Virginia Tech Football Military Bowl Preview: Boxing in the Cincinnati Bearcats

After weeks of battling run-first offenses throughout the meat of the ACC schedule, Bud Foster's Virginia Tech defense is set to defend a pass happy attack on Saturday when the Hokies face the Cincinnati Bearcats. Cincinnati head coach Tommy Tuberville's best season was in 2004 when Auburn went undefeated behind the power running of Cadillac Williams and Ronnie Brown, and has traditionally favored the ground game / pro-style offense. It's fascinating Tuberville would utilize a pass-oriented offense, but in this video game age it is much easier to establish a passing game system than recruit and build a dominant running game.

Cincinnati quarterback Gunner Kiel was rated as the top pro-style quarterback in 2012 by Rivals. He initially committed to his home state Indiana Hoosiers, then flipped to LSU, but ultimately signed with Notre Dame. After a year in South Bend, Kiel transferred to Cincinnati. Now, as a sophomore, Kiel has thrown for over 3,000 yards and lead the Bearcats to a 9-3 record. As result, Kiel was named honorable mention All-AAC. The kid has an arm and can be dangerous, especially with the Hokies reliance on man coverage.

Bud Foster noted on a teleconference prior to the game that Cincinnati, like Duke, doesn't give up sacks and gets rid of the ball quickly. The Bearcats are heavily reliant on the screen game as an extension of the running game, and Kiel does tend to get rid of the ball quickly. Bearcat quarterbacks (former Hokie nemesis Munchie Legaux got significant mop up time) give up 1.33 sacks a game (T-22nd). The Bearcats passing attacking itself is more similar to East Carolina in terms of route structure and philosophy.

The Bearcats passing game features the basic Air Raid philosophy that more and more teams are adopting from innovators like Hal Mumme and Mike Leach. Many of the passing play calls are concepts, where the receivers are given a space to attack, and then they ad-lib based on the coverage. For example, if a receiver is assigned a vertical route concept, and the defender is playing well off, he should settle down in front of the coverage. If the defender is pressing, perhaps instead he should use a release and continue to work vertically. Stick route concepts also happen on the fly. If the defender plays outside leverage, the receiver cuts inside. If the defender plays inside leverage, cut outside. Because often the play call just features concepts (four verticals, two verticals and two underneaths, double posts or slants to each side), time and time again the receivers on each side of the formation run the same routes.

The Bearcats also follow a philosophy that East Carolina used against the Hokies: use big receivers in the slot as vertical threats, while the wide receivers work underneath routes back to the middle of the field. This serves two purposes. First, if you run a vertical route from the slot, there is more room between the receiver and the sideline to throw a jump ball into. Deep comeback routes against softer coverage are also shorter throws for the quarterback than a deep comeback to the sideline. Second, the widest receivers can get a "rub" off that slot receiver and use the additional space to get more separation working back to the middle of the field on post, slant, and crossing routes.

East Carolina torched the Hokies primarily with one of these route concepts. The outside receiver would either slant or fake a quick out and then work back to the middle of the field, while the slot receiver would run an outside release fade route. Cam Worthy had 6 catches for 224 yards, and I believe every catch was on this route combination.

Imagine my chagrin when I turn on the Cincinnati matchup with Ohio State and the first big play that the Bearcats break is on a vertical outside release fade route from the slot.

6-1, 190 pound slot receiver Chris Moore (No. 15) had a huge day (3 catches for 221 yards and 3 touchdowns) against the Buckeyes. He runs the same outside release go route that Worthy gave the Hokies fits on. The Ohio State defender is in good position due to a bit of an underthrow by Kiel, but he doesn't find the football. Note the room between the receiver and the sideline, so if Kiel does get more on the throw it isn't going to force Moore out of bounds. Moore finds the ball, and then strolls in for a touchdown. For any Hokie fan, this play should give you cold chills, especially given how rarely any of the Hokie opponents tried to attack press coverage with fade routes from the slots after the UNC game.

The adjustment isn't just as simple as playing off coverage or having a deep safety over the top. If Foster plays off coverage, the Bearcat slot receivers will sit down on those vertical routes. If the Hokies play a bracket coverage with a press and a deep safety, then the Hokie defense is left with five defenders in the box to play the run. How do the Bearcats adjust to those looks?

More often than not, if the Hokies start to play off coverage, Kiel is perfectly content to throw underneath it. Against Ohio State, it almost seemed like an automatic read that the Bearcats would run an a stick or curl route whenever the Buckeyes showed off coverage. Most of Kiels completions came on screens or short curls like this.

