Design, Personnel, Trust, and Execution: Running Game Film Review

It was more enjoyable to watch the film this week after two gut-wrenching Sunday's in a row. After a shaky start, the Hokies benefited from several Miami special teams turnovers and the running game finally complimented the ever-improving passing attack. Also, some of the burden of picking up short yardage was lifted off Logan Thomas' shoulders, and you saw the result. A huge part of Saturday's success can't be documented with X's and O's. Some might say that Virginia Tech benefited by some lucky bounces, but A.J. Hughes stuck his head in on a bigger, stronger, and faster player to knock the first ball loose. Derek DiNardo chased down the Artie Burns to strip the ball from behind. Kalvin Cline punched the Stanford fumble away from a Miami defender so D.J. Coles could dive on the loose ball. Demitri Knowles hustled after the play to be in position to recover the Byrn fumble in the end zone. Trey Edmunds made several Hurricanes miss on a critical third down conversion when he was dead to rights on a pass in the flat. These were all effort plays. The Hokies offense outworked the Hurricanes defense.

Additionally, the film also told the story of Scot Loeffler's best game as an offensive coordinator at Virginia Tech. For the first time, we saw Loeffler's terrific passing game structure complemented by a running game that didn't require Logan Thomas battering himself into the line twenty times a game. The three elements of successful offensive football: great play designs, called at the right time with the correct personnel grouping, and executed effectively were all on display in Miami. Early on, Loeffler called plays that forced Miami to defend the entire football field instead of keying on a small area. Once Miami started to defend the entire field, both the inverted veer and the zone stretch series opened up. Loeffler used unique personnel groupings and formations that Miami had not seen to get his best skill position blockers on defensive backs in short yardage, and he even used players who have essentially been forgotten since the Alabama game to help improve blocking at the goal line.

Most importantly, Loeffler showed trust in his young players. Trey Edmunds and J.C. Coleman were given opportunities to carry the football. The offensive line was given an opportunity to stretch and then drive a quality Miami defensive front. D.J. Coles finally got more work and had one of the best blocking games by a Hokie receiver ever. Josh Stanford made SportsCenter by running through tackle after tackle for a huge touchdown. We saw that the Hokie offense can be dominant with Logan Thomas playing as a game manager rather than Superman, and we saw that he is a much better player when other players are effective. As result, Thomas was outstanding. He was accurate, assertive, and when he faced pressure, he made good decisions.

Forcing the Hurricanes to Defend the Entire Field

The Hokies were fortunate that the offense responded so positively, because it could have gone the wrong way quickly. On the Hurricane's second offensive play, Detrick Bonner failed to secure a gap fit on a tunnel screen, offering minimal resistance to massive tackle Seantrel Henderson, and Miami broke a huge touchdown. The offense then imploded with penalties, and the Hurricanes broke a big punt return. Everything was going the Hurricanes way, until A.J. Hughes made a big brass balls play to force a fumble that changed the game.

After the fumble, Loeffler's game plan started to unfold. D.J. Coles made two big catches off bootlegs, and Trey Edmunds finished the drive with an easy touchdown run that I will highlight later. Another fumbled kickoff, and again Loeffler used bootleg action to set up the drive.
On first down, the Hokies ran an inside zone with J.C. Coleman to the left. Sam Rogers aligned on the right side and crossed behind the formation to cut off back side pursuit.

00:05:22–00:05:39

On the next play, Loeffler used the exact same blocking action, but Thomas faked the handoff and Rogers leaked out the flat wide open. Thomas threw a nice easy pass that Rogers could catch in stride, and Rogers made a terrific run after the catch for a big play. This was the third big gain for the Hokies on some form of bootleg, and for the rest of the game the Hurricanes safeties and linebackers were slow in pursuit as they looked to defend the bootlegs.

