Week 7 - UVA Review

Well, I said I was terrified. Guess I was right. Sigh.

What an awful game.

Sadly, I think its time to admit that we just are not as good as I was hoping.

It is possible we still could be, but it is difficult to play below your actual level of ability for 3 straight weeks. If you play that way long enough, you cease to be “flat”. Maybe you have the ability to be better, but if you don’t do it very often, does it matter?

Here are some disturbing numbers:

Opponent	Total Yards	Yards per Play	Offensive Points
Kansas	768	13.5	66
UNC	496	6.9	35
NC State	413	6.5	38
Maryland	386	4.8	21
UVA	296	4.9	14

Hmmm... not trending very well. (Understatement of the week).

More disturbing numbers:

Opponents	Average Yards	Average Yards per Play	Average Offensive Points
Non Conference	675.3	10.3	59.33
Conference	397.8	5.7	27

Man, we had a really good offense until we started playing ACC teams.

I mean, 397 yards per game, and 5.7 yards per play, and 27 points per game are decent averages. Would be 60th, 57th and 71st in the country respectively. So, its not absolutely terrible.

But those numbers are certainly not nearly as good as I was hoping for this offense.

So, what happened?

First, I’ll begin with what Virginia did right.

I thought UVA had a good game plan. Offensively, they ran the ball right at us for most of the game. They varied their formations, used a lot of unbalanced formations, and used a lot of pre snap motion to try to confuse our alignment. Often, it worked, and they were able to get a numbers advantage on the play side. Most of the time, they did not need the numbers advantage anyway. They just pushed us out of the way. 272 rush yards and 5.8 yards per rush more or less speaks for itself. But overall, a good offensive scheme. They did not complicate matters. They made a great play call on 2nd and 2, on the second drive, and hit us for a 40 yard TD pass. Great play action, and great timing for that call.

Defensively, they also had a great game plan. For the most part, they played us with a 4-4 alignment, 2 corners and 1 safety. The corners played man. The inside linebackers were aligned slightly ahead of the outside linebackers. My guess is this staggered alignment has two purposes. First, the inside linebackers are up closer to the line of scrimmage because they were taking the dive and also watching for any inside QB keepers. Additionally, the staggered alignment makes it less likely that the linebackers would get in each other’s way as they try to move laterally. If one of our linemen get to the second level and make a good block, that traffic is less likely to get in the way of the other play side linebacker.

Overall not a bad strategy.

But the real genius behind their game plan was how much they mixed up what they were doing. I mean they threw a bunch of tweaks at us. On third down and long, and sometimes second and long, they would go to a base 4-3, with two safeties. Sometimes, they played very basic from that set, other times they blitzed both outside linebackers, forcing a quick decision in the backfield and giving the rest of the defense more time to react. A handful of other times, they played a 3-4, with the outside linebackers moved up to the line of scrimmage, so effectively a 5-2. Additionally, when they played their base 4-4, a handful of times (mostly in the second half) they blitzed an inside linebacker into the mesh point.

For much of the game, they played sound assignment football. But occasionally, they would have their secondary and/or linebackers over pursue to the playside.

Essentially, the effect of this is, somewhat obviously, to keep us guessing. Coach Johnson has a counter move to all of this stuff, but when they mix it up so much, they make it difficult to use the counter moves. Probably 75% of the time, they played a fairly basic defense and just attempted stick to their assignments. This meant that, on any given play, our best option was to simply run our regular offense.

The other 25% of the time (or so) they used the variety of aggressive moves described above to force us into negative plays. But they used these sparingly enough, and used enough variety that it made play calling difficult. For what its worth, a scheme like this is pretty much exactly what I would run to try to stop our offense.

For a great example of what not to do, consider UNC. They pretty much line up the same way every time, and they just try to play their assignments. They say “this is what we are doing, and we are just going to execute it”. They try to get off blocks and make plays.

Well, against that kind of defense, we first run our regular plays, and gain some yards. Then as UNC’s defense comes to expect those plays, and starts cheating to stop them, we run some counter plays. After a few successful counter plays, they started cheating up the safety and corner on the opposite side of the pre snap motion (in order to limit the running lanes of any potential counter). So then, we dialed up the counter option fake, play action pass. And Hill sprinted right by the safety and corner cheating up on the run, and it was an easy 59 yard TD pass.

That was so easy because Coach Johnson knew pretty well what UNC was going to do, most every play.

Now contrast that to UVA. We are facing 3rd and 8 (for example). For much of the game, UVA was playing third and long in a regular 3-4 with 2 safeties. Basically a standard defense. But, the catch is, we don’t know if they are going to blitz their outside linebackers (as they did two times in the first half) or play a regular cover 2 (with 2 deep safeties).