Against the bracket coverage (press the slot, deep safety help), the Bearcats then go against tendency. On this play, Cincinnati calls a double post route to the right side.

The corner has outside leverage because the safety is on the inside, so when the safety jumps the short post, the corner has no help on the inside on the deep post. This is an easy pitch and catch for Moore and Kiel.

Kiel is a very talented player and has similar touch to Pirate quarterback Shane Carden, but better arm strength. This offensive system doesn't require him to make many NFL throws, but those are in his bag of tricks.

The slot runs an outside release deep curl (off coverage, so he sits down) to the inside. The outside receiver delays, fakes a slant and then heads back to the left flat. You see the same route combination to the other side of the field. The Ohio State defender thinks he can jump the route for a pick-six, but Kiel lays it right over his head.

Moore and Mekale McKay (No. 2, 6-6, 195 pounds) tend to be the deep threats. While Moore had a career day against Ohio State, McKay lead the Bearcats this season with 8 touchdowns and 690 receiving yards. Expect the Bearcats to try and get McKay matched up with Donovan Riley, Detrick Bonner or Kyshoen Jarrett and attack over the top. Meanwhile, look for 5-9 Shaq Washington (tops in catches with 61) to do most of the damage on short routes and screens.

Screen Game Little and Big Plays

While the Bearcats stretch defenses out vertically with their slots, they get consistent chunk yardage in the screen game.

Their basic screen is a slot WR screen, with the outside receiver going vertical and then blocking the corner, while the slot works outside and catches the ball underneath.

In essence, this is the quick toss of the 21st century. For the play to be successful, the slot receiver has to beat his defender to the spot, and the corner has to be tentative coming up in support. It rarely results in a big play, but much like a running play it will net 3-4 yards and set up favorable down and distance.

To defend the screen effectively requires quick recognition and solid tackling by the slot defender and the corner. Unfortunately, Cincinnati has a devastating counter to take advantage of that corner sneaking up: a fake screen and post.

On this play, Cincinnati shows the same screen action, with the wide receiver threatening the cushion of the corner and the slot receiver heading to the flat. The corner recognizes this and attacks the flat. Our old friend Chris Moore lets him go, and bends back to the post. With both Buckeye defenders occupied with the screen fake, Moore is off to the races for perhaps the easiest touchdown of his career. Here we have McKay scoring on a long touchdown off the same concept. This time, the safety doesn't bite up, but loses inside leverage. McKay has great reach and catches the ball in stride.

This is a tough combination to stop as long as the Bearcats are willing to take a shot or two down field off the screen action. If they do (even if Kiel doesn't hit the pass), it will loosen up things for those quick screens to get nice chunk yardage.

Turning Kiel into a Pop Gun

With a top quarterback and a well executed system how do the Hokies stop Kiel? He isn't the most mobile of a guy, but like Carden he can be effective on zone reads.

Although, one thing I noticed about Kiel is that he really works hard to avoid contact. Ohio State has a tremendous pass rush, and after Kiel got hit a time or two, he really started fading away from contact on his release or he wouldn't step into throws. This reduced his accuracy tremendously. In the second quarter, Joey Bosa came unblocked and rocked Kiel to force a fumble. The Buckeyes scored a touchdown on the play, and from that point on, if Ohio State got anywhere close to Kiel, he was bailing out on the throw. He was still deadly with time, but it didn't take much pressure for his accuracy to really take a nose dive.

Watch as Kiel gets rid of the ball well before pressure gets close or before his receivers break. He senses that his back may be outmatched, and his front leg drifts to the sideline instead of stepping into his throw.

As result, the throw lands well short of his open receiver in the left flat. This was an ominous pattern with Kiel. Unlike Shane Carden, who took an absolutely pounding in his dissection of the Hokie secondary, Kiel will throw the ball away or throw into traffic before routes develop in order to avoid contact. Ohio State only sacked Kiel one time, but they generated enough pressure to force poor throws. The pattern continued against Memphis (14-41 loss). The Tigers sacked Kiel twice and knocked him out of the game. The Bearcats offense was the catalyst to a seven-game win streak to close the season, including a 54-point performance against the Pirates (who stymied the Hokies for three quarters), but a minimal amount of pressure forced Kiel into mistakes over that stretch. The defensive tackle for East Carolina gets late pressure on Kiel, but he has plenty of time to make a decision.

