Our Film Room articles have always been one of our most popular features – I know I’ve learned a ton from the smart guys on here who actually know what they’re talking about with this stuff. We’re trying something new with the film room that we hope brings another perspective, something we’re calling “Film Room Live.” (It’s not live-live, but it makes for a snappier name and we’re all about marketing here.) We published our first one after week 2, which looked at the secondary’s work against Georgia. This time around, we’re checking in on Josh Adams.
What’s Under Review
- The 83-yard touchdown run against USC
- The 77-yard touchdown run against NC State
Watching the broadcast live, both plays seemed very similar. And they were, from the moment Adams broke through the offensive line. 18S smart guy Burger23 – you may remember him from his breakdowns of the triple option, which none of us regular mortals can understand – noticed that what happened before that, though, was very different. I like to sound smart too, so I took what Burgs said and narrated the highlights with it. I also stayed at a Holiday Inn express last night.
One minor production note… I know our first video came in pretty long, at around 20 minutes. This one is about ten minutes long, which could still get shorter but it’s moving in the right direction. Next time around I’ll focus more on keeping these to five minute segments – from the viewer feedback we’ve gotten, two five-minute videos are preferable to one ten-minute video. OK, one more production note: the recording didn’t kick in until I was about five seconds into my intro spiel, but I didn’t have time to redo the whole thing to fix it. I know, I know, you’re crushed, but we’ll keep improving a bit at a time. Stay with us!
Oh, and I know I mixed up who gave up which run distance on the recording, but in my defense, Adams has had a LOT of long runs. It’s easy to lose track.
Brendan,
A lot of thanks to you and Burger 23. Really enjoyed the looks, and they were quite explanatory, in a good and fun way. Merci, and keep it up!
Agreed, this is fantastic. I was asking a friend last weekend if all of our horizontal runs early in the game are what open up these vertical plays later in the game, but I like this explanation because it says everything is made up and the points don’t matter and we do what we want because #33Trucking.
That’s a good question. I don’t know enough to catch whether we shift from zone blocking early to something else late, but I’m going to guess we don’t. I think that as the game wears on the blocking just becomes more and more effective because the line is so damn good. The end result is that later in the game Adams doesn’t have to be as patient to the hole, because the hole opens immediately.
The play calling might rely on that happening too though, since it does seem like we do more of the east-west zone runs early and north-south late. It’ll be interesting to watch for that tomorrow.
Also, on the USC run, I should give proper credit to Weishar pulling after the snap – that drew the second safety fully across the formation and cleared out the middle of the field. So as usual, there are multiple contributors to any given play’s success, like the motion and some fantastic blocking on this one, but the main reason Adams went the distance is that the threat of Wimbush’s running ability entranced the two defenders who would’ve had a shot at him.
The first one looks like a really nice play design; to my semi-educated eye, USC is giving a “keep” look by crashing the DE, and then the LB/safeties are cheating on Wimbush keeping. But the way ND ran the play looks to be designed to beat that look, as they’re bringing Weishar across the formation to block the DE.
You are a significantly better color guy than Flutie
Weird, I was actually thinking that the only thing that could have helped this video analysis was a bit of discussion about what outfit Sam Darnold is going to wear to the Heisman ceremony.
Whatever it is, he’ll be comfortable in it as long as he’s down by 3 touchdowns.
Well, thank you, but so is Archie.
Archie is bigger than Flutie too. Huh.
Analysis much appreciated Brendan and burgs23
Film Room Live? Why not Film Room Hype?
Thank you. The clips help show how the gaps develop. I don’t envy the guys trying diagnose and determine who has which gap as these plays develop. One wrong step, or even a lean the wrong way, and the small mistake turns into a long TD. Amazing.
You could literally drive a car through the NC State run gap.
Adams does hit it with precisely the right timing, and just accelerates like a mofo after hitting it. Beautiful.
