Upon Further Review- Dan Enos

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Lance Roffers

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Well, it is NOW official. Coach Diaz and Miami have found their man in Dan Enos. Here at Upon Further Review I will take a look at Coach Enos and his career prior to coming to Miami. I will look at both data and film of previous stops to watch his offense evolve and also to see if the data matches the film. Buckle up, it’ll be another in-depth look.

Missouri State

Coach Enos was hired to be the first OC for HC Terry Allen at Missouri State. At the age of 31 Coach Enos landed his first DI OC job in 1999. Now, I have a bit of a secret to share with you all; Missouri State is my alma mater for both undergrad and graduate work and I was at Missouri State in 1999 and am familiar with Coach Enos from that time.

Here is what you should know about Enos from his lone season at Missouri State: He is the greatest OC in the program’s history. The school is not known for football (it is known for baseball and basketball), but here are the results for the offense under Enos in relation to their seasons since:

1st: Completion percentage, Passing Yards, Passing TD’s, Yards Per Pass, Yards Per Play, Points Per Play, Fewest Sacks Allowed

2nd: Scoring Average, Total Touchdowns

In his first job as an OC at a DI school, at the age of 31, his offense put up these results in year one. In fact, the school has never had a season with 8 yards per pass, or 6 yards per play other than his lone season and they were well-above those marks at 8.47 and 6.47 respectively.

As for the film, there isn’t much film on a bad I-AA football team from 1999, but I’ll share what I’ve found.

This is 21-personnel in a traditional I-formation. They motioned the FB to the right and then the run was a counter back off the action to the left and the RB had a huge hole if not for a DT beating his man quickly.
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Swing pass to the RB picks up the 1st down, but the QB sure missed the FB leaking into the flat for what could’ve been a big gain. I knew the QB, he was a transfer from Indiana and loved Coach Enos.
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It was definitely a lot of physical, I-formation, tight-formation football in this game. They lost the game, but that’s because they tend to lose lots of football games.

This would kick off a very nomadic coaching career for Coach Enos. He would leave Missouri State after one year to become the QB coach at Western Michigan, in his first FBS coaching position.

Western Michigan
Coach Enos took over the QB coaching position and was tasked with developing a new QB once again. This time Jeff Welsh became the new QB and had to replace one of the best QB’s in program history in Tim Lester. Lester completed 60% of his passes, averaged 7.7 yards per attempt, with a 34/13 TD/Int ratio for an overall rating of 143.4. Coach Enos helped get Welsh ready for the job as Western Michigan improved from 7-5 to 9-3 overall. Welsh completed 59% of his passes, averaged 7.2 yards per attempt, with a 15/12 TD/Int ratio for an overall rating of 125.9.

After a full season of working with Welsh, Enos helped develop him into a top-shelf passing QB as Welsh completed 63% of his passes, averaged 8.0 yards per attempt, with a 15/4 TD/Int ratio. Unfortunately, Welsh got injured halfway through the year and things went south from there.

North Dakota State
Continuing the trend of moving to multiple spots in a short period of time, Coach Enos next moved to a traditional power at the lower levels in North Dakota State. Wanting to get back to calling plays, this was an odd fit as a coach with a passing background moving to a school with a traditional rushing background. His offense averaged over 30 points per game, had a 16/8 TD/Int ratio in the passing game, but was merely average in its metrics.

67.7% completion rate, 16-8 TD/Int ratio, 6.57 Yards Per Pass, 4.18 Yards Per Rush, 5.23 Yards Per Play, .443 Points Per Play. All of the Yards Per Play numbers were the worst of his play calling career. This was DII at the time, so the numbers are not included in his overall profile because I did not include anything but peer data for all play callers at the Division I level.

Central Michigan
Enos then spent time at Cincinnati and Michigan State coaching QB’s and RB’s before landing his first HC gig with Central Michigan, replacing Butch Jones, who left for Tennessee. Central Michigan’s best QB in school history also left for the NFL (Dan Lefevour), leaving Coach Enos a complete rebuilding job.

As a HC, Enos was marginal at Central Michigan, but I wanted to get a quick look at how he ran his offense in his first stop as a HC (who also called plays). This game against Virginia Tech was obviously a mismatch from a talent standpoint, but you can get an idea of things schematically.

