X's and O's Why Are We Playing In a Phonebooth So Often?

[rsa coral gables]

Given the speed and skills of our receivers, why are we playing in a phonebooth so often? the following two plays were very early in the game with the score zero zero in both games and both on first and 10.

i understand that they are a million factors that influence the way we are lined up from game to game and play to play, but the idea still rings through. under dawson, we are playing in a phonebooth often.

In the Lashlee scheme, the players are spread out essentially from one side of the numbers to the other side of the numbers, essentially using most of the width of the field, causing the defense only to have 6 players in the box. in the dawson scheme, everyone but one player is within the hash marks and there are 8 players in the box.

wouldn't we have some advantage spreading the players out and not allowing stacked boxes? why can't we do this at least every once in while as an alternative formation on predictable run plays?

i've read that some of the run concepts are authored by Mario/Mirabal rather than Dawson and maybe THAT explains the phonebooth formation. I don't know and maybe some of the gurus here can elaborate on this. would like to see variety in formation (and don't tell me we are saving it for the Ave Maria game).

 

[TitansHope]

condensed formations have a lot of benefits:

1. if the defense chooses to keep a light box, you can punish them with the run
2. having bunched receivers can force the defense to tip their hand presnap in coverage- teams will often shade a safety over the bunch. you can see this happening in the screenshot you've posted.
3. tight, bunched receivers can also stress man coverage more post-snap, since you're forcing defenders into traffic. mesh is the classic example here.
4. it may sound counterintuitive, but you can often stress defenses horizontally *more* effectively from condensed sets than if you're spread out wide. one reason for this is that any receiver on the field has the room to run an in-breaking or out-breaking route, whereas if you're spread out wide your wide receivers often only have field space to run in-breakers. at that point outside CBs can sit on inside leverage and predict your routes more easily.

obviously this isn't necessarily true 100% of the time, and there can be advantages to spreading things out too. but there's a reason sean mcvay absolutely loves condensed sets.

 

[DREW!]

Did you see that I formation Baby!! Wooooo! Cristobal is a Saban Disciple! Grind you down, wear you out, until you've had enough, then...bam...big plays happen.

 

[flips]

It's because we've become one of the best and most efficient (apologies @JHallCanes ) rushing teams in the country last year and so far this year using those formations.

Since 2014, the only other time we ranked in the 75th %ile or better in rushing efficiency was the Richt 10-win season. Even when we had NFL running backs (Duke, Walton, Homer, Dallas) we were still very inefficient running the ball.

Last year there was no tradeoff. We were still one of the most explosive passing teams in the country, despite the condensed formations. Cam obviously should get most (all?) the credit for that, and it remains to be seen whether we will be able to recreate the explosive part of the passing offense we saw last year (so far not so good, in that respect!)

You're asking whether we'd be better at running the ball if we ran less out of condensed sets and more out of spread? We aren't outnumbered in the pic you posted. They have 8 men in the box and we have 8 guys to block them (5 OL, TE, 2 WR). We also aren't outnumbered in the Lashlee pic (5 OL & 5 guys in the box). Not sure that's the best example for the question you're asking, since we have no RB in formation in that screenshot.

The thing is we are very effective running in the A-gap, often out of condensed sets. We just averaged 6.5 ypc against USF running in the A-gap and they sure knew what was coming. I believe we averaged ~5.5 ypc all last year running in the A-gap. I don't think we can expect to do much better than that, spread or condensed.

Sometimes (often on 3rd/4th and short) we'll be outnumbered. Coach doesn't care. We aren't looking to gain 80 yards (if it happens, cool) on those plays just get one or two. He thinks one of the blockers will be able to get to a second guy or the running back will be good enough to fall forward/break a tackle against the free runner. He's usually right.

I think folks get hung up on the occasional drive that stalls/goes 3 & out because Dawson will just keep calling the same plays till they prove they can stop it. Eventually they sell out to stop it (or someone missed a block or the running back does something silly) and we have to punt.

Like, before the 3 & Out on our third drive our RBs (Fletcher except for 1 Brown carry) had been averaging over 5 ypc. I don't think Dawson was wrong to think we'd end up better than 3rd & 7 or whatever it was after two Brown runs. We had also scored 2 TDs in 2 possessions prior to that point, and we scored another TD (3 plays for 75 yards the next drive), with Fletcher housecalling a run. That's extremely good and efficient offense from my perspective. Mind you we had 1 completion of more than 20 yards in those 3 TD series, yet we went 75/85/75 yards on them.

Specifically against USF when our running game struggled it had much more to do with Orlando calling crazy sell-out calls (didn't work out great for him considering we scored 49 and could have scored more if we wanted to), and also because Brown didn't have a good game running the ball. We obviously don't trust Pringle early in games yet, and with Lyle still not playing we have Fletcher and Brown, and Fletcher has to rest occasionally.