#33mofo
Great point. It’s easy to look at this film and say, well, *obviously* those defenders should’ve stayed home. But it’s no accident that both these runs occurred in the third quarter – both defenses had already been beaten on intermediate runs by both Wimbush and Adams. As the game wears on, that puts them in a really tough spot. If they sit back and wait for the play to develop, whoever has the ball is going to arrive at the line of scrimmage with a full head of steam, and they’ll die by a thousand 6-yard cuts. If they cheat towards either guy, they run the risk of leaving a humongous hole on the edge or up the middle, and they’ll die by a single 80-yard slash.
If you’re trying to win the game, you can’t be content to let the other guy get 5-6 yards (or more) on every carry, so you almost have to cheat. And when you do… It’s a bad position to be in, and why you hear coaches talk about using “constraints” to “stress the defense.” “Stress” isn’t a euphemism or jargon, it really is stressful for these defenders to make these decisions.
Really excellent work. I played a little football, but not enough to diagnose these plays as they happen in real time. These breakdowns are fantastic.
I would not have shown the WR screen that much love if I were NC State. I don’t remember seeing that double stack look before so maybe they were somewhat confused. But what’s the most yardage we’ve gotten off a WR screen this season? Maybe they also think “surely he won’t rip one of his crazy long runs without so much as a TE in there.” I don’t know, but no bueno on their end.
The problem is that if you ignore it – if there’s NO safety help over the top – you risk either an easy 10 yards or a long TD on a pump-and-go. I asked Burgs about this behind the scenes, he said it’s impossible to know for sure but this was probably purely a pre-snap read, meaning from the moment the two safeties went wide it was a run all the way. If they ignored either side Wimbush might’ve had the option to throw out there.
It’s easy for me to say this as an armchair QB after the fact, but I think NC State should’ve suspected something when they saw that stack on both sides. That looks a little shady, and sure enough it was a complete decoy. It’s also something we haven’t done before, though, so they didn’t have a chance to think about it, they had to react on the fly. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the NC State coaches in the box thought something was up and expressed concern, but the players weren’t going to pick up on that. It’s really a fantastic bit of strategery from Long.
Enjoyed the post, Brendan and Burger. Thanks!
Echoing everyone else, good job with this stuff. Appointment reading/watching.
I loved it Brendan. I saw another angle of the (I think it was the NCSU long run) from the opposite end zone. Whoever showed the video pointed out Nelson and Mustipher jostling each other all the way down to the goal. It looked like those boys were having a blast.
Pro tip: if you are like me and had to go to YouTube directly to watch the video on your phone, know that searching “18s film” is going to send you in a different direction.
To be fair, both results are NSFW and will require a book on your lap.
I love the end zone view. I wish that would become the standard viewing angle. They were forced to go to that in one of the recent Patriots games due to fog (which I think an opposing player tried to blame on the Pats), and it was way better than the standard angle for actually seeing the play develop.
Indeed. Really wish the all-22 film that teams send to each other was publicly available, but I don’t think that will ever happen. I doubt coaches would ever sign off on letting the opposition crowdsource tendencies and weaknesses.
Falcons fan here. That was a fun angle, for an un-fun game. This article the day after got me to chuckle, though: http://boston.cbslocal.com/2017/10/23/patriots-fog-machines-foxboro-craigslist/
I’m blaming the fog on Bellicheck too. I want some of that.
Great work!
This was great! One thing I noticed is that neither of these were reads. Wimbush was giving all the way. Yet he seems to make it still look like a read which helps to freeze the player(s) that are responsible for him or worried about him.
That is helpful to remember because sometimes in the past I get frustrated why we run a slow developing run play (perhaps for short-yardage) and wonder why we don’t just give it to Adams immediately. But here’s why: you are still using the threat of QB run – even though on this particular play you have no plan for him to run at all – to occupy defenders.
Nelson + Mustipher double teaming the NC St DT, then Nelson peeling off to take the Linebacker ultimately meant that 5 OL blocked 4 DL + 1 LB, 1 on 1 each. Add the scheme locking up 2 DBs on each side with 2 WRs and 1 staying home with Wimbush, means the best you’re gonna do is a 1v1 Oklahoma drill, only Josh Adams has a really wide lane.
Josh Adams is amazing and #33Trucking rules, but the combo of that play design, our incredible OL plus a QB that could pass as an RB just generally makes things unfair.