Comes in his normal 21 personnel look. Offset-I formation.
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Switch concept causes a natural pick play. RB leaks into the flat after the switch causes LB’s to drop. Easy completion for 6 yards. This is a pretty smart strategy. You have a QB making one of his first starts of his career, so you get him a simple, easy read to get him feeling ok and in the game.
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Next play is a 22-personnel out of single-back formation. Motions slot, defense gives away a CB blitz look early. This appears to be a zone defense from the way they’re playing the motion.
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It was a zone defense and the play was a counter-trey run backside. S fills hard and it gets nothing. I do like motion to get a blocker to the edge of the defense. VT just isn’t respecting the offense deep.
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3rd down look is more spread out. Shotgun, trips left, single-back to the right of the QB.
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It’s a bust, as the HB is supposed to pick up the DE as the TE releases into a pass pattern. The QB uses his legs to release into the spot at the top of the screen and runs for 21 yards.
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Another 3rd down play and again they go shotgun with 3-wide but the formation is a 2 x 1 look.
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It’s not often you see a 3rd down play where the QB can basically choose where he wants to pick up the 1st down, but this one has several options. The play is a swing to the RB as CMU saw the blitz off the edge coming. RB is open immediately and it goes for a 1st down. Look at the seam for the TE who is looking back at the QB at the 1st down marker. He is wide open for a big play if the QB chooses that. I’m sure the hot read was built-in to the play call and the QB is supposed to go there immediately on the blitz, but that seam is a busted assignment. Then, to the field side they are running a clear-out route deep and coming underneath it with the out route and that is open if he looks that way and forces the defender to stay deep enough to cover that deep route and then sink down on the out. It’s impressive understanding from the offense as to what the defense is doing.
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Little more spread out on the next play. I think this play formation is something you could see a lot at Miami with Enos. Cam’Ron and DeeJay fit this perfectly with their pass catching ability and ability to do different things.
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Screen out of it for a nice gain. I tend to spend a lot of time on the 1st drive of the game because it is a look into what the coaching staff and play caller saw as potential areas to exploit. Once the game gets going too far you are reacting to game situations, but the start is very much “coaching influenced.” Enos is doing well against a far superior opponent on the road.
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One critique that I hope to see improve in subsequent drives/games: the least efficient play call in football is the 2nd & 10 run after an incomplete pass. Football coaches have been doing this for years thinking it will make for a more manageable 3rd down, but why not be prepared to try and pick up the 1st down without ever getting to 3rd down with a non-predictable play call? Thus far, they’ve run the dive on every 2nd & 10 after an incompletion.

On another 3rd down you can see a small glimpse of the coaching of the QB’s. QB is reading downfield first. Went deep left, middle, then came to his third read out wide in a swing pass to the RB in space who picked up the 1st down. A familiar trend for Miami’s QB’s is to go one read, look at pass rush, pull the ball down, run.
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This should’ve been a give. No idea why the QB is reading this as a keep. I hope to see RPO’s out of this look where you flip the ball out to the WR behind the LOS and you can block downfield off this look.
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Motion across. #43 follows. Obviously man-to-man coverage. If you count the defense, you can see this is a no deep safety look. All 11 guys are right here and the CB is way off in coverage. The QB should see this and say to himself, “I’ve got 1-on-1 coverage on the outside, no S help. This can be a TD.
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Play action to this side has the CB’s attention. Look at the far CB in his backpedal take his eye off his man to make sure it’s not a run play to that side.
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And the QB saw all the things I’d like for him to see and it’s a TD. This is a great look for the coaching staff as well that they had the team prepared to see these things to start the game on the road. 13-play, 80-yard TD drive.
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Tyrod Taylor and the Virginia Tech offense was much too much for CMU in this one, but I am encouraged at the play-calling and designs thus far.

The next game I reviewed was the 2012 Little Caesar’s Bowl against Western Kentucky. That happened to be Willie Taggart’s team, though he left to coach South Florida.

I chose the bowl game to again get a feel for his game planning prowess. In a bowl game, you have several extra weeks of preparation, you generally get healthier as a team, and you are facing a pretty equal foe in most cases.

