First of all, many apologies for not continuing with the "Bear Raid Breakdown" sooner. Things have been crazy busy, but now that we have some actual footage of Cal running the offense (h/t to touchedtheaxein82, whose video I downloaded before the PAC-12 network went aggro), it seems like a good time to get back to it.
This post is ultimately going to be about the versatility given to us by one specific formation, namely a compressed 3x1 look. Before getting into it, though, I want to elaborate on a term that gets used a lot in talking about offenses. This is the term "passing concept." At the meet-and-greet at the LA Country Club, Coach Dykes said that our offense uses the same concepts as the 2004 Texas Tech team, a team for which he was a WR coach. Nevertheless, as many have observed, our offense does not look like a Mike Leach team. What is a passing concept, and what exactly is it that Sonny/Franklin have brought with them?
A passing concept is kind of an abstract play. You can run a given concept out of any formation, with any personnel group. Any one concept requires the receivers to get to specific landmarks on the field with their routes, and to end up spaced out in one specific way regardless of where they start out. Different concepts will space the receivers out in different ways. This approach to passing is "conceptual," because no matter what the offensive formation is, the read for the QB stays the same since the receivers will end up distributed in the same way no matter what. Similarly, WR's learn the route pattern as a whole (as opposed to learning one part of it), so that no matter where they are lined up on the field they know where they're supposed to get to, and what they're function is. It should be noted that tons of coaches, including Tedford, use concept passing. The difference for us, and what ultimately makes our offense a member of the Air Raid family despite our more even run-pass ratio, is that all of our concepts use 4 or 5 receivers on every play, which gives us a lot more options for stretching out defensive coverage.
Before looking at an actual passing concept used by our offense, let's talk about numbering WR's, which will be useful in a minute. Basically, if you want to label receivers without referring to their position, you can number them from the outside of the formation in. So, the outside most receiver on each side of the formation is #1. The next receiver inside is #2, and so on. We'll see why this is useful in a second.
One Air Raid staple is the concept "Y-Stick," although this is by no means limited to Air Raid offenses. Here's what it looks like in Valdosta State's playbook, out of a pretty standard 1 back, 1 TE set:
In terms of the numbering system mentioned above, we can call Z #1, Y #2, and F #3. Although the diagram labels the receivers by their position, we could just as easily say that #1 runs a go-route with an outside release, #2 runs the stick route, and #3 runs a flat route. In this way, any three receivers could carry out this exact same concept. All that they have to know is how many receivers are outside of them (i.e. what number they are), and what route that number is supposed to run.
The specific QB reads can change from team to team, but the key is that this concept is setting up a "triangle read" for the QB to the 3 receiver side. Basically, to the three receiver side most zone coverages will have someone playing the deep outside zone and someone playing the shallow outside zone. There will be other short zone defenders inside, but for now they are irrelevant. If you can attack those outside zones with 3 players, you force those two defenders to cover three guys. The key to all of this is that your short outside routes, run by Y and F in the diagram, have to maintain a fair amount of horizontal space between them. As long as Y doesn't get too close to F, the defense will have a tough time defending this. Here's the reasoning: The deep route will occupy the guy playing the deep outside zone, thus isolating the short defender on two receivers. If he comes up and outside to cover the flat route, the QB throws it to Y, who is deeper and further inside:
If, on the other hand, he sinks to where he can cover Y, then the QB hits F:
If the safety is an idiot and comes up to cover Y, then Z is wide open behind him, giving you the third point of your triangle. The key to all of this is that the three receivers have to obtain the proper spacing, or the concept doesn't work.
Now, let's get to the formation we're studying and see this concept in action. As mentioned above, the formation is a 3x1 one-back look, with the WR's brought in close to the OL and the RB to the trips side. Here's the pre-snap look:
This is where our numbering system comes in handy. In the diagram from VSU's playbook, #1, #2, and #3 were a WR split out wide, a TE lined up next to the OT, and a RB in the backfield. Now we have trips with three true WR's and a RB in the back-field (who would be #4, according to our system). Although we're in a different personnel group with a different alignment, the assignments stay the same. If we were running this normally, #1 would run a go route with an outside release, #2 would run the stick route, and #3 would release immediately outside to the shallow flat.
We're not running this normally, however, which brings up the issue of "tagging" specific receivers. Basically, when you're running a concept like "Y-Stick" you can tag any of the three receivers to run the stick route (e.g. X-Stick, H-Stick, Y-Stick). The other two receivers will then change their responsibilities according to pre-determined rules to make sure that they are running the two complementary routes. Remember that on normal Y-stick, #1 runs the go, #2 the stick, and #3 the flat. On this play we've tagged #3 to run the stick, essentially shifting all of the routes to the right. Now #3 will run the stick, #2 will run the go, and the responsibility for the flat route will move outside to #1.
You can see that, although it looks pretty different, this play is really just Y-stick. The reason it's tagged this way on this play is that the horizontal stretch created by the flat route and the stick route becomes incredibly exaggerated. Instead of having a RB run the flat route out of the backfield, #1 runs the flat route, ensuring that he gets very wide, very fast. Instead of having #2 run the stick route, #3 runs it from an inside position, creating a ton of horizontal space between the two short routes. #2 runs the go route, creating the 3rd point on the triangle.
