Three years ago, No. 5 Oklahoma traveled to UCLA to face a winless Bruins squad and won handily. While that Bruins loss may be forgotten now, the significance of it shouldn’t go unnoticed. It was the first and only time first-year USC defensive coordinator Alex Grinch squared off against option mastermind Chip Kelly.
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Truth be told, Grinch had the dudes up front (several are playing now at the NFL level) to annihilate UCLA’s offensive linemen, many of whom swallowed both the running back and quarterback before the option element even got started.
This time around, the rendezvous between Kelly and Grinch couldn’t be more consequential, with Pac 12 title implications and a shot at a New Year’s Six bid on the line in Pasadena when No. 7 USC meets No. 16 UCLA on Saturday night in what should be an interesting chess match.
Kelly’s offense is, at its core, an option offense, although it’s no longer the traditional zone-read option that we’ve seen from him in the past. The 2022 edition is based more on misdirection concepts to stress perimeter defenders who lack the skill set to match the explosiveness of quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson and running back Zach Charbonnet. And though all option offenses are built on attaining a numbers advantage at the point of attack, this season Kelly has been the consummate mathematician in out-leveraging defenses in space.
The Bruins are in the top 10 nationally in rushing yards per game (240) and rushing touchdowns (29). The difference has been in the development of Charbonnet, who at 6 feet 1, 220 pounds, has become an out-of-the-box runner.
Charbonnet is third in the country in yards per rush (6.23) — and he’s averaging 3.1 yards before he even gets touched, per TruMedia. Credit this additional yardage to the play design by Kelly, who will use Charbonnet and DTR to generate explosive plays on the perimeter every week. When the Bruins run, 19.2 percent of their plays have gained 10 or more yards, good for fourth in the country in that category. And they are squaring off against a USC defense that has already surrendered 51 rushes of at least 10 yards.
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After conversations with opposing defensive coaches who have been tasked with stopping UCLA, let’s take a deeper look at the Bruins’ misdirection package in the run game and the various ways in which Kelly gets Charbonnet advantageous matchups in space.
The misdirection menu
Defending the UCLA offense creates many challenges. From a defensive standpoint, most of the onus is on second-level defenders (linebackers) who are getting misdirection thrown at them on every play. It produces what coaches call “dirty eyes,” challenging the eye discipline of defenders. Defenders are usually taught to read pre-snap keys. On each play, Kelly throws as many distractions as possible at them, both before and after the snap.
Mainly, this eye candy is produced in two forms: misdirection at the first level and misdirection in the backfield. First-level misdirection consists of false keys at the line of scrimmage like pulling linemen going in opposite directions from the play call. Misdirection in the backfield can be elements like pre-snap or post-snap motion from skill players. And when you watch defenses play against UCLA, you’ll see a good amount of “misfit” linebackers not playing with gap integrity or discipline. There are several examples of this below.
Essentially, the Bruins’ misdirection run menu consists of four staples:
- Boundary zone read concept
- Zone bluff (cruise) concept
- Counter read (bash) concepts
- Same side runs
Boundary zone read
Kelly cut his teeth in the zone-read game at Oregon with quarterbacks Darron Thomas and Marcus Mariota and running backs LaMichael James and De’Anthony Thomas. But these concepts were usually built out of open 2×2 and 3×1 spread sets. He’s still utilizing the zone read from these open sets, but now he’s stockpiled various formations to produce more difficult ways to defend it. The influence of former offensive line coach Justin Frye (now at Ohio State) and current offensive line coach Tim Drevno has led to more 11 personnel packages. Case in point, much of the Bruins’ entire option package has come from a base 3×1 nub formation, with three speed receivers to the field and the tight end to the boundary.
It’s a formation that presents a challenge to a defense, particularly one that is built on two-high safeties.
