Getting the Ground Game Going: Western Michigan Film Review

Besides Michael Brewer's interceptions, most of the criticism hurled at Tech's offense this season has been directed at the inconsistent running game. Western Michigan, with a veteran secondary but a smallish defensive front, presented the Hokies with an opportunity to get back to basics and establish the power running game that Coach Frank Beamer made as a point of emphasis during the offseason.

Yet, for the first half, the power running game didn't materialize. While both Marshawn Williams and Shai McKenzie were able to break some big runs, the running game (which in the first half continued to feature more finesse oriented sweeps and counters) was not able to establish a consistent rhythm. Western Michigan put eight-men in the box and dared Michael Brewer to beat them over the top. Sometimes he did (as exemplified by his deep touchdown to Bucky Hodges), but on most plays the Hokie wide receivers struggled to get separation against the physical Broncos after two weeks of shredding soft zone coverages.

Why did the Hokies have so much trouble running the football? Is this ongoing problem simply an offensive line that isn't good enough? Is it the wrong mix of players? Is the play calling derailing opportunities for success? How is it that a good ACC school couldn't get consistent push in the first half against a rebuilding MAC school?

Confounding Play Calling

While I have been one of the strongest defenders of Scot Loeffler, especially in how he has structured the passing game in a way to maximize the effectiveness of his young receivers and quarterback, he is incredibly erratic when it comes to sticking with something that works. Against Duke last season, the outside zone series was well blocked and creating holes, but Loeffler abandoned it for a long stretch after early success. Against Georgia Tech, the Hokie running game was starting to generate big chunk plays, but as I noted in my film review, Loeffler abandoned the run at critical moments when the Hokies should have sealed the victory.

On Saturday, Loeffler's apparent plan of deceiving the opponent seemed to work against his offense. After the game's opening scoring drive, Loeffler's run calls were more misdirection focused than downhill. The offensive line looked tentative as they moved laterally on many of those plays, and the Bronco linebackers used their speed to repeatedly beat the offensive line to the hole. The confounding strategy, given Coach Beamer's preferences and the strengths of the opponent, baffled me. This culminated with the most ghastly looking run design I can recall seeing in some time.

I am not sure what is going on here. The Hokies run a counter play. Augie Conte pulls from the right guard position to his left, ostensibly to block the back side defensive end. Hodges pulls inside, my guess is to turn up inside as a lead blocker. Laurence Gibson, who has been maddeningly inconsistent this season, is assigned to block down on the right defensive tackle. Gibson gets off the ball tentatively and completely misses the defensive tackle. Conte, who should be kicking out the end, has to pick up the defensive tackle to prevent a big loss. This squeezes down the hole, and the right defensive end is now unblocked. Hodges tip-toes into the hole, not surprising since there are lots of white jerseys where they are not supposed to be, and McKenzie gets tackled for a loss.

This was very poorly executed, but the design and timing are even worse. The design is odd, as the guard and tight end could collide with each other, and their movement brings the defenders keying them directly to the football. The timing is worse, as a counter can only be effective if the defense is respecting the straight ahead run. At this point, the inside zone or power had not been established. Frankly, this is too cute, and too cute seems to be an ongoing theme for Loeffler in some of these games where the offense doesn't perform up to expectations.

Loeffler rotated several inside players in the first half, with Teller getting some series at left guard and David Wang at center, but none of the combinations seemed to get a major push up front. The finesse and complex play calling seems to have a negative impact to the aggression level up front. While some plays were well blocked, far too often one or two linemen were tentative at the snap and seemed to be confused as to their assignment. Far too often, the hesitant play of some of the linemen resulted in breakdowns in their blocking fundamentals.

On this play, the Hokies run an inside zone, but with right guard Augie Conte and center David Wang executing a pin and pull technique.

