Hi everyone,
I've been working on a series of posts on our offense. I wanted to make them easy to find for people who don't check the board all the time during the off-season, so instead of putting entire posts here like I've done in the past I'm putting them up here:

http://calfootballstrategy.blogspot.com/

For discussion, I like the thread format and the community here, so if it's OK with the mods I'm thinking about this a a sort of unofficial appendix to BI rather than as an independent site. I think it's easier to have discussions here than in the comments section of the blog and more people are likely to get involved here, so I'd like to post a discussion thread here any time there's a new post. As you'll see, TouchedTheAxeIn82 has put together a video component, so for each post there will be video of actual plays that we can break down and discuss as a group if people are interested.

Anyway, to get things started I've got two posts up already. The first is just on terminology, but if you're a football nerd the stuff in there is really useful for thinking about strategy. The most recent is on our base run game, so hopefully we'll get some good discussion going on that here.

Best,
Berk18

Awesome berk18! Thanks for your hard work

thanks for doing this berk18, i will be sharing this with all my cal football buddies.

Great stuff berk - thanks!

that you put in .... helps with understanding immensely

Thanks everybody. Anyone want to take a shot at the play breakdowns?

Nice work.

Thanks Berk,

I'll start with a question for play #1. It looks like the LT (#78) is unable to maintain his block on the LB who winds up making the tackle for no gain. However, it seems like a tall order to ask the LT to get across the LB's face and gain inside leverage. So is that failed play #78's fault, or should the LB be somebody else's responsibility? For example, should the C have taken out the LB and left the noseguard for the RG?

djnoblin;842267799 said:

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Thanks Berk,

I'll start with a question for play #1. It looks like the LT (#78) is unable to maintain his block on the LB who winds up making the tackle for no gain. However, it seems like a tall order to ask the LT to get across the LB's face and gain inside leverage. So is that failed play #78's fault, or should the LB be somebody else's responsibility? For example, should the C have taken out the LB and left the noseguard for the RG?

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That's a good point about the LB. I think Northwestern's in a really good call here, and in their base defense this wouldn't have been an issue. The LB wasn't normally shooting gaps like this and he attacks the LOS almost instantly, so I think this is actually a well-timed run blitz through the space vacated by the guard. Normally on a play like this you won't see linemen passing off defenders since hesitating to take the NT could easily lead to penetration into the backfield so the onus is on Tagaloa to block that LB, but it is a tougher assignment.

This play does bring up a great element of the cat-and-mouse game between an OC and a DC. If a DC knows we like to run power away from the side that the RB lines up on, he can call a blitz to the side of the RB's alignment, since he knows that the guard on that side will be pulling and there won't be a blocker for the LB. So why not run this blitz every time you suspect a run? Well, if you blitz to the side of the RB's alignment and the offense is running outside zone instead of power, the blitzer will be relatively easy to pick up and you'll have one fewer LB flowing to the playside. We caught Northwestern with this on the second play of the game, and Bigelow got a 32 yard gain out of it.

Awesome blog. I've bookmarked it and will dive in when I have more time tonight.