As we've discussed a bunch already Lofton has struggled blocking this year and Bauman is a downgrade relative to Old Man Cam as a blocker. We've still run the ball okay, but there have been some issues. I think they have much more to do with some suboptimal blocking from the TEs and not having a healthy Lyle except for his first 3 carries against ND, than any formation issues.

All that being said, I do think it would be beneficial if we ran outside a bit more, but I don't care whether we do it out of spread or a condensed set - please just pull CiCi and Cooper and get 1000+ lbs blocking along the left edge. Think Lyle getting hurt has affected the diversity in the run game. I don't think Brown's strength at this level is running outside the tackles. We've run Fletcher outside the tackles with a fair amount of success so far. Lyle will give us a more dynamic option on those runs I think.

 

[E1k]

I think u just posted a screenshot of a josh gattis offense brotha, thats illegal

 

[ShadowSpring]

SteveO breaks this down in his film review. We run lots of mesh out of this bunch and it pretty much always works.

 

[DTP]

Something that needs to be discussed is that Dawson is going to call plays that his quarterback likes and feels comfortable with. Coming from an Air Raid system, Can Ward was very comfortable playing with his receivers spread wide across the field. We saw a ton of four verts, mesh, super basic air raid stuff that every single air raid coach uses because Cam had been doing that for four years already. Carson Beck comes from a different place offensively. Todd Monken and even Mike Bobo incorporated a lot of Air Raid principles in the passing game but they used a lot more condensed sets with a lot more two tight end packages. Carson Beck is comfortable playing in a phone booth. (Most quarterbacks aren’t because the reads aren’t nearly as simple) Using spread personnel in bunch formations has advantages though because it can create mismatches and make it tough to just line up and play man coverage

 

[OrangeBowlMagic]

We have guys open on almost every single pass play. Beck can do Wordle in the pocket, dude is back there just having a sandwich, and very rarely is he fitting balls into tight windows. Those tight formations allow us to run a ton of mesh, and then variations off it (remember the whip route to Toney against ND? Mesh concept, it looked like both WRs were going to cross, they both pivoted and ran whip routes and Toney was wide open).

Shannon Dawson has done an unreal job since he's been here.

We were 112th in Opponent Adjusted EPA on offense in 2022 under Gattis.

Year 1 under Dawson....66th

Year 2 under Dawson....1st (By the biggest margin since 2019)

Year 3 under Dawson after losing his QB who went 1.1, his leading rusher, and his top 6 pass catchers....21st through 3 games

 

[Brad_Wellson]

We have guys open on almost every single pass play. Beck can do Wordle in the pocket, dude is back there just having a sandwich, and very rarely is he fitting balls into tight windows. Those tight formations allow us to run a ton of mesh, and then variations off it (remember the whip route to Toney against ND? Mesh concept, it looked like both WRs were going to cross, they both pivoted and ran whip routes and Toney was wide open).

Shannon Dawson has done an unreal job since he's been here.

We were 112th in Opponent Adjusted EPA on offense in 2022 under Gattis.

Year 1 under Dawson....66th

Year 2 under Dawson....1st (By the biggest margin since 2019)

Year 3 under Dawson after losing his QB who went 1.1, his leading rusher, and his top 6 pass catchers....21st through 3 games

Close thread.

Thank you.

 

[NicKane]

Given the speed and skills of our receivers, why are we playing in a phonebooth so often? the following two plays were very early in the game with the score zero zero in both games and both on first and 10.

i understand that they are a million factors that influence the way we are lined up from game to game and play to play, but the idea still rings through. under dawson, we are playing in a phonebooth often.



View attachment 335867


View attachment 335868
In the Lashlee scheme, the players are spread out essentially from one side of the numbers to the other side of the numbers, essentially using most of the width of the field, causing the defense only to have 6 players in the box. in the dawson scheme, everyone but one player is within the hash marks and there are 8 players in the box.

wouldn't we have some advantage spreading the players out and not allowing stacked boxes? why can't we do this at least every once in while as an alternative formation on predictable run plays?

i've read that some of the run concepts are authored by Mario/Mirabal rather than Dawson and maybe THAT explains the phonebooth formation. I don't know and maybe some of the gurus here can elaborate on this. would like to see variety in formation (and don't tell me we are saving it for the Ave Maria game).

It’s because playing in a Phone booth and flat out overpowering your opponent is how you win big in college football. Lashley system, is how you not win big in college football. End of story.

 

[DTP]

It’s because playing in a Phone booth and flat out overpowering your opponent is how you win big in college football. Lashley system, is how you not win big in college football. End of story.