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If a defense chooses to match numbers on the perimeter by widening out linebackers, it produces a softer run box. If a defense chooses to load the box to defend the run, it opens up options on the perimeter for the read element, which is the quarterback. But while DTR has rushed for 543 yards on 73 rushes this season (excluding sacks), a good majority of that production has come on pulls in the zone-read scheme or extended plays in the passing game. He’s not a downhill threat in the option game as other Kelly quarterbacks have been.
Kelly’s way of protecting the golden goose of his offense is by running DTR to the boundary, where he’s aided by the nearest sideline and the closest defender able to tackle him is a corner or free safety, smaller than his 6-foot-1, 205-pound frame. Kelly will formation the zone read from that 3×1 formation.
When defenses, like Arizona State below, decide to match numbers to the field, it allows the tight end to block the corner. DTR pulls the ball against the read defensive end and is off to the races for a 40-yard gain, where the nearest defender to touch him is the free safety at 15 yards.
It was the same design last week against Arizona, when DTR had his biggest run of the night in a 34-28 loss.
The Bruins also build in some 21 personnel zone-read concepts, as shown against Oregon. They brought in an extra tight end and fullback to block on the perimeter for DTR on pull plays.
And inside the red zone, where DTR’s number is called frequently, Kelly has gone to tagging “crack” calls for his split ends to block an interior linebacker. Again, this gets DTR one-on-one with a corner, usually resulting in a win — and a touchdown — for the Bruins.
Zone bluff concept
The zone bluff (or cruise) concept, originally made popular by former Nevada head coach Chris Ault, has gotten plenty of mileage at UCLA this season. It’s a zone-read concept with the addition of another blocker (usually the tight end) wrapping around the formation to block for the quarterback pull.
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It’s become another way for Kelly to get the ball in the hands of DTR. He has been designing these concepts from unbalanced formations as well, almost guaranteeing a one-on-one on a lesser athlete. In the Washington game, Kelly called the zone bluff play on consecutive plays to ice the game. The Bruins caught the Huskies in pure man coverage to stop the run, giving DTR plenty of grass on the pull.
And when Kelly wants to accentuate Charbonnet as the downhill element of the option game, he’ll do so by mixing in a good amount of receiver pre-snap and post-snap motion again to get those “dirty eyes” of linebackers off their keys, opening up interior lanes in the run box.
It’s been a good answer against man coverage teams — like Stanford — that will run defenders across the formation with the motion.
Counter read (bash) concept
Kelly’s newest misdirection element in his option attack has been the counter read concept. It has led to much of Charbonnet’s production on the ground this season. The counter read is different from the zone read in that it pulls two first-level linemen (mainly the guard and tackle) opposite the back, thus the “bash” or “back away” moniker. The quarterback chooses to either give the ball to the back on the misdirection or run the counter play himself.
UCLA’s counter read is different in that it is built as a pre-snap choice by DTR to either pitch the ball to Charbonnet, getting him the ball in space on the perimeter, or run the counter himself. Some teams will pair the concept with a QB counter as an option, but for Kelly, there is no option. He doesn’t want DTR getting hit in the box. He’s run the counter component only one time this season for a 1-yard gain against Utah. It’s going to Charbonnet all of the time.
Again, Kelly loves the bash with three speed receivers to the field because it puts an extreme amount of stress on the mike linebacker, the next available defender inside who is tasked with tackling Charbonnet.
The reason why this concept has been so efficient for UCLA is that most second-level defenders don’t have the speed to match Charbonnet on the perimeter. And even when defenses chose to pressure the option side — as South Alabama did earlier in the season — the nickelback wasn’t fast enough to track him down.
UCLA has even advanced the concept by utilizing it with 20 personnel, or two-back groupings. Here the misdirection is built by having the backs go in opposite directions. In the picture below against Washington, running back Keegan Jones runs the counter element, while Charbonnet runs the option. Just another way to dirty the eyes of second-level defenders.