If they blitz, then a pass play would work well. Send both receivers on deep fly patterns, let one A-back run a seam route, and drag the other A-back in a crossing patter behind the other A-Back’s seam route. Most likely, the crossing A-Back will be open almost immediately, and have plenty of room for the first down. If he is not open, one of the 3 deep patterns pretty much has to be, and that will also happen pretty quickly. (there are other plays that would work well against this blitz, this is just one example).

But, if they don’t blitz, and just run a base cover 2, the above pass play would probably not work at all. We would probably want to run a QB draw, or perhaps even a regular option play or maybe even a called dive, which would be likely to catch them off guard on 3rd and 8. All of those plays would probably not work against a blitz, because the defense would be guarding against any quick hitting runs up the middle, and would be expecting their outside blitz to stop most anything else.

In reality, these examples may not be all that good. Much of the specifics of what we would do against certain defenses involve changing the blocking schemes. And frankly, I am not sure if the examples I gave are good examples of what Paul would actually do against certain defenses.

But they still illustrate the point. With so much variation from UVA, it is much more difficult to get the right call.

So they put a lot of pressure on us with their scheme on defense, and attacked our biggest weakness on offense, without making many mistakes on either side of the ball.

Credit their coaching staff. They had a bye week to prepare for us, and I think they used it well to put in a relatively complex and good game plan.

But, enough of this praise for UVA.

They played well, but we could have won this game anyway.

What did we do wrong?

In short, we played with no energy or focus.

I am not sure you can really blame us. We are a very young team. The main issue that causes is a lack of quality depth. We have a lot of guys that I think will one day be good football players, but the majority of freshmen and sophomores are not as physically mature as the majority of juniors and seniors. So, basically, we have fewer players that we can afford to substitute, and fewer players that can contribute on special teams, etc. Meaning fatigue affects us more than other teams.

After 6 consecutive weeks of playing, fatigue begins to really set in. Fatigue is both physical and mental. It causes you to play a little slower, not be as strong or as physical in blocking and tackling, not be as sharp mentally, make more mistakes and lazy plays, etc.

At the moment, I think we are a beat up football team. A big part of the mental fatigue comes from having to play as the favorite every week. We have been favored in every single game so far this year. For the last 3 weeks, the wins were supposed to be relatively easy. In that situation, it is very difficult to be mentally ready to play. And the other team typically comes into the game with a little something extra. And it takes even more out of you to have to battle a team playing with more intensity than you are.

When I reviewed the game, it was really difficult to ignore how tired we looked. It was most noticeable to me when we returned the interception to tie the score at 14. Less than 5 minutes earlier, we had been down 14-0. It was a huge, momentum swinging play. And what did we do? One guy sort of half-heartedly followed our guy into the end zone and patted him on the back. Once. One pat. Another guy a few seconds later, this time a double pat. Very calm though. Thats the word I could not get out of my head. Calm. I’ve never seen such a calm pick 6 celebration.

You ever try to talk to a guy in the middle of some exhausting exercise, and they don’t even acknowledge that you said anything? Too afraid to waste any energy. Must concentrate on being as efficient as possible. That is what it felt like to me watching our sideline after that pick 6. A team full of guys focused on conserving energy. It was as if we all knew that it was going to be difficult to give it 100% for the rest of the game.

Most of all, we looked like a team collectively sighing in relief. Like “Ok good, that 7 points really helps. Now lets try to catch our breath, and see if we can put forth just enough to get a stop, without using up too much energy”.

And the whole game went like that. Some plays, you would see us fire off the ball quickly, with a purpose, and really try to take charge of the play. For many others, we just kind of went through the motions.

There are other possible explanations. Maybe the lack of emotion and energy could be explained by confusion. If all of UVA’s scheming was causing confusion, you would see us play hesitantly on some plays. Its also possible they were just physically a lot quicker and stronger than us. In that case, they could be blocking us so well, and defeating our blocks on defense so well, that it looks like we are hardly trying.

But I don’t think either of those things are very likely. On many of the plays where we seem to be just going through the motions, you don’t see us hesitate as if we are confused. We move steadily to where we need to be, we just don’t do so quickly.

And I don’t think they are just so physically superior to us. If that were the case, I think it would be apparent from the rest of the season. And I am pretty confident this UVA team is not going to end up with a better record than we will.

There are logical reasons to think that we are simply fatigued, both physically and mentally, and we played a team that was well rested from its bye week.

So let’s assume that is correct. What would it cause?

