The Washington Huskies went into College Park and looked like they left both the offense and defense in Seattle, as they were down 0-20 late into the 3rd quarter. But then powered by the offensive juggernaut trio and crucial stops, the Dawgs scored 24 unanswered to pull off the comeback victory 24-20 against the Maryland Terrapins. UW earned their first B1G victory on the road since joining the conference as they handed Maryland their first loss of the season. The team showed amazing grit that should be a catalyst for the rest of the season as they continue their conference schedule.
To the film.
Offense: Finding the Counter Punch
Our game against Maryland was a tale of two halves (or three quarters vs the fourth), so when we were thinking about how to tackle this week’s Film Study, we focused on what changed during the game to turn the tide. On offense, two key themes stood out. One, we found a rhythm attacking underneath in the passing game as Maryland tried to keep the downfield passing game in check and keep a lid on Denzel Boston. Two, we found specific coverage match ups we like and hammered them repeatedly.
3rd Quarter – 13:26 – 1st & 10
First up, we have a play from the end of the 3rd quarter where we’re running a Mesh concept out of a tight doubles formation. Like on this play, Maryland had been playing a lot of zone coverage against us with either two or three DBs playing deep coverage. Their gameplan was similar to OSU’s the week before; play back in conservative coverage and roll the dice getting pressure with the front four. It’s a calculated bet that our offense can’t play efficiently enough, or mistake free enough, to march down the field taking short gains. For three quarters, the plan worked for Maryland. Their stud DEs kept Demond Williams out of rhythm in the first half, and Demond and Denzel weren’t on the same page for a handful of plays as the Terrapins were mixing coverages.
What shifted in the second half was our focus in play calling. Instead of force feeding Denzel deep, we started to spread the ball around on concepts that specifically targeted underneath coverage. As I mentioned, this play is a play design based on the Mesh concept. Mesh is a ubiquitous concept these days that came out of the Air Raid offense, and it is a man and zone coverage beater that targets the underneath middle portion of the field.
Using the play diagram above to illustrate the concept, the main components on the Mesh concept are the H, Y, and Z routes shown above. Against man coverage, underneath defenders are chasing the drag routes from the H and Y across the formation, setting up the QB to read the preferred match up. Against zone, like what we faced on the play, the H and Y routes create horizontal stress for the LBs where they have to hand off the routes as they cross between coverage responsibilities. This often creates a gap between zones for the Z’s Hook Curl route to settle in to as an easy target over the middle for the QB. That Hook Curl from DeGraaf came open quickly for Demond, and he rifled the pass in rhythm to set up a catch and run opportunity for the sophomore TE.
We picked this play for a few reasons. One, it’s a tried and true concept that Fisch has used in the past hasn’t emphasized this season with Demond at QB. Most of the play calling in the passing game has focused on deep shots, screens, and throws to the outside. I’m not sure if that’s intentional due to Demond’s preferences and/or limitations, or if that’s how Fisch prefers to structure his offense, but it’s reassuring that Demond is perfectly able to make the progression and complete the pass underneath and over the middle if the play calling goes in that direction.
Two, it’s great to see Decker get involved in the passing game with larger target volume against Maryland. Most of us expected to see him take a big step forward this season with more opportunities as a receiver, but he’s been fairly quiet outside of a couple downfield plays designed for him. On this play, he was just another receiver in the progression, and he showed what kind of catch-and-run upside he can offer in the flow of the offense. Plays like Mesh are not high leverage play designs, and they should really be considered more of a “keep the sticks moving” type of foundational passing concept. If we can more regularly get this type of chunk yardage out of a routine underneath pass to Decker, we might not have to roll the dice as regularly with the forced 50/50 balls to Denzel.