Starting off, Enos suspended three WR’s for the game, including two of his top three WR’s. Titus is the older brother of Corey Davis, and was a fringe NFL player. Davis broke the receiving yards and receiving TD’s records previously held by Antonio Brown.
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Started out in 22-personnel with I-formation. Motion H-back across formation to other side to make a double TE look, one on each edge. Play-action and flip it out to the FB for 6-yards. Again, you see a consistent theme with Coach Enos as a playcaller. He likes to get his QB in rhythm with an early pass completion that is simple and high-percentage.
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Central Michigan definitely has some talent on their roster. Fisher went #1 overall in the draft. Addae starts for the Chargers at S.
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Incomplete on 3rd down, but they held the TE off play-action who would’ve been wide-open without the hold.

Another 3rd down and they run a staple of offensive football. Outside WR runs upfield, the slot runs an out route to the flat underneath that vertical route, but then #11 runs to the corner five yards deeper and puts the CB in a bind to that side. If he steps up to take the flat, the deeper out is open, but if he sticks with the deeper out the flat is open and he has an easy 1st down. Defender takes the deeper route as he should and it’s an easy 1st down underneath. I like this route combo because so often the defense expects that clear out route from the outside receiver to continue going deep and they use the LB to take away the slant and the FS to take away the seam route. That leaves the outside CB to take the flat. You can see that’s exactly what Western Kentucky did here as the LB can be seen just to the left-corner of the screen and the FS is running over to take the seam route.
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Puts the CB in a bind where he has to cover two receivers and he can only pick wrong.
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There are times that Enos runs more of a spread look. Goes 5-wide here after a short run. QB stared down a post route and nearly threw a pick. Another flood look though with a natural rub route. This is the type of route combinations that many of us have been asking for in that you put the defense in a bind with picks and natural traffic that they have to communicate through.
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3rd-and-9 and what I like so much about this look is that they motioned a WR across and got a LB on a fast guy. This LB cannot run with the slot WR and the S had to take another WR deep, which left this wide open in the middle of the field. You can see the S trying to get into your screen from the right side here. This goes for a 69-yard TD. Two times I’ve looked at opening drives for Coach Enos and two times his offense’s have scored TD’s.
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Basically if there is a type of system of formation out there, you’re probably going to see some of it from Coach Enos. Here is an inverted wishbone look. This is basically the look that North Carolina and Larry Fedora killed us with, only they had the QB in the shotgun rather than the RB and the RB offset as a third WR. The play doesn’t work because of pressure.
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CMU likes to use double motion and then throw a screen off of that motion one way or the other. The QB looks at the motion man leaking out into a pass pattern first, then the RB or WR on the other side sets up for a screen and it’s really effective for them.
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I can say already that I really like Enos’ use of motions and how he plays off of that movement for play-action passes. Here, the H-back lined up offset behind the LT, motioned across, then reversed back left again. They run a play-action behind it to the other side, which causes the defense to go flat-footed. Is the flow of the play going playside or backside with the run? You can see the long-haired LB now running at a cross angle because his first step was towards the H-back at the top. Play-action to the backside pulls up the S, who is screaming down the hash here.
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See the middle safety way behind this play at about the 14-yard line? That’s the S that came screaming up in the first screen shot. Post behind him is an easy TD.
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The broadcast is poor quality, but you can see a man wide-open in the middle of the field (MOF) on this 3rd down play. The QB missed him badly, but he’s open. Get ready for the MOF to be a big weapon in this offense. Enos uses it often. Here he got that slot WR open by using another crosser underneath and the defender stepped up too far and the slot slipped behind him.
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CMU goes on to win this game. Hopefully we see lots of wins over Willie Taggart teams in the future.

2014 was the best season on offense for CMU under Enos from a Yards Per Pass standpoint, which shows how he can build a passing offense with some time. His team averaged an absurd 8.75 Yards Per Pass against their peers. The bowl game that season was against Western Kentucky again, and this time it ended with a miracle play. Deep throw catch. Lateral while being tackled. Lateral just thrown over RB’s head. Picked up off ground. Lateral to Titus Davis on the other side of the field. TD.

Enos goes for two.
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I truly cannot stand the fade call on this play. It’s to the WR to the top of the screen and it’s not even close. Shoot that play call into the sun, Coach Enos.