This post is ultimately going to be about the versatility given to us by one specific formation, namely a compressed 3x1 look. Before getting into it, though, I want to elaborate on a term that gets used a lot in talking about offenses. This is the term "passing concept." At the meet-and-greet at the LA Country Club, Coach Dykes said that our offense uses the same concepts as the 2004 Texas Tech team, a team for which he was a WR coach. Nevertheless, as many have observed, our offense does not look like a Mike Leach team. What is a passing concept, and what exactly is it that Sonny/Franklin have brought with them?
A passing concept is kind of an abstract play. You can run a given concept out of any formation, with any personnel group. Any one concept requires the receivers to get to specific landmarks on the field with their routes, and to end up spaced out in one specific way regardless of where they start out. Different concepts will space the receivers out in different ways. This approach to passing is "conceptual," because no matter what the offensive formation is, the read for the QB stays the same since the receivers will end up distributed in the same way no matter what. Similarly, WR's learn the route pattern as a whole (as opposed to learning one part of it), so that no matter where they are lined up on the field they know where they're supposed to get to, and what they're function is. It should be noted that tons of coaches, including Tedford, use concept passing. The difference for us, and what ultimately makes our offense a member of the Air Raid family despite our more even run-pass ratio, is that all of our concepts use 4 or 5 receivers on every play, which gives us a lot more options for stretching out defensive coverage.
Before looking at an actual passing concept used by our offense, let's talk about numbering WR's, which will be useful in a minute. Basically, if you want to label receivers without referring to their position, you can number them from the outside of the formation in. So, the outside most receiver on each side of the formation is #1. The next receiver inside is #2, and so on. We'll see why this is useful in a second.
One Air Raid staple is the concept "Y-Stick," although this is by no means limited to Air Raid offenses. Here's what it looks like in Valdosta State's playbook, out of a pretty standard 1 back, 1 TE set:
In terms of the numbering system mentioned above, we can call Z #1, Y #2, and F #3. Although the diagram labels the receivers by their position, we could just as easily say that #1 runs a go-route with an outside release, #2 runs the stick route, and #3 runs a flat route. In this way, any three receivers could carry out this exact same concept. All that they have to know is how many receivers are outside of them (i.e. what number they are), and what route that number is supposed to run.
The specific QB reads can change from team to team, but the key is that this concept is setting up a "triangle read" for the QB to the 3 receiver side. Basically, to the three receiver side most zone coverages will have someone playing the deep outside zone and someone playing the shallow outside zone. There will be other short zone defenders inside, but for now they are irrelevant. If you can attack those outside zones with 3 players, you force those two defenders to cover three guys. The key to all of this is that your short outside routes, run by Y and F in the diagram, have to maintain a fair amount of horizontal space between them. As long as Y doesn't get too close to F, the defense will have a tough time defending this. Here's the reasoning: The deep route will occupy the guy playing the deep outside zone, thus isolating the short defender on two receivers. If he comes up and outside to cover the flat route, the QB throws it to Y, who is deeper and further inside:
If, on the other hand, he sinks to where he can cover Y, then the QB hits F:
If the safety is an idiot and comes up to cover Y, then Z is wide open behind him, giving you the third point of your triangle. The key to all of this is that the three receivers have to obtain the proper spacing, or the concept doesn't work.
Now, let's get to the formation we're studying and see this concept in action. As mentioned above, the formation is a 3x1 one-back look, with the WR's brought in close to the OL and the RB to the trips side. Here's the pre-snap look:
This is where our numbering system comes in handy. In the diagram from VSU's playbook, #1, #2, and #3 were a WR split out wide, a TE lined up next to the OT, and a RB in the backfield. Now we have trips with three true WR's and a RB in the back-field (who would be #4, according to our system). Although we're in a different personnel group with a different alignment, the assignments stay the same. If we were running this normally, #1 would run a go route with an outside release, #2 would run the stick route, and #3 would release immediately outside to the shallow flat.
We're not running this normally, however, which brings up the issue of "tagging" specific receivers. Basically, when you're running a concept like "Y-Stick" you can tag any of the three receivers to run the stick route (e.g. X-Stick, H-Stick, Y-Stick). The other two receivers will then change their responsibilities according to pre-determined rules to make sure that they are running the two complementary routes. Remember that on normal Y-stick, #1 runs the go, #2 the stick, and #3 the flat. On this play we've tagged #3 to run the stick, essentially shifting all of the routes to the right. Now #3 will run the stick, #2 will run the go, and the responsibility for the flat route will move outside to #1.
You can see that, although it looks pretty different, this play is really just Y-stick. The reason it's tagged this way on this play is that the horizontal stretch created by the flat route and the stick route becomes incredibly exaggerated. Instead of having a RB run the flat route out of the backfield, #1 runs the flat route, ensuring that he gets very wide, very fast. Instead of having #2 run the stick route, #3 runs it from an inside position, creating a ton of horizontal space between the two short routes. #2 runs the go route, creating the 3rd point on the triangle.