The success of those early bootleg passes completely threw the Hurricanes defense off balance, and as the game progressed, the Hokies base running game had success as result of their confusion coupled with some outstanding blocking. Following the Miami punting kneel down, Virginia Tech had the ball at the Hurricanes' 17-yard-line. Loeffler turned back the clock to the spring and called the zone stretch. Unlike Duke and BC (where the Hokies ran to trips away from Kalvin Cline), Loeffler called for the stretch to go behind Cline. Cline effectively sealed the defensive end inside, and McLaughlin goes to the second level looking for somebody to block.

00:06:24–00:06:31

Duke and BC's safeties were very aggressive because there was not a threat on any counter action by the Hokies, but after completing three bootlegs off similar run action to Coles, Coles again, and Sam Rogers, Miami's safeties are much slower to come up in run support. Let's freeze the play.

Safety Rayshawn Jenkins is circled. He is unaccounted for in the blocking scheme, but instead of flying forward, he tracks Logan Thomas on his bootleg fake. He goes out of the frame at the 6:27 mark and despite it CLEARLY being an Edmunds run he doesn't come back into frame until the 6:29 run when Edmunds is 8 yards down field. In games where the Hokies have struggled to run the football, that safety is the guy who has been making the run stops against Virginia Tech. The bootleg action fooled him. As they have in past games, the Hokie offensive line eats up the front seven, and the Hokies get a big run.

Now, the defensive end just got sealed inside by a down block, allowing a big run on the edge. Loeffler recognizes this and calls an inside zone on the next play.

00:06:31–00:06:38

I have discussed the key technique on the inside zone all season. The tackle on the play side must take a flat lateral step to the outside and influence the defensive end to "widen out" with him. That creates a seam back to the inside. On the inside, the guard and center must initially double team the defensive tackle, and then the uncovered lineman (in this case left guard Caleb Farris) must slide off the double team and pick up the scraping linebacker. On this play, McLaughlin, Farris, and Wang execute their blocks perfectly, and Edmunds hits the hole with authority.

Note Anthony Chickillo is aligned approximately two yards outside of the hash mark at the snap. McLaughlin takes a flat, lateral step towards the sideline, and Chickillo goes with him. By the time Edmunds makes his cut, Chickillo is almost to the sideline without ever shedding McLaughlin's block. The previous play set up the block for McLaughlin, and by using proper fundamentals selling the stretch action, Chickillo bit hook, line, and sinker.

It gets even better when you watch things unfold on the inside. Farris and Wang double the defensive tackle. Farris gets just enough push to allow Wang to get proper leverage on the tackle, and then Farris explodes off his double team and destroys the scrapping linebacker. This block is an absolute thing of beauty. In seasons past where the Hokies tried to use a zone blocking scheme, their biggest problem was developing the timing on when to release double teams and effectively block linebackers. Farris did a textbook job of timing his release and catching the linebacker squarely. The entire offensive line did an outstanding job of taking the proper initial step, getting good head placement, and then maintaining leg drive and finishing blocks in a dominant fashion. Good scheme, plus the right personnel, plus proper execution results in a third easy touchdown for Edmunds, who finishes the play with authority as a big power back should.

Putting Players in Position to Succeed on the Goal Line

Both the Hokies struggles in the running game and in goal line situations have been well documented. Against the Hurricanes, Scot Loeffler broke several tendencies and used some new personnel groupings to finally break through and have success in short yardage. First, let's take a quick look at the Hokies first touchdown run.

After several nice gains on misdirection oriented bootleg passes, the Hokies find themselves in first-and-goal from the 10-yard-line. The Hokies align in their standard alignment for running their bread and butter run play; inverted veer. Or do they? A second scan of the alignment reveals an interesting wrinkle. Darius Redman is aligned as the tight end to the right side. Sam Rogers is aligned as the H-Back, and Edmunds is flexed to the right of Logan Thomas, indicating to the defense that if the Hokies run inverted veer, the play will attack the left side. Note to the strong side, instead of Byrn, Knowles, or Stanford, D.J. Coles is aligned as the slot receiver and Kalvin Cline is spread out wide. This gives Tech their three largest, best blocking receivers out in front of the play if Logan Thomas gives to Edmunds on the sweep.