Here, the blocking between Conte, Wang, and Teller (at left guard) is excellent. Conte pins his man inside. Wang pulls behind him and gets push on the second level. Teller creates a huge bubble because he aggressively attacks the second level and then dives at the linebacker. The linebacker stays back, creating a hole. But, both tackles don't execute their blocks. Gibson has the assignment of scooping the back side defensive tackle, but instead he tries to cut block him. The defensive tackle sheds Gibson easily and finds himself sitting right in the hole. McLaughlin has the assignment of stretching the defensive end to the sideline. McLaughlin gets good initial movement, but this play is an inside zone, meaning after his initial stretch step, McLaughlin needs to have his head on the right shoulder of the defender. This puts McLaughlin's head and leverage to the inside, preventing the defensive end from crossing his face back into the play. Instead, McLaughlin's head his squarely in the middle of the defender's chest, and then end crosses back to the inside to help Gibson's assignment make the tackle. This just isn't good enough. Gibson should drive that defensive tackle across the hole, and McLaughlin either needs to have the proper aiming point OR have the leg drive to continue that end right into the sideline. This effort isn't good enough, and you can see signs that neither player is one hundred percent confident. These blocks are tentative, not aggressive plays.

Blocking at the Second Level

In the third quarter, Loeffler finally made the downhill running game a point of emphasis and started to feed the ball to McKenzie and Williams. This exposed the other big area of needed improvement for the Hokie front; timing on combination blocks. On zone blocking plays, the offensive line initially double team's the defensive down lineman at the point of attack. The uncovered lineman must help his teammate start to get movement, and then slide off to second level to block a linebacker or safety in the box. On tape, both Augie Conte and David Wang sometimes struggled with getting off to the linebacker on inside zone plays. Here is an example, with Conte at right guard and Wang at left guard.

Conte is the play side guard. His assignment is to initially double team the left/one-technique defensive tackle, which will allow Caleb Farris to get outside leverage. Once Farris has leverage, Conte has to slide off and intercept the left inside linebacker and drive him out of the hole. Conte is slow to come off his combination block with Farris, and the linebacker zooms right past him to make the tackle.

On the back side, Wang has to combination block with Gibson on the right defensive tackle. Wang turns the pads of the defensive tackle, and Gibson uses outstanding scoop technique to put himself inside the tackle. But, Wang is too slow to pick up the right inside linebacker who ends up helping bring down McKenzie. Again, for the zone blocking scheme to be effective, the o-linemen really need to be quick and aggressive. This is far too passive.

Fortunately for the Hokies, McKenzie and Williams were dynamic enough to generate some big runs even when blocking wasn't perfect. Here, McKenzie bounces what should be an inside zone to the outside because Conte again is slow getting off his combination block to pick up the linebacker.

Oh, but what if that was where the ball was supposed to be going? I am glad you said that. Look to the left side. Hodges, Gibson, and Wang all have their head on the inside, indicating an inside zone. Back on the right side, Conte's assignment is to get enough of a piece on the defensive tackle to allow McLaughlin to scoop him. Conte should then slide off to the second level taking whoever shoots through his gap. Instead, McLaughlin is a little slow at the snap, and Conte doesn't disengage quickly enough to get a piece of the linebacker, who blasts through and nearly hits McKenzie at his cut point. McKenzie makes a terrific adjustment to break contain and create a big play.

Aggression leads to Execution

As the 3rd quarter wound on, the change in play calling focused on attacking straight at the Bronco front seemed to energize the offensive line. One of the catalysts was Wyatt Teller at left guard, while Wang replaced Conte at left guard. Teller's aggressiveness and leg drive opened up some running lanes on inside zones where Conte had not been able to get as much movement. Let's take a look at two of the most well blocked Hokie runs all game long. First, let's watch an inside zone late in the third quarter with Teller and Wang in at left and right guard.

