as well. Basically, Harbaugh teaches music; Borges teaches songs. Learning music is an ugly, tedious process. You're drilling scales and learning fundamentals and for the first few years (few YEARS) you're not good enough to really play anything. It's frustrating. Songs are easier to pick up because all you're doing is just repping sequences, and given time you can rep them to a high degree of precision. A complete novice can learn a rather complicated piece in a matter of weeks just by repping it. But handed a new song, the novice has to learn every note from scratch. If you actually succeed in creating a musician, that person's capacity for picking up new songs becomes infinite. They can perform in nigh any condition, even make their own changes and adjustments instead of just doing the same thing over and over.
If you break up a memorizer's practice time with "S" being a new song, it might be like:
|-----S-----|-----S-----|-----S-----|-----S-----|-----S-----|(etc.)
Jimopold Harbaughski wants to do this:
|-------------concepts------------|SSSSSSSSSSS(etc.)
You can see why fans are getting so frustrated, because we're clearly in the left half of that plan. But it is VASTLY more sustainable in the long run. Borges had the players mindlessly repping his plays, and to his credit, many were essentially impossible to defend. . . once. As soon as it was on tape, the offense found it impossible to adjust to responses Borges didn't explicitly walk them through. Football isn't rote memorization; it's more of a jam session with a very bad singer. Repping one play for one look is easy. But if that's all you're doing, as defenses respond you need to rep against more and more looks and this soon becomes unsustainable. Or you can scrap them and come up with new ones but either way you simply can't memorize enough combinations to stay one step ahead. The 2013 offense was all about repping and running out of new stuff.
Harbaugh's answer to this is to teach the players the art of football. He does rep plays, including frippery plays, but the reason why the offense is simple is because -- knowing him -- he's spending as much time as possible teaching the players concepts. And yes, this does have an on-field cost. Like I said, this is an UGLY process. Teaching concepts takes a lot of time without much short-term payoff. Hot take, I think Harbaugh owes much of his 2015-16 success to Nuss for essentially sacrificing the 2014 season to go back to teaching the players concept football.
So the offense is simple, for now, because what you're seeing is the equivalent of a 6th-grader's first piano recital, which is essentially some simple crappy piece thrown together just because the parents aren't exactly willing to sit around for years without hearing anything. We do have games to play here. But the real work isn't having the students repping songs from "Recital Pieces for Beginning Musicans vol. 3" a.k.a. "Inside Zone with Kazoos", but all the grinding, brutal work being done behind the scenes that they'll need if they're going to ever do an impromptu variation of Beethoven someday like the Stanford Manball Philharmonic.
October 27th, 2017 at 10:40 AM ^
Mo Hurst and Rashan Gary up against Cyan Circles? Man, they're going to get some full bellies out there.
I'm expecting a brutal beatdown on Saturday. The talent gap is just too wide here for Rutgers to compete, even given our OL and QB woes.
#RememberTheAcrostic
October 27th, 2017 at 10:40 AM ^
(whispering) Should Kinnel or Metellus have blue circles? Or are they "fine" and only stick out because they are playing on this D?
October 27th, 2017 at 11:04 AM ^
No way they're fine. The complaints about the safeties this year all come with "I still like them more than most Michigan safeties of my lifetime, but..." caveats.
October 27th, 2017 at 11:15 AM ^
Metellus gets a bit of a pass as he is still a surprise contributor to me. Kinnel though has received a great amount of "back up hype" and I cant help but feel disappointed. The missed tackles are bad and his ability to "cover" that we have been told about for 3 seasons does not look all that great.
October 27th, 2017 at 2:32 PM ^
Kinnel should be absolutely get the cyan circle. I'm convinced you could start him in a high school game and he'd still miss more tackles than he makes.
October 27th, 2017 at 10:56 AM ^
Their Zook factor is porbably higher, they play very conservatively. It's one thing the fanbase has criticized Ash for this season, playing not to get blown out instead of to win. Their main issue is passing the ball, especially since Gio is hurt, he'll start, but he's limped in both games due to his running style. That will probably limit his ability to run, which we've had problems with this year.
October 27th, 2017 at 10:56 AM ^
Hurst, Gary, and Winovich are going to feast.
October 27th, 2017 at 12:18 PM ^
October 27th, 2017 at 1:14 PM ^
Why would he not be playing?
October 27th, 2017 at 1:38 PM ^
dinged up last week, but I never heard details. Paye did have a sack but not sure how he would hold up for a full game.
October 27th, 2017 at 10:58 AM ^
I did not know that word. Thank you for improving my vocabulary.
October 27th, 2017 at 11:08 AM ^
Should Winovich have a shield? He gets the benefit of playing on a stacked line and then shows nothing against the best team we have played so far.
October 27th, 2017 at 11:09 AM ^
Since the man David Long is covering almost never exists, shouldn't that get Long a dangerman star? I mean, getting summarily erased from a plane of existance seems suboptimal at best and damn dangerous at worst.
October 27th, 2017 at 12:00 PM ^
October 27th, 2017 at 11:28 AM ^
October 27th, 2017 at 11:59 AM ^
that fake qb run pop pass was started by meyer with tebow
October 27th, 2017 at 8:02 PM ^
October 28th, 2017 at 4:29 AM ^
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