Lance Roffers
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Welcome to an abbreviated version of Upon Further Review, when D’Eriq King made time stand still and transformed a legion of Canes fans back to the glory days with a performance that has been talked about all across the country.
Run fits have been an issue all season. Here, you see Bradley Jennings has already vacated his gap by getting outside of the RB and giving him a cutback lane. He needs to flow inside-out to defend this run.
I’m not sure what keys Jennings is reading here. He completely sprints out of his gap on this play again leaving an easy cutback lane for the RB. This is truly poor LB play on these two plays.
Blades tries to jam with left hand as he should here but isn’t physical enough. When he turns his shoulders towards the sideline here and allows the receiver to get back inside of him he’s already toast on this deep ball.
More LB issues on this play. The QB faked a jet sweep and just keeps the ball. Jennings actually didn’t fall for the fake at first but didn’t realize the QB had the ball and just ran out of the way here. Gurvan Hall is completely fooled as well. If I were an OC against this defense it would be eye candy and misdirection all game. They just cannot identify the ball and read their keys. Frierson makes an outstanding play or this is a huge play.
Any defense that asks McCloud to turn his back and run to find a TE in the seam is probably going to end up poorly. McCloud was a tick late off the snap, then a tick late to get his head around and the ball goes through his hands and the TE makes a nice catch. It was honestly nice coverage and a great play if he just finishes this. Bolden then uses his shoulder rather than wrapping up and misses the tackle.
Roche makes a nice play to knock this pass in the air and it goes right through the hands of Jaelen Phillips. This is what is called turnover variance, and is essentially the unpredictability of turnovers. Miami could’ve had interceptions on back-to-back plays and didn’t convert either of them. What matters is putting yourself in a position to have the opportunities because the variance will swing your way at times and you’ll make these catches. NC State appears to have been more fortunate than great early in this game.
The second TD for NC State is a nice play from their WR, who didn’t show hands too early and fought through contact and some poor technique from Ivey, who stopped his feet on contact and never tracked for the ball after getting in trail position. (Not pictured)
Offensively, Miami has been to reach this backside block on a slip screen exactly zero times this season. This backside block is crucial to the success of the play and for whatever reason, Miami hasn’t been able to get to it.
Put this on teaching tape for how to press a hole before you bounce it outside. This run actually goes outside of RT, but you’d never know it here. Harris does an excellent job of pressing this hole and getting defenders to engage.
As I wrote, this one is abbreviated from some of my marathon reviews, so I’m going to fast forward to when the game is 31-24 and Miami is trying to hang tough.
Miami gets a 1st down on a square-in thrown perfectly by King. Next play is another example of how pressing the hole that your OL is blocking to sets up cutbacks. If Harris runs to the cutback immediately, the defenders stop flowing and right there for the cutback gap. A jump cut behind this block from Clark opens a hole to run through. For me, the biggest transition for HS RB’s to college is to understand how important pressing the initial hole is to the health of the overall running game.
Harris was pretty good in this game at finding lanes and picking up more yards than what were blocked initially. Here, Harris presses that stretch play but then finds the cutback lane to pick up a huge 1st down.
Couple of things here, Knighton saved this play by making a nice blitz pickup after initially stepping up. Next, King stands in there knowing he is going to get blasted by the defender getting past Jarrid Williams inside. I saw that on film while at Houston routinely, but it doesn’t hurt us here as King completes a deep shot to Pope down the sideline.
We’ve been waiting for them to fake that bubble to the boundary and throw the go and they do it at the right time here. King sees a single-high safety so he knows that S will have trouble getting over to defend this play. King sets it up with a full shoulder and hip fake to the bubble and Pope sells it well by running the bubble the same way he always does. CB steps up on the pump and it is over at that point.
Kickoff return for a TD and Parrot is slightly out of his lane and that’s all it took. He needs to be a step to his left and then he can defend the cutback and the returner bouncing it. He gets too close to the other defender and misses the tackle and it’s a house call. Ragone missed a tough tackle, but it’s on Parrot, not Ragone.
Fumbled exchange. If King holds onto this, he is out the gate up top.
Hall lets the WR cross his face to easily on this play, as he should be sitting on the left side of this route with a left-handed QB. Jennings falls for the fake, when he needs to get depth on this play to help with crossers. Look at the giant hole Jennings leaves in the MOF here. That’s just too easy for the QB to complete passes.
Send Jennings on a blitz and this is too easy for the offense. RB releases into the flat on 3rd & 4 and you ask your WLB to get all the way across and defend this with your MLB blitzing. There is just no way you are stopping this play with this defense.
Catch the ball Blades. Bubba, look for the football and not trying to kill the receiver.
Gaynor definitely heard about this in film study. He got tall, exposed his chest, the NT dogwalked him back into the RB. Harris makes an excellent jump cut and gets outside here. Gaynor has to be better.