The Broncos have eight men in the box and they stunt the right defensive tackle to the inside. Teller drives him nearly six yards off the football, and then when he starts to lose leverage he recovers to seal the defensive tackle outside. Gibson looks like he is in fast-forward as he scoops to the linebacker and turns him out beautifully. Farris, Wang, and McLaughlin all get lateral push to the right sideline. McKenzie has a huge hole, then cuts off Teller to punish the safety with a vicious stiff arm. This is beautiful football, and you can see the aggression and quickness of the offensive line amp up as Loeffler again-and-again went back to those inside zones and powers.

The drive culminated with a beautiful goal line play off the right side. Loeffler used a formation that many Hokie fans have been screaming for, an extra offensive lineman on the goal line. Conte comes back into the game, and Wang moves over to the right tight end position at the bottom of the screen.

Wang and McLaughlin block down, with Wang going to the safety and McLaughlin pinning the defensive end inside and manages to throw his leg to cut off the linebacker trying to fill from the top of the screen. Conte pulls and kicks out the blitzing linebacker off the edge. Farris and Wang both drive the safety almost out of the end zone. Gibson not only scoops the right defensive tackle, but pancakes him in the process.

But the key block is Teller on the nose shaded off Farris's left shoulder. This would be a tough block if the defensive tackle was on Teller's inside shoulder, but he has even more space to cover with the alignment down on the nose. Teller drives his head through the left shoulder of the nose and puts himself in between the defender at the ball. This is outstanding technique.

Despite only being up by two scores, Loeffler rotated Alston Smith in as the Hokies attempted to ice the game. Smith's quickness also generated enough movement on an inside zone to get Coach Searels attention. Here, Teller, Wang, and Smith form the interior.

Teller and Wang get lateral movement to the left side. Smith doesn't get his head all the way inside, but he drives the defensive tackle all the way across the hole. Smith's movement puts himself and the defensive tackle in the path of the linebacker, which gives Marshawn Williams the opportunity to cut back and use Smith almost like a basketball pick. Williams does the rest. If Smith gets stymied in the hole, the linebacker takes away one gap and Smith plus the tackle jams up the other. Williams would have no choice but to run into Smith and get what he cans.

In the aftermath of this game, the spotlight will be on Loeffler and the offensive line group to see if they can build on their second half success. It may be too tempting to try and return to throwing the football most of the time against a North Carolina team which has been shredded in the air to the tune of 430-plus yards per game by East Carolina and Clemson. That temptation is made more enticing knowing Clemson only rushed for 2.1 yards per carry against the Tar Heels. Hower, Loeffler must resist the temptation to tinker.

The Heels use a no huddle offense that will work to keep Bud Foster's defense on the field. Injuries to Luther Maddy have weakened the Hokies defense inside, and the injury to Brandon Facyson has exposed how little cornerback depth the Hokies have right now. The Tar Heels will look to exploit those defensive backs both with big wide receiver Quinshad Davis and explosive running quarterback Marquise Williams. When big plays are not available, Loeffler needs to focus on putting Michael Brewer in third-and-manageable situations where the Heels options to blitz are limited, and by running the football Loeffler can shorten the game and protect both Brewer and the offensive line. Both teams find themselves in must-win situations, with the loser being 0-2 in the Coastal Division and unlikely to get back into the race. The game also has major recruiting implications. North Carolina is home to some top prospects that have shown interest in the Hokies over the last couple of recruiting cycles. Securing a foothold in the Tar Heels' backyard is critical for rebuilding the program as players like Mook Reynolds, Adonis Alexander and Conner O'Donnell mature and others look to Blacksburg for their football future. Long term, running the football also presents Loeffler the opportunity to deliver the style of offense that Frank Beamer wants as he ends his tenure at Virginia Tech. If the Hokies want to re-establish themselves as the bully of the ACC Coastal Division, Loeffler must trust his backs and offensive line to start winning battles rather than trying to succeed through misdirection. If not, and we see more performances like we saw in the first half against Western Michigan, I would imagine Coach Beamer may be interceding in offensive direction more often in the near future.