Physical fatigue would cause us to move slower, and in particular, start and stop less quickly. We would get beat off the ball, and beaten to the point of attack. We would find it difficult to play with a low pad level, and get underneath the other guy. That would cause us to miss blocks, and to get blocked too easily. We would not tackle very well, and make a lot of lazy, half hearted attempts to wrap a guy up.

If we were mentally fatigued, we would lack focus. Tevin would miss reads. Our execution would be poor and sloppy. Our blockers would go to the wrong place. Our timing would be off.

So what were our problems?

On Offense:

We moved slowly on many plays. We got beat to the corner on several rocket tosses, giving our A-Back nowhere to go. Tevin was a half step slow sprinting out on his option runs. One egregious example of this occurred on our first running play. We ran the triple option on 2nd and 20 (after a holding penalty) and we block it perfectly. Tevin makes the right read, to keep, and there is no one there to stop him. He really had a good shot to go 80 yards to the end zone, but certainly at least 30 or 40 yards. But nope, he was caught. From behind. By the defensive end. On the play side. You might be thinking “isnt that the guy who usually takes the dive?” Yes. Yes it is. And he did. He took the dive, saw Sims did not have the ball, turned around, and caught up to Tevin. We still gained 12 yards, but you simply have to sprint out of the mesh at full speed, get to the corner, force the defender to take you or the pitch, and then sprint up the field. You can’t let guys behind you that have already taken a different offensive player catch up to the play.

We also showed signs of mental fatigue right away, on the second drive. We start out on 1st and 10 with another perfectly blocked triple option, and Tevin keeps. Again, he could go a long way. Except that, when I said perfectly blocked, I meant except for one guy. We had a guy there to block him. It was a linemen, who should have been blocking the outside linebacker on the far side from the play. All he has to do is just kind of get in his way, somewhat. Anything but let him sprint in a straight line. Doesnt even really need to block him. Just slow him down. But he apparently does not see him, and decides to double team the inside linebacker even though he is already blocked. The outside linebacker runs free right past our would be blocker, and tackles Tevin after a 9 yard gain. Might have been a TD again, but at least a 20 or 30 yard run.

A couple plays later, we triple option again and block it very well again. This time, Tevin pitches (correctly) and Embry is loose down the sideline. Once again, he may well score. Once again, we have a lineman loose right in the area he needs to be. He is about 5 yards from the sideline, where the A-back is blocking a defensive back to the ground. For some reason, instead of turning around to look for other defenders to block, the lineman decides to go “help” the A-back block that guy. And the outside linebacker comes from about 10 yards away to make a diving tackle and hold us to only about a 25 yard gain, rather than a TD. If the lineman had simply turned around, he would have been standing right in the linebacker’s path, and once again only would have needed to slow him down to (probably) allow Embry to go all the way.

So, on the first 2 drives, we missed 3 chances for a big play, due to pretty simple mistakes. We scored a TD on neither of those drives.

Remember that if Tevin gets loose on the long run that he should have on the first drive, at the very least, we don’t end up punting from our own 20 yard line, and UVA would not have had the ball at midfield, only needing to go 50 yards or so for a TD. And we likely score a TD on at least one of those drives. We have been a quick starting team all year. This game should have been no different, but we failed to capitalize on early chances.

Other signs of fatigue on offense include several missed blocks, missed reads, and silly timing problems. When I say missed blocks, I mean complete whiffs by the O-line on D-linemen lined up directly in front of them. This happened several times and killed promising plays. We also missed blocks on the edge.

Tevin missed several reads. Its difficult to say for sure if this is the result of fatigue, because WB’s in this system are likely to miss some reads most every game. It is not really possible to be perfect. However, mental fatigue makes those reads much more difficult, and it does seem that Tevin did worse than usual.

Finally, weird timing issues. Late in the game, while attempting a rocket toss, Tevin threw the ball into the B-Back. How many times have we run that play? How many times has the timing been off such that the B-Back is in the way of the pitch? Silly stuff. On another pass play, Orwin and Stephen Hill attempt to run a crossing pattern 10 yards down field and get tangled up. Orwin basically falls over while Hill stumbles. Pretty easy to cover two guys down field when they are in the same place, one is lying on the ground and one is trying to get his footing. I mean stupid stuff.

UVA caused a fair amount of our negative plays with all of the things I discussed above. But there were also a whole bunch of really weird things like this stuff, that seem like they have a lot more to do with us than them. A lot of poor execution and seemingly unforced errors from us this game.

What about the defense?