4th Quarter – 11:40 – 1st & 10
Now, don’t take all of what I said above to mean we shouldn’t continue to attack downfield. Demond is great in the vertical passing game, and we should take advantage of it. What we shouldn’t do is force the deep ball to Denzel if it’s not there. Boston is a great downfield receiver, but when defenses are trying to take him out of the game, we need to find ways to attack downfield with others. While it might’ve taken us a while to find the match up we wanted, we figured out ways of hammering it once we did.
On this play, Fisch dialed up a shot play out of his Rollout package that he’s used regularly with Demond to attack deep. Here’s a few other examples
The set up is very similar to these other examples that are in this family of play designs. 11 personnel, 3×1 formation with the TE attached to the formation on the trips side, RB aligned to the trips side, OL slides away from the TE, and the RB releases towards the trips side into the flats. The difference between this play from the Maryland game and the two examples is the slight variation in WR route combination on the trips side. Instead of running a Double Post concept on the trips side, we are running a Scissors concept with Roebuck running a Post and Raiden Vines-Bright running a Corner route.
Maryland started off in a 2-high shell but rotated post-snap into a 1-high shell with the safety on the trips side rotating underneath. Regardless of man or zone coverage, the Corner and Post routes will effectively get man coverage since they are being run so far downfield. The more important read for Demond was the deep safety. In theory, 1-high shells should takeaway the Post, but the safety bit on RVB’s Corner, so Williams let it rip to Roebuck in 1v1 coverage against #6 Dontay Joyner. I specifically point out Roebuck vs. Joyner as the match up because Joyner was repeatedly targeted in the second half for big gains. I don’t want to beat up on the guy, but it is worth noting that it appears like the play calling started hunting for match ups against him in the second half when we started to get some traction in the passing game. It’s also worth highlighting Roebuck winning deep. We weren’t able to squeeze the replay angle on here, but he had some shifty route running that put Joyner in a blender deep despite his coverage cushion.
Defense: Identity & Playing to Strengths
On the defensive side, the difference was all in the coverage calls. Coaches and media threw around vague terms like “adjustments” when describing the difference in defensive performance after Maryland’s first drive in the second half. I looked deeper, and I noticed a shift towards zone coverages as the game went on. I won’t say that it made a night and day difference, but it was just effective enough to get Maryland’s offense to sputter out on its own in the second half. Let’s take a look at a few plays to paint the picture.
3rd Quarter – 13:26 – 3rd & 6
Yes, I know that this play is from the second half, but it illustrates my point as a key play on Maryland’s last scoring drive. Ryan Walters’ scheme is known for its heavy use of man coverage, but it only works when you have all the right pieces. Man coverage, like offensive line play, is only as good as the weakest link, or if you have a great pass rush. One weak match up and the offense will hammer it. Man coverage also makes it hard to disguise coverages compared to zone coverage since the individual techniques require more specific alignments.
As you can see on this play, it was fairly easy for even Maryland’s freshman QB to read the coverage pre-snap and make the pitch-and-catch play against the Cover 1 man coverage look we ran. It’s a little tough to tell in the clip above, but Malik Washington only looks at two matchups post-snap; the matchup against Rylon Dillard-Allen (Safety, #18), and the matchup against Alex McLaughlin (Safety, #12). WRs vs. safeties in man coverage is usually an advantage for the offense, so all Washington had to do was find the look he preferred between the two and make an accurate pass.
Making the pass to get a nice completion is one thing, but the other downside to man coverage when you don’t have the right personnel to prevent the completion is that the defense usually struggles to make the tackle quickly after the catch. With fewer eyes on the ball, there’s a slower reaction time for others to rally to make the tackle. That’s why it took Makell Esteen coming all the way over from his deep center field spot to make the tackle after a 30 yard gain.
I really like McLaughlin’s play so far this season, but I have recognized that 1v1 man coverage isn’t his forte, especially against shiftier WRs, but that’s to be expected. He’s one of our best 11 players on defense, so we keep him on the field for nearly every snap. However, we can’t expect him to hold up consistently in man coverage against WRs when they really should be covered by a CB or nickel.