00:03:01–00:03:09

Miami chose to run a relatively balanced alignment, with five defenders to the boundary/weak side and six to the strong side. This alignment indicates that Miami doesn't regard Edmunds as much of a threat. The Hokies run the play out of a normal inverted veer action, and the Hurricane defensive end crashes the quarterback dive (which makes sense given how much Logan Thomas keeps on goal line downs.) The safety who isn't accounted for with a blocker also focuses on Thomas. This leaves 3 defenders against 3 Hokie blockers and Edmunds.

Thomas makes the correct read (and given the formation and personnel, it is possible that this was a sweep handoff all the way), Coles and Cline both get effective blocks, Sam Rogers pancakes Perryman (Miami's leading tackler) and Edmunds has an easy touchdown.

Personnel changes also impacted the second Edmunds touchdown. Unlike against Duke, Loeffler used Edmunds and little-used Zack McCray in his goal line set. On the play, Loeffler goes back to his success at Auburn and calls for an inside zone with a fullback lead. At the snap, each blocker executes a zone step to the right side, picking up the first defender to attempt to shoot the gap. On the play side, the zone blocks are designed to force the defenders to stretch to the sideline, creating seams on the interior. The fullback (on this play, defensive tackle Derrick Hopkins reprises his role from the Duke game) attacks an area, not a specific defender. The fullback attacks a soft spot or "bubble" rather than a particular defender, and the back follows him into the hole.

00:04:02–00:04:09

The critical blocks on the play come on the back side. Because of the stretch to the sideline, those seams are created, but that also means that the defensive line is pursuing from the back side, and they have an angle to crumple the seams by beating the scoop block. The two toughest blocks against this particular front belong to center David Wang and former persona non grata, tight end Zack McCray. Wang must prevent the one-technique defensive tackle from crossing his face without the help of a double team. McCray must scoop the back side defensive end, which will allow Caleb Farris and Jonathan McLaughlin to double team the three-technique tackle and drive him back into the pursuit angle of the linebacker. Let's freeze frame the shot moments after the snap.

Wang has an outstanding block on the interior, not only getting his head on the right side of the nose tackle but also driving the tackle a yard into the end zone. This creates the bubble for Hopkins to lead into. McLaughlin and Farris double team the three-technique. Note, Farris has his head on the inside of the tackle and has his butt between the defender and the bubble. Finally, closely note McCray's head position. His head is inside of the defensive end in perfect position to execute a proper scoop block. As you restart the play, Hopkins plows into the bubble on the interior, helping Wang maintain his push. McLaughlin and Farris push the three-technique backwards into the path of the pursuit coming from the linebackers. McCray maintains inside out leverage on the end, keeps his legs driving, and right at the whistle finishes the block with a knock down. It is an impressive effort for a player that seemed to have lost out an opportunity to be a contributor this season.

Loeffler finally found offensive balance by getting the right personnel on the field, using all the core plays in unison, and getting outstanding execution from his players. The Hokies essentially iced the game on four consecutive strong plays by Edmunds in the fourth quarter. The first was a critical third down play where Edmunds made several Canes whiff for an important conversion. Edmunds followed that with three strong runs in a row on a stretch play, an inverted veer sweep, and finally a touchdown on an inside zone cutting off a terrific Zack McCray block.

00:17:31–00:17:57

The design in the passing game has always been terrific. Against the Hurricanes, the running game came alive because Loeffler gave his linemen, running backs, and skill position guys an opportunity to execute and then helped them by forcing the Hurricanes to defend the entire field through the use of bootlegs and counter action. He also utilized new personnel packages that helped get critical blocks at the point of attack, and it didn't hurt that Logan Thomas played a terrific football game behind great blocking and the Hokies got some lucky bounces along the way.

Maryland travels to Lane Stadium this week. The Terrapins have not recovered since a brutal beating at the hands of Florida State. If the Hokies can limit big plays on defense and execute a similar offensive game plan, the Hokies should close out the home schedule with a win. More importantly, for the first time we saw what the future of the Hokie offense should look like. This is a positive first step that featured all elements of the scheme working effectively. Now, they need to sustain week in and week out.