Well, a lot of the same type of stuff. When you are fatigued, its tougher to get down low and take people on. Nowhere was this more evident than on the first drive. It is 3rd down and 7, with UVA around midfield, and they ran the ball. And we had it pretty well jammed up. Had a chance to tackle him for a gain of only 1 or 2. All that needed to happen was we needed Isaiah Johnson to step up and take on a linemen. Now, I know he is a safety and this was a linemen. But that is ok, he can lose the battle. He just needed to occupy the linemen, and create some traffic. Even if he gets pushed back a yard or two, the running back won’t be able to run through his linemen, and we had a couple of guys to the inside ready to make a tackle. Johnson was shaded to the O-linemen’s outside shoulder.

But what happens? Johnson steps up into the linemen high, and challenges his upper chest. The linemen knocks the **** out of Isaiah, actually turns him around and pushes him back a good 5 yards, while both the O-lineman and Isaiah keep their feet. So, no pile is created. Because the linemen is still on his feet, he is able to impede the progress of our tacklers to the inside, and the running back is able to follow and pick up another 10 yards or so, easily converting the first down. If Isaiah gets low and drives into the linemen, he would still get knocked back, but he would slow down the progress and create a pile, and very likely bring up 4th and 5. Just a lazy attempt to do anything.

And of course, on that first drive, they eventually scored. Would have been nice to get a stop and get the ball 0-0. Should have been easy.

Another example of fatigue occurred on UVA’s TD drive when the game was tied 14-14. It was third and short (I think 3rd and 2) and we gambled on the run with an inside blitz, and it worked. We hit the runner, and actually had fully 3 defenders there to meet him. Julian Burnett was first. He hit him head on, and put his arms around him and began driving backwards. But it was a lazy, half hearted attempt to wrap him up. He almost drove him to the ground, but if he simply wraps him up, the runner would have gone nowhere because we had plenty of company to tackle him. Instead he kind of shrugs off, and hits the next guy. Another chance to wrap him up, and another lazy attempt at it. And he shrugs off that one as well. He was finally tackled by the third guy, but not before he managed to stumble forward and pick up the first down by a yard.

Now, credit the UVA player for a good tough run. But all he did was run. He had nothing to do with out lazy attempt to put arms around the guy. He did not knock anybody’s arms away. In a pile up, there is not a whole lot a runner can do, unless he is stronger than the pile. He certainly would not be able to slip free and slide around the outside of the pile. He can only do that if we fail to grab him.

These were just the two most egregious examples of our poor tackling, because they occurred on third down plays on UVA’s touchdown drives. Make those two tackles, and in theory, UVA does not score those 14 points.

But we did those kind of things all game. Made ourselves far too easy to block at times, missed tackles at times. We had their running back contained on the short side of the field one time, and the outside guy slips inside his blocker for no apparent reason, and allows the running back to get outside for a 10+ yard gain. Actually, we did that twice. In both cases, if he just remembers that he is outside contain, and stays outside his man, the run goes basically nowhere.

The good news from all of this is that, if my observations are correct, we are not as bad as we looked against UVA. We are simply fatigued. And that is my opinion. I think we played much better against Kansas and UNC. It is not simply that teams are figuring out how to play us, or that the competition is getting tougher. No, I believe we are fatigued and simply are no longer executing, and that is the number 1 factor in our poor performances lately.

But, the bad news is that, if I am correct, there is no reason to think we’ll get any better between now and our bye week, when we finally get a little rest.

I guess many of the “mental fatigue” factors may improve. We will no longer have to play as the favorite. So we won’t have the mental disadvantage of being expected to win. But, if we are physically fatigued as well (and I think its clear that we are) then that difference will be small and likely insignificant.

Miami and Clemson will be very, very difficult for us to beat if we are not able to give 100% effort.

So, I hope I am wrong.

It is possible that, in addition to being somewhat fatigued, we also thought we would beat UVA pretty easily, and thus we played flat. That would explain much of what I just discussed, and yet we would potentially be able to bounce back next week. I hope that is the case, but I don’t know. It is difficult to be “flat” 3 weeks in a row. And we looked a lot like this for much of the NC State game, and much of the Maryland game.

I really hope we can dig deep and find something to help us beat either Miami or Clemson. With a 1-1 split in those two games, I really like our chances to come out of the bye week and beat VT at home. Do that, and beat Duke, and we would be 6-2 in conference with the tiebreaker over UNC and VT. That would probably be good enough to win us the Coastal. It would definitely be good enough if our 1 win in the next two games is over Miami.

But that will take a good effort from the team. If we are as tired as I think we are, then it would be very easy to succumb and lose to Miami and Clemson the next two weeks.

Hope we get it turned around.

Go Jackets!