2nd Quarter – 2:22 – 2nd & 10
On a more positive note, when we mixed in more man coverage, everyone seemed to get onto the same page and play faster. Here on this play from the end of the first half, we’ve got a Cover 3 Cloud zone blitz dialed up to give Maryland a more exotic look. On the play, we’re using deception to both generate pressure and muddy the coverage picture to take away easier reads. The key components of the blitz call are the blitz from Dylan Robinson (CB, #6), the zone drop into the middle Hook/Curl Zone by Deshawn Lynch (EDGE, #41), and the rapid flow towards Robinson’s boundary side by Deven Bryant (LB, #17) and McLaughlin to take care of coverage on his side while he’s blitzing. Between the blitz from Robinson and the flowing coverage, the defense is walling off the boundary side of the field from Maryland’s QB.
What you can see a little better from the replay angle is that our pre-snap 2-high shell may have baited Malik Washington into the misread. With the safeties rotating from a 2-high to a 1-high, I suspect that Washington was anticipating a wider winder to open behind Esteen for the WR to run a Seam route into. However, while the safeties are rotating, McLaughlin isn’t rotating down into the box. Instead he’s simply shifting over to cover the deep 1/3 near the boundary. This leaves a smaller gap between zones for Esteen to have to cover at the snap with his rotation, and he can slow play the routes heading towards his zone as they develop. This leaves him in perfect position to bait the throw before breaking on the ball for an interception.
4th Quarter – 1:50 – 4th & 8
Finally, we have the last defensive play of the game with another good example of why we found more success once we lean on zone coverage calls. Here in do or die time for Maryland, they get set in an empty formation looking for an easy pitch-and-catch opportunity against man coverage for the first down. Unfortunately for them, while we’re showing a potential man coverage look with a 1-high shell and defenders aligned in potential man coverage alignments, we’re disguising a Cover 3 zone call.
Sitting in zone, the defense can be less worried about chasing receivers across the field underneath since they can be handed off to adjacent defenders. Instead, guys can focus on keeping things in front of them to prevent the conversion, as well as keep an eye on the ball. Knowing the down and distance, as well has having freer reign to make a play on the ball while not being constrained to covering a specific receiver, Ephesians Prysock (CB, #7) lurks underneath in the flat despite having deep 1/3 coverage responsibilities because he can feel his receiver hanging in the flat while other routes are developing elsewhere on the field that will eventually end up on his side. All of this can be kept in Prysock’s field of vision since he doesn’t need to focus just on his guy. He let’s the crossing route develop to his side, and he undercuts the route for the near pick. Great play by Prysock.
I say all of this for this play to highlight that while big and tall CBs like Prysock might allow you to play man coverage, it doesn’t mean they can only play man coverage. Prysock’s skill set is versatile enough that he can still be a playmaker while playing zone, and if the other skillsets around him in the secondary and the LB corps are better suited for zone, then we might as well play zone.
Other Thoughts from Coach B:
- Penalties and offensive miscues continue to hamper the offense. Between Demond’s INT (looked like Boston and Demond were reading different things from the defense) and a few procedural penalties, we killed all first half offensive momentum with self-inflicted errors. From a macro perspective, the penalties are definitely becoming a trend. This was the third game we were outright worse in penalties than our opponents, and in the other two we either had more penalties or more penalty yardage.
- Our scoring success continues to correlate with our explosives. Just in this game, drives with a 20+ yard gain, 21 points. Drives without, 3 points. Obviously this isn’t a unique correlation specific to UW, but it highlights how much our explosive plays cover up other deficiencies, like our inability to run the ball against similarly talented teams. Our RBs are averaging under 4 yards per carry in conference play, and we’re cumulatively averaging under 3 yards per carry in conference play. That’s unsustainable.
Awgs’ Bonus Play of the Week
Shoutout to the true freshman Raiden Vines-Bright for this crucial 3rd down conversion, which was a turning point for the Dawgs comeback.