Details make plays work. Coaches say it all the time to players and here you can see how details make this play work. Mallory is going to release into the MOF and they’re going to hit that pop pass again. Here you can see Mallory is setting up like he does every time when he’s run blocking on this play. TE’s or outside blockers will use that inside arm to create contact with the outside blocker. This lets him know you’re there as you’re supposed to be, and it create a radius of blocking for the TE. As soon as he does this, you can see every box defender screaming towards the run. Mallory lets the defender go by him and then releases. If he releases early, he gives away the play.
I’ve seen this more than once this season and this is what separates Mallory a bit from elite guys at the position. Mallory has to fight back towards the ball, rather than fading on these plays. He’s not getting the calls that he should because he’s fading, rather than causing the defender to run through him. This ball should’ve been picked off by #6. This is still pass interference, even though they didn’t call it.
Slip screen again goes nowhere, but what I really want to see is Lashlee come back to this play in a big spot. If King pumps this and throws the go down the sideline it is a walk-in TD. The second defender that is deep in the slot jumps the screen and vacates the outside receiver (who normally blocks on this play). That receiver was jumping up and down as he knew they had the play and King didn’t throw it.
What a man’s play by Nesta. Takes the blocker and the RB down.
Send Couch off nickel, Brooks jumps the hot, jam the receivers instead of playing Cover-2 shell. This is more of the defense I want to see from Miami. Physical at point of attack. Forcing difficult throws with pressure and utilizing players in their best areas.
Overview:
Miami goes on to win it as King makes some sensational throws down the stretch. The defensive approach in the 4th quarter was different than we saw for the other three quarters. Miami went away from their base cover-2 shell defense that was getting shredded in the flats and over the MOF. They made Hockman look like a credible QB and that is due to the fact they made things too easy for him. Once they started getting physical with outside receivers, using Brooks in coverage in the MOF (rather than Jennings, who is tentative in the MOF), they started shutting things down. Couch made some excellent plays as a blitzer and it’s a nice play to go to against a team like NC State who has a limited QB.
King made plays that we haven’t seen from a QB in at least a decade, but what really gives me hope after reviewing the film is seeing that Miami really was unfortunate in many respects. There were five balls in this game that were tipped into the air, right in our defenders’ hands, or went right through their hands that weren’t taken advantage of. The sixth was completed and was the game winner. Add to it a kick return TD, when normally Miami hasn’t allowed those this season, and it was fluky for NC State to be in it as they were. That is called variance and Miami was on the extreme end of it in this game and that will regress towards the mean over other games. If that variance was average in this game, Miami wins by 10+ and doesn’t have to sweat.
Love that in spite of adversity, they still found a way to win the game.
Run fits have been an issue all season. Here, you see Bradley Jennings has already vacated his gap by getting outside of the RB and giving him a cutback lane. He needs to flow inside-out to defend this run.
I’m not sure what keys Jennings is reading here. He completely sprints out of his gap on this play again leaving an easy cutback lane for the RB. This is truly poor LB play on these two plays.
Blades tries to jam with left hand as he should here but isn’t physical enough. When he turns his shoulders towards the sideline here and allows the receiver to get back inside of him he’s already toast on this deep ball.
More LB issues on this play. The QB faked a jet sweep and just keeps the ball. Jennings actually didn’t fall for the fake at first but didn’t realize the QB had the ball and just ran out of the way here. Gurvan Hall is completely fooled as well. If I were an OC against this defense it would be eye candy and misdirection all game. They just cannot identify the ball and read their keys. Frierson makes an outstanding play or this is a huge play.
Any defense that asks McCloud to turn his back and run to find a TE in the seam is probably going to end up poorly. McCloud was a tick late off the snap, then a tick late to get his head around and the ball goes through his hands and the TE makes a nice catch. It was honestly nice coverage and a great play if he just finishes this. Bolden then uses his shoulder rather than wrapping up and misses the tackle.
Roche makes a nice play to knock this pass in the air and it goes right through the hands of Jaelen Phillips. This is what is called turnover variance, and is essentially the unpredictability of turnovers. Miami could’ve had interceptions on back-to-back plays and didn’t convert either of them. What matters is putting yourself in a position to have the opportunities because the variance will swing your way at times and you’ll make these catches. NC State appears to have been more fortunate than great early in this game.
The second TD for NC State is a nice play from their WR, who didn’t show hands too early and fought through contact and some poor technique from Ivey, who stopped his feet on contact and never tracked for the ball after getting in trail position. (Not pictured)
Offensively, Miami has been to reach this backside block on a slip screen exactly zero times this season. This backside block is crucial to the success of the play and for whatever reason, Miami hasn’t been able to get to it.
Put this on teaching tape for how to press a hole before you bounce it outside. This run actually goes outside of RT, but you’d never know it here. Harris does an excellent job of pressing this hole and getting defenders to engage.
As I wrote, this one is abbreviated from some of my marathon reviews, so I’m going to fast forward to when the game is 31-24 and Miami is trying to hang tough.