Kiel decides to force a throw into tight coverage on a deep out route to the wide side of the field. Even NFL quarterbacks with great arm strength would rarely risk this kind of throw. Kiel forces it, and East Carolina picks off the pass.

The key to the Military Bowl for Virginia Tech is pressuring Kiel. Every other aspect of the Cincinnati team is mundane. Their running game averages nice yardage on a variety of inside zones and lead plays, but against decent defenses the running game struggled. Ohio State held the Bearcats to 70 yards rushing, Memphis held the Bearcats to 97 yards rushing and Temple held the Bearcats to a paltry 2.45 yards per carry in a 14-6 Bearcat win. When the Bearcats have been successful running the football, it mostly comes as result of defenses spreading out and only keeping five defenders in the box. You can bet Bud Foster will defend the box (especially after playing seven-man fronts all game long against East Carolina's Air Raid offense).

A Jumping Off Point for Offensive Success in 2015

Teams like Memphis and Temple found ways to keep the Cincinnati offense in check and good offenses decimated the Bearcats defense throughout the year. Memphis rushed for 299 yards and the Buckeyes tailed 380 yards rushing the game after Bud Foster's front-seven completely dominated Urban Meyer's scheme. Running the football seems to be the ticket to success against the Bearcats, not only in that their front isn't strong, but it keeps your defense off the field.

The Bearcats defensive system looks very similar to a Bud Foster defensive look in 2011. They use a four-man defensive front, two inside linebackers and a hybrid outside linebacker/safety. Most interestingly, the Bearcats defensive front often slants the same direction that the linemen block (if the blocker in front of the defender takes his first step to the defender's left, the defender crosses his face to his left.) Unlike most of those Hokies' defenses, the Buckeyes easily pushed the Bearcat defenders through their gap fits, leaving the Cincinnati linebackers with too much space to defend as they fill their gaps. While Ohio State's offensive line was suspect, they proved to be an elite running offense after their struggles against Virginia Tech. Some of the American Athletic Conference opponents also had success inside. East Carolina even had stretches where they were really pushing around the Bearcats interior on basic inside zone plays.

The Cincinnati front-seven isn't particularly big, nor do they get off blocks well. When they have success against the run, most of it comes from confusing the defense with stunts and movement. Their defensive line mostly tries to eat blocks to free up linebackers and safeties to make tackles. The Bearcats don't have a defensive lineman amongst their top 6 tacklers, and their top player (defensive end Terrell Hartsfield, No. 95) may have 8 sacks, but he isn't particularly active against the run.

The Buckeyes were very effective mixing in power concepts with their base zone to make their running game even more effective. The Bearcats slanted hard against Ohio State's outside zones. The Buckeyes run an outside zone read. You can see the Bearcats front slant to their right, but the Buckeyes still get the corner.

When the Buckeyes offensive linemen were actually blocking down and pulling from the back side instead of zone blocking, the Bearcats defense let up huge holes. As I watched the Buckeyes gash the Bearcats with a variety of inverted veer plays, I can only imagine that Brenden Motley will have a major impact on the outcome of this game. Watch closely as the Bearcats defensive line crashes hard to the bottom of the screen, away from where both the quarterback and the sweep fake went on the inverted veer.

In Bud Foster's system, both linebackers would key the running back and quarterback and scrape to the right to fill the hole, but inside linebacker Nick Temple (No. 43) was late to react. The pulling guard seals Temple inside and creates a huge hole. If the Hokies are effective in running inside and outside zones, a counter using an inverted veer design could create some major holes for Motley on the interior. Loeffler ran several different varieties of inverted veer action with Motley against Duke, Wake and Virginia, so it will be very difficult for the Bearcats to try and switch tendencies when Motley is in the game.

This is a really tough game to handicap. Strength will be going against strength when the Bearcat offense is on the field, but the Hokies have not faced a strong passing attack since playing North Carolina. If Bud Foster chooses to bring his pressure packages, and I expect he will, then all those defensive backs will find themselves back on islands against a good group of wide receivers. The winner of that matchup should win the football game. Offensively, I don't know if the Hokies have faced a better candidate that seems to be tailor made for igniting the run game. For Scot Loeffler, the Military Bowl presents a showcase opportunity for him to clearly demonstrate what kind of a rushing offense he wants the Hokies to feature in 2015. With J.C. Coleman coming off three strong games and Trey Edmunds likely to return, expect the Hokies to show both the zone read series and the Motley package early.