Arkansas
Coach Enos made the unique decision to step down from a head coach position to become an OC in the SEC. Arkansas fans are most likely very happy with his decision as he put up a 2015 season for the ages with Arkansas in 2015. His passing offense put up a 9.90 Yards Per Pass number against his peers. That total would’ve finished 3rd in the nation among P5 teams this year. When your peers are the SEC, you’re doing something right. For reference, the 2018 Alabama team that everyone knows had absolutely excellent talent on offense averaged 10.41 Yards Per Pass against peers, in the same league. Arkansas averaged .522 Points Per Play in 2015, which puts them right in elite territory in that metric. Alabama this year averaged .632.

Starting with the 2015 offense, here is the game at Tennessee. As an FYI, I just happen to be watching the playoff game as I’m writing this article. I’ve been poring over games for Enos throughout his career and I just keep thinking to myself the formations and the motion resemble the Kansas City Chiefs offense so much. Obviously, they have an elite QB and playmakers, but the formations and the motions themselves just line up so well. Here is an example:

First play of the 2015 Tennessee game.
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Here is a formation for the Chiefs during the playoff game today.
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Enos does such a great job of targeting the TE. Here they have Hunter Henry offset, motion him towards the bottom of the screen and just have him leak right into the flat for an easy completion for his QB. Brevin Jordan is going to be huge in this offense.
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If Mark Richt came to Miami known for the shallow cross, I believe Enos will come to Miami known for the deep crosser. He attacks that area of the field on 3rd down repeatedly. Bad pass, but the play was there.
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This is double-motion pre-snap. The H-back motioned from one side to outside RT, then the outside WR motions towards the QB.
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Play-action away from TE and towards the motion. The receiver who motioned down then heads across the field. Then roll bootleg to QB’s right.
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TE holds the defender into the flat. That leaves the WR who was originally in motion the opposite direction, free to run to the deep cross behind him. Drew Morgan takes this to the 22-yard line.
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Here is an example of the counter to some of the bootleg and counter options they’re running. They’ve been getting the defense to flow against the play all game. Here you can see the LB’s flowing away from the WR coming down on the jet sweep and they give it to him.
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Arkansas comes back and wins this game on the road 31-30. Of course, the coach for Tennessee was Butch Jones, whom Enos succeeded at Central Michigan.
 