Miami gets a 1st down on a square-in thrown perfectly by King. Next play is another example of how pressing the hole that your OL is blocking to sets up cutbacks. If Harris runs to the cutback immediately, the defenders stop flowing and right there for the cutback gap. A jump cut behind this block from Clark opens a hole to run through. For me, the biggest transition for HS RB’s to college is to understand how important pressing the initial hole is to the health of the overall running game.
Harris was pretty good in this game at finding lanes and picking up more yards than what were blocked initially. Here, Harris presses that stretch play but then finds the cutback lane to pick up a huge 1st down.
Couple of things here, Knighton saved this play by making a nice blitz pickup after initially stepping up. Next, King stands in there knowing he is going to get blasted by the defender getting past Jarrid Williams inside. I saw that on film while at Houston routinely, but it doesn’t hurt us here as King completes a deep shot to Pope down the sideline.
We’ve been waiting for them to fake that bubble to the boundary and throw the go and they do it at the right time here. King sees a single-high safety so he knows that S will have trouble getting over to defend this play. King sets it up with a full shoulder and hip fake to the bubble and Pope sells it well by running the bubble the same way he always does. CB steps up on the pump and it is over at that point.
Kickoff return for a TD and Parrot is slightly out of his lane and that’s all it took. He needs to be a step to his left and then he can defend the cutback and the returner bouncing it. He gets too close to the other defender and misses the tackle and it’s a house call. Ragone missed a tough tackle, but it’s on Parrot, not Ragone.
Fumbled exchange. If King holds onto this, he is out the gate up top.
Hall lets the WR cross his face to easily on this play, as he should be sitting on the left side of this route with a left-handed QB. Jennings falls for the fake, when he needs to get depth on this play to help with crossers. Look at the giant hole Jennings leaves in the MOF here. That’s just too easy for the QB to complete passes.
Send Jennings on a blitz and this is too easy for the offense. RB releases into the flat on 3rd & 4 and you ask your WLB to get all the way across and defend this with your MLB blitzing. There is just no way you are stopping this play with this defense.
Catch the ball Blades. Bubba, look for the football and not trying to kill the receiver.
Gaynor definitely heard about this in film study. He got tall, exposed his chest, the NT dogwalked him back into the RB. Harris makes an excellent jump cut and gets outside here. Gaynor has to be better.
Details make plays work. Coaches say it all the time to players and here you can see how details make this play work. Mallory is going to release into the MOF and they’re going to hit that pop pass again. Here you can see Mallory is setting up like he does every time when he’s run blocking on this play. TE’s or outside blockers will use that inside arm to create contact with the outside blocker. This lets him know you’re there as you’re supposed to be, and it create a radius of blocking for the TE. As soon as he does this, you can see every box defender screaming towards the run. Mallory lets the defender go by him and then releases. If he releases early, he gives away the play.
I’ve seen this more than once this season and this is what separates Mallory a bit from elite guys at the position. Mallory has to fight back towards the ball, rather than fading on these plays. He’s not getting the calls that he should because he’s fading, rather than causing the defender to run through him. This ball should’ve been picked off by #6. This is still pass interference, even though they didn’t call it.
Slip screen again goes nowhere, but what I really want to see is Lashlee come back to this play in a big spot. If King pumps this and throws the go down the sideline it is a walk-in TD. The second defender that is deep in the slot jumps the screen and vacates the outside receiver (who normally blocks on this play). That receiver was jumping up and down as he knew they had the play and King didn’t throw it.
What a man’s play by Nesta. Takes the blocker and the RB down.
Send Couch off nickel, Brooks jumps the hot, jam the receivers instead of playing Cover-2 shell. This is more of the defense I want to see from Miami. Physical at point of attack. Forcing difficult throws with pressure and utilizing players in their best areas.
Overview:
Miami goes on to win it as King makes some sensational throws down the stretch. The defensive approach in the 4th quarter was different than we saw for the other three quarters. Miami went away from their base cover-2 shell defense that was getting shredded in the flats and over the MOF. They made Hockman look like a credible QB and that is due to the fact they made things too easy for him. Once they started getting physical with outside receivers, using Brooks in coverage in the MOF (rather than Jennings, who is tentative in the MOF), they started shutting things down. Couch made some excellent plays as a blitzer and it’s a nice play to go to against a team like NC State who has a limited QB.
King made plays that we haven’t seen from a QB in at least a decade, but what really gives me hope after reviewing the film is seeing that Miami really was unfortunate in many respects. There were five balls in this game that were tipped into the air, right in our defenders’ hands, or went right through their hands that weren’t taken advantage of. The sixth was completed and was the game winner. Add to it a kick return TD, when normally Miami hasn’t allowed those this season, and it was fluky for NC State to be in it as they were. That is called variance and Miami was on the extreme end of it in this game and that will regress towards the mean over other games. If that variance was average in this game, Miami wins by 10+ and doesn’t have to sweat.
Love that in spite of adversity, they still found a way to win the game.