Same-side run
The final element of misdirection in UCLA’s run game is how it runs the old-school “G” scheme. Sure, the G-lead (or play side guard pull) play is as old as the leather helmet. It’s a down, down, kick scheme where the play-side guard kicks out the end man on the line of scrimmage. Perhaps nobody ran it better than Nebraska in the late 1980s under head coach Tom Osborne and offensive line coach Milt Tenopir, but the Huskers ran it from under-center alignments. The difference is Kelly runs it from an offset back alignment with the intent of stretching the defense laterally, just to dent it vertically. And Kelly will use the scheme with a tackle-over alignment (shown in the picture below) to get a stronger run surface to the play side.
In the picture below, the center will pull to execute the same assignment of kicking out the end man on the line of scrimmage. Charbonnet took the one below for a 46-yard touchdown against Colorado.
According to one defensive coordinator familiar with UCLA’s offense, the full-flow motion of the mesh provides the misdirection needed for the play to crease inside the box.
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In the example below, the play-side linebacker fights over the top of the down block of the tackle, providing just enough of a crease for Charbonnet to rip a 10-yard gain against the Ducks.
The game plan
The USC defense has a lot to prepare for Saturday, and the timing isn’t great for the Trojans. They are 87th in total defense (394 yards per game), 102nd in yards per play allowed (5.96) and 97th in yards per rush allowed (4.46). Grinch may be missing athletic linebacker Eric Gentry (6-6, 200), who is third on the team in tackles but didn’t play against Arizona, Colorado or Cal.
So, Grinch may need to rely on some of the tricks he used last time out to defend against Kelly’s option. These mainly consisted of overloading the mesh side on the option game. One of them was to use what coaches call an “Apache” movement between both defensive linemen to the side of the back in the zone read game. It muddies the blocking scheme to the read side, usually resulting in first-level penetration.
Grinch also utilized drop safety defense to the side of the mesh to get an extra hat to defend the QB pull. It was done post-snap to not give a tell. This quickly evened the numbers to the zone read, and Oklahoma had better athletes.
He also aligned his nickel linebacker to the side of the back — despite him being into the boundary — just to get another hat to the mesh side of the option game. This allowed the defensive end to play the back while the nickel can play the quarterback.
But that was the past. The Trojans tend to misfit many run schemes, particularly when they are paired with much of the motion that Kelly builds in his system. One of the offenses that USC faced that was most similar to the Bruins was Fresno State, which rushed for 164 yards against them in Week 3. The Bulldogs used a good deal of pre-snap and post-snap motion to get linebackers out-gapped in the zone-read game.
USC fared better against Arizona State, which rushed for 88 yards. Grinch relied on that same “Apache” stunt to muddy the read of the quarterback on the mesh.
But USC hasn’t seen the bash and G scheme live in and color yet. Plan on Kelly finding ways to match up Charbonnet and Trojans mike linebacker Shane Lee (56 tackles) in space. It’s going to take a good deal of discipline to burn his eyes on his key, which South Alabama defensive coordinator Corey Batoon said should be the mesh of the quarterback. South Alabama held the Bruins to a season-low 144 yards on the ground in Week 3, and Batoon felt comfortable in his game plan.
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“We just told our mike to hot his feet and not commit to either (QB run element or RB run element),” he said. “Try to read when DTR puts the ball in his (Charbonnet’s) belly and hot your feet. Put yourself in position to play inside out to Charbonnet (on the pitch) or back into the box for DTR if you see the mesh.”
One of the things South Alabama did to deter the concept was to press its nickel linebacker on the No. 2 receiver from an outside-in alignment. This allowed the mike linebacker a shorter distance to come inside out on Charbonnet. It helps that, in this clip, Charbonnet fumbles the pitch, but you can see how the Jaguars had him dead to rights:
Conclusion
With two high-powered offenses, the outcome may actually be determined by who can slow the clock down and keep the other outfit off the field. If that’s the case, UCLA has the advantage and will rely on this run game to do so.
(Top photo of Dorian Thompson-Robinson and Zach Charbonnet: Harry How / Getty Images)
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