Advertisement
Here is the 2016 game against Ole Miss. Before the game starts you can see that Austin Allen has really developed under Coach Enos and is being coached in a way that he has complete understanding of the offense. A theme you consistently see from the QB’s that Coach Enos has worked with is that they are completely prepared and armed with a total understanding of where to go with the football in various situations.
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At this point of the season Allen is leading the SEC in passing TD’s. This is not what you’d expect from an Arkansas offense based on history. Austin is younger brother of Brandon Allen, and was a pet project for the QB development skills of Coach Enos.
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At every stop along the way, it is pretty apparent that this is the main formation that Enos likes to rely upon.
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A staple of the Enos offense is the deep crosser off play-action. It’s an easy marriage to understand, as the play-action pulls the LB’s and S’s up and the crosser comes open behind them (pass was dropped).
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Power around edge with a pulling C.
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If you read @romancane you will know that he routinely wants to see more hot reads for our QB’s off of a blitz. This is absolutely a sight adjustment from the slot WR after he sees the blitz from his man. The QB reads it at the same time and this is an easy 1st down. The addition of motion and hot reads for your QB will absolutely improve the quality of reads and completion percentage of passes.
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If you read the infamous Major Applewhite film thread, you saw this play several times. Motion a lead blocker to the flow side with the RT down blocking on the edge. This is a designed cutback run with zone blocking allowing the RB to choose his cut. You can see the giant lane in the cutback for the RB to get into.
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This is a play that Enos has used from Missouri State to Arkansas. Play-action sucks up the LB’s and S, deep post behind it. TD. Pretty.
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Play-action TD on the last possession. Come right out and go Power Off-Tackle. #83 is Jeremy Sprinkle and he gets the block on the edge. #32 is the lead blocker to the second-level. #22 nearly houses it.
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Here is a formation you do not see often and is a good example of Coach Enos using his personnel, rather than forcing a specific scheme on his players every year. This Arkansas team has two NFL TE’s in Jeremy Sprinkle and Hunter Henry. How often do you see TE’s lined up to the sideline in the red zone. In this formation they will motion Sprinkle towards the QB out of Pistol.
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The offense has the defense right now. Play-action sucks up the LB, the two receivers are both putting the defense in a bind. Sprinkle is running a post underneath Drew Morgan. You’ve got a flat-footed S at the goal line and a boundary CB who has to sink towards the corner because Morgan has a two-way go towards it. Since Sprinkle is even with the LB, he’s already leaving that coverage zone.
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S has to go with the post for Sprinkle or he’s wide open. Morgan runs a post off of Sprinkle’s lead and comes right into the area that the S leaves. QB waits for S to clear, boom. TD.
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Sometimes stats can really lie to you, and here is a case of that. Arkansas had a really long run that skews the numbers a tad, so it hasn’t been quite the balance this makes it seem, but big plays are important and they got one in the run game.
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Everywhere Enos has gone they have been good in the screen game.
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If you want a multiple formation offense, you are going to love Dan Enos. The other candidates we heard about were primarily 11-personnel types, but Enos runs everything. I like a coach that can run everything, but some prefer to have a set “identity” on offense.
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There are some jet sweeps in the offense as well. Lots of motion. Lots of eye candy not with just receivers in motion, but also with the OL. LB’s are taught to “read their keys” which is often either the edge blocker or a pulling G depending on what they’re playing. Enos likes to have their flow on the OL move away from where they’re actually going and it creates a lot of open space for his offense.
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What I’m beginning to love so much about Enos’ offense is his ability to stress the defense by putting a defensive player in a bind where he has to cover two receivers at once. The motion brought the outside WR into a stack behind the slot. When the middle receiver here started up the seam from a stack, the outside CB had to hold for the seam. The RB released into the flat behind both stacked receivers, which held the LB. #12 can’t cover the slot and the outside flat at the same time and this route is easy money for the 1st down. A great counter off this route could be to run the two routes the same way but have the stacked middle receiver run a slant. It needs to be off-coverage from the CB on the edge, rather than press, but when you see that look you’ve got them with this.
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Motion the H-back, run a counter toss to the boundary. The H-back is supposed to down block at the second level but he actually blocks his LT here. They recover and get outside, but I’d rather see the H-back release outside and the LT immediately go to the second level to avoid this running into each other problem on the pitch. Could’ve been a huge play, but only goes for 5. It’s a counter because the initial step from the RB is the opposite direction of where the play is going.
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Just an observation that Enos is calling plays from the sideline. They’re often times up in the booth.
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Old-school double-TE I-formation football here.
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LG traps the DT after letting him release up-field and then turning him away from the stretch play outside. Arkansas’s LT is not very good on these plays on the move. He’s consistently whiffs on these plays and costs his offense yards. He touches nary a soul on this play.
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Quick motion just before the snap into a Wildcat look. The play went nowhere. Not really a fan of this one. Also not a fan of kicking a FG on 4th-and-1 against that Ole Miss offense that had Chad Kelly and Evan Engram putting up huge numbers.
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Enos likes to run a play-action stretch play and then run a boot-action off of the play to the other side. Get the opposite side WR’s to run crossers into the field of vision for the QB.
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Arkansas goes on to put up big numbers in this one and wins 34-30.

Alabama
Despite Enos having success in developing in QB’s and in putting a successful offense on the field during his time at Arkansas, once Bielema was fired at Arkansas, Chad Morris decided to bring in his own staff and Enos was let go. He landed on his feet by staying in the SEC with Alabama as their QB’s coach.

There is obviously a certain amount of credit you have to have to parse between Locksley and Enos. Locksley called the plays at Alabama, so I do not include the Alabama numbers into the totals for Enos, but it’s interesting to look at their offense a bit as well and get an idea for what Enos have bring with him. He was quoted as saying how much he learned during his time with Alabama and I believe he has grown from that experience. Just in what ways remain to be seen.

I’ll take a look at what Alabama brought to the field against Auburn because it’s a defense that has pro’s on it, it’s a rivalry game, and Alabama was coming off of an easy game against Citadel so they’re relatively healthy.

Under Locksley, Alabama mostly ran 11 personnel.
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Thus far, I believe there is a lot of influence from Enos on this offense. They are running a lot more motion, screen action, and especially crossers than last year.

Slot post is wide open. Tua threw it early from a clean pocket and just overthrew it. Needs to lead him into the middle a little bit and this is an easy throw. Side note: Sometimes listening to these announcers is painful. Here the announcer says the pressure made him throw it before he wanted. There isn’t a defender within five yards of him when he let this go. He just had too short of a stride, didn’t transfer his weight, and the ball sailed on him.
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This play is one that Enos runs quite often in his career. It’s 12-personnel with two WR’s to the same side. They motion the WR at the snap towards the QB and they fake the jet sweep and the inside draw. It’s a post pattern behind it deep. WR was double-covered and falls incomplete.
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Another formation and play call that you have seen from Enos multiple times previously in this article. The outside WR runs the clear out route, the slot WR cuts underneath him into the flat clearing. Easy completion.
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Motion into the pop pass. This is something I hope to see more of with Coach Enos here. Rather than just the give, make it the pop pass and have the QB carry out the fake to hold the edge. The pass part of things eliminates the fumble out of the equation.
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Alabama goes on to win big. The offense they ran this year was not much different than what Enos has run throughout his career. The motion on most every play, the reliance on play action, the power run game principles, the crossers, the underneath short passing game are all what we’ve seen from Enos previously. The big difference is the talent they have to get their running game going better and the special talent at QB.

Overall
The truth of the matter is that no matter how interested in football you are, you can’t really know every coach and what they’re all about. Coach Enos coached at my alma mater while I was there and in the sports program. Yet, my recollection of him was pretty meh. That was heavily influenced by the fact that Missouri State did what they do best; lose a lot of football games. Then you think of the Arkansas offense’s under Bielema and you think of a boring, three yards and a cloud of dust philosophy.

For these reasons I went into this study thinking I was going to come out pretty down on the hire. A nomadic coach who seemed to move from place-to-place quite often, he is not a candidate I would initially have on my list in my mental rolodex. Also, admittedly, I put a lot of time into Major Applewhite and was pretty happy with his offense, so I wanted that hire to come to fruition.

After spending many hours reviewing everything about Coach Enos and how he develops QB’s and runs an offense I have to say that this hire is going to end up being the right one. Does this hire represent “the cutting edge offense” that Manny Diaz promised? Do you believe the Kansas City Chiefs offense to be cutting edge? Because that is the offense that Enos most resembles in my mind. The Chiefs do not run a wide-open spread offense. They run an offense predicated on motion, play-action, and crossers. Exactly what Enos has his offense predicated on for years. It’s not just the one play above that is reminiscent of the Chiefs offense, but rather in the way they use motion, deep shots, play-action, screens, and an elite TE to create matchups that favor the offense and make it where the defense cannot win.

Positives
  • Consistently develops QB’s at every stop. From Missouri State, to Alabama, every QB that Enos has been around has performed their best under him.
  • Motion. The offense for Enos uses motion to diagnose what the defense is doing pre-snap and puts the defense in a position that they cannot win by having to cover two receivers with one defender on multiple occasions.
  • Play-action. Regardless of your ability to run the ball, play-action works. Having play-action as the foundation for your offense is just smart football and Enos uses it liberally.
  • Head Coaching Experience. Just like Major Applewhite & Larry Fedora, Enos has experience as a Head Coach. Unlike the other two, he is also bringing experience working under a legendary coach and program-builder in Nick Saban. As Manny Diaz works to establish his own program at Miami, he can bounce ideas off of Enos and compare and contrast.
  • No Prior Link to Coach Diaz. Coach Enos has never worked previously with Manny Diaz. To me, this is a major plus, as I hoped we would avoid a coaching staff of “Facebook friends” for Coach Diaz. Building an offensive staff with outside ideas and perceptions is key to having a healthy and challenging culture.
  • Passing Game. Coach Enos is a passing game savant and there is no doubt about it. At every stop that he has called plays he has developed a great passing offense. At every stop that he has been a QB coach he has developed a great passing QB. It is clear to me that he understands how to teach the passing game and how to call passing concepts. In an increasingly pass-happy game- reliant on the QB position- his mix of experience and success in this area is top-notch.
  • Middle-of-the-Field. Statistically speaking, the MOF is the most efficient area for an offense to attack. Too often last year the MOF was not even a consideration for the offense, preferring to rely on out-breaking routes. Coach Enos utilizes this area of the field very well.
  • Counters. A play-caller needs to have a rhythm and an understanding of when to call certain plays. Coach Enos has a great feel for when to call certain plays and has a counter for every formation to combat a defense getting too aggressive through film study. There were times in his film that I would mutter to myself, “I hope he…” based on what the defense was doing and almost every time the offense had the perfect counter for what the defense was doing. It was football poetry at times.
  • Game Planning. Coach Enos is excellent at scripting the first few drives of a game on offense and taking advantage of what the defense does poorly. It is really exciting to see a game-plan specific attack each week.
Negatives
  • Running Game. I did not feel as though the run game was especially imaginative on Enos’ film. Too often the run game was ordinary, or relied on broken tackles to be successful. There were some big plays that helped to prop up the stats, but for the most part his run games have been ordinary. Though he does run an effective rushing offense in the red zone (where running the ball is most effective from an efficiency standpoint).
  • Nomadic Presence. While it is admirable that he is willing to leave a stop to work towards his football goals, he also has never stayed in one place for long, even going so far to resign as a head coach to move back to an OC role. Will he be a presence with the program long enough to take roots and really grow the system?
  • Personally, I would prefer more space-and-pace, as I believe that is where the future of offense is headed. There are two ways to hurt a defense pre-snap. 1. With pace-and-space. Get your guys into space and use tempo to press the advantage 2. Formations and motion. Relies on motion to diagnose defense and get players in position to make plays. Utilizing formations to press advantage. Enos definitely falls into category 2, but I would like to see more of category 1 because south Florida players grow up with simple pace-and-space spread offenses.
Data
How does Coach Enos stack up from a data perspective at his stops calling plays (I. E. there will be no Alabama data in these results)? There were several names who grew favor among the Miami fanbase and I will list many of them here for comparison’ sake.

There is no other way to say it other than to say the data suggests that Dan Enos is one of the very best offensive play-callers in all of college football. His schemes put his players in position to make simple reads and plays and be efficient throwing the football with a CAREER 8.10 Yards Per Pass against peer competition. Here is a chart showing some of the publicized candidates in their careers calling plays:
Yds-Pass.PNG


We’ve seen that Enos can call a game that is efficient in the passing game, but how does he stack up in terms of having an explosive offense? Lots of double-TE and double-RB sets would cause the offense to be less explosive, correct? He has averaged .434 Points Per Play against peer competition for his career. He is the only one of the group who has called plays against several years’ worth of SEC competition as well. Yost is slightly ahead at .437, but much of his play-calling was spent in the Big-12, where defense is much more optional.
Pts-Play.PNG


I mentioned that if there was a knock on Enos’ offense, it would be in the running game. Here are the candidates on a Yards Per Rush basis:
Yds- Rush.PNG


Here are the results for each of the candidates in simple numbers format:
Data.PNG

Once you add the fact that Enos has developed multiple QB’s to their best season, it is clear that Enos is the winner amongst these candidates. He has shown the ability to beat you with multiple formations, the ability to call plays, the ability to develop QB’s, learned under the best coach in the business last year, and has head coaching experience of his own.

As I said, I went into this exercise a little down because he is not the wide-open pace-and-space shiny toy that I had envisioned. I had envisioned Enos being a tight-formation, old-school offensive system that wants to control TOP and have three yards and a cloud of dust. Once you start to see the results at every stop he’s called plays, you really see that Enos is a passing game savant and that Coach Diaz just took one of the best OC minds in all of college football and brought him to our program.

This hire is an absolute home run in my review of film and data. Be excited Miami fans. Be excited.
 
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So far the only concern is that he hands it off on second and short. Well, we are all concerned Balout that situation, but we recognize that we have some beasts ahead of the curve ready save the world, than most of these idiots. The cane will prevail even in the. Ideas games. From Route 115 to verdanturf to mauville don’t have a chance through surf and route 114
 
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Boom 💥 Didn’t read it all but much appreciate all the work!!! I only needed to read his’ a passing game savant!!!
 
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Excellent work as always. How do you think our personnel fits (or doesn’t) what he wants to do? My biggest concern is we don’t have the guys to run this stuff.

Enos will make the meal Manny wants (fast & violent) with the ingredients we already have. The film shows he can cook, yes, but don't expect the exact same food Arkansas or Alabama had.
 
I believe he will implement the "pace-and-space". As u said he is a great offensive mind and great offensive minds scheme around the talent, not the opposite. It will be interesting to see how Manny's and Enos' egos are able to coexist.
 
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