We could overpower teams last year but when we desperately needed points, we didn’t line up and just run it at them. We let Cam work. We almost blew the Notre Dame game by getting super conservative and forgetting we paid a quarterback $4 Million to win us games.

Having the best line in the nation is a great luxury that most teams don’t have. But even the best line can’t block 8 guys at once. Notre Dame decided that they weren’t going to let us run the ball against them and shut us down in the second half of our game. We can’t just go into a shell and rely on overpowering every opponent because the really good teams won’t just get pushed around like USF or Bethune.

 

[JHallCanes]

We have guys open on almost every single pass play. Beck can do Wordle in the pocket, dude is back there just having a sandwich, and very rarely is he fitting balls into tight windows. Those tight formations allow us to run a ton of mesh, and then variations off it (remember the whip route to Toney against ND? Mesh concept, it looked like both WRs were going to cross, they both pivoted and ran whip routes and Toney was wide open).

Shannon Dawson has done an unreal job since he's been here.

We were 112th in Opponent Adjusted EPA on offense in 2022 under Gattis.

Year 1 under Dawson....66th

Year 2 under Dawson....1st (By the biggest margin since 2019)

Year 3 under Dawson after losing his QB who went 1.1, his leading rusher, and his top 6 pass catchers....21st through 3 games

I’m not here to tell people to never criticize Dawson

But we’ve got a WR group that’s very new. It’s talented but coming into the year it was going to need to show a lot. I’m not sure about the speed and skill mentioned here.

What we do have is a massive experienced OL, a veteran power back, and an accurate QB

I don’t see any problem with leaning on what’s proven for now

 

[Empirical Cane]

Bigger question:

Why are WRs even on the field?

 

[SpikeUM]

Bigger question:

Why are WRs even on the field?

Silly question, its for blocking!!!!

 

[rsa coral gables]

View attachment 335871
View attachment 335870
It's because we've become one of the best and most efficient (apologies @JHallCanes ) rushing teams in the country last year and so far this year using those formations.

Since 2014, the only other time we ranked in the 75th %ile or better in rushing efficiency was the Richt 10-win season. Even when we had NFL running backs (Duke, Walton, Homer, Dallas) we were still very inefficient running the ball.

Last year there was no tradeoff. We were still one of the most explosive passing teams in the country, despite the condensed formations. Cam obviously should get most (all?) the credit for that, and it remains to be seen whether we will be able to recreate the explosive part of the passing offense we saw last year (so far not so good, in that respect!)

You're asking whether we'd be better at running the ball if we ran less out of condensed sets and more out of spread? We aren't outnumbered in the pic you posted. They have 8 men in the box and we have 8 guys to block them (5 OL, TE, 2 WR). We also aren't outnumbered in the Lashlee pic (5 OL & 5 guys in the box). Not sure that's the best example for the question you're asking, since we have no RB in formation in that screenshot.

The thing is we are very effective running in the A-gap, often out of condensed sets. We just averaged 6.5 ypc against USF running in the A-gap and they sure knew what was coming. I believe we averaged ~5.5 ypc all last year running in the A-gap. I don't think we can expect to do much better than that, spread or condensed.

Sometimes (often on 3rd/4th and short) we'll be outnumbered. Coach doesn't care. We aren't looking to gain 80 yards (if it happens, cool) on those plays just get one or two. He thinks one of the blockers will be able to get to a second guy or the running back will be good enough to fall forward/break a tackle against the free runner. He's usually right.

I think folks get hung up on the occasional drive that stalls/goes 3 & out because Dawson will just keep calling the same plays till they prove they can stop it. Eventually they sell out to stop it (or someone missed a block or the running back does something silly) and we have to punt.

Like, before the 3 & Out on our third drive our RBs (Fletcher except for 1 Brown carry) had been averaging over 5 ypc. I don't think Dawson was wrong to think we'd end up better than 3rd & 7 or whatever it was after two Brown runs. We had also scored 2 TDs in 2 possessions prior to that point, and we scored another TD (3 plays for 75 yards the next drive), with Fletcher housecalling a run. That's extremely good and efficient offense from my perspective. Mind you we had 1 completion of more than 20 yards in those 3 TD series, yet we went 75/85/75 yards on them.

Specifically against USF when our running game struggled it had much more to do with Orlando calling crazy sell-out calls (didn't work out great for him considering we scored 49 and could have scored more if we wanted to), and also because Brown didn't have a good game running the ball. We obviously don't trust Pringle early in games yet, and with Lyle still not playing we have Fletcher and Brown, and Fletcher has to rest occasionally.

As we've discussed a bunch already Lofton has struggled blocking this year and Bauman is a downgrade relative to Old Man Cam as a blocker. We've still run the ball okay, but there have been some issues. I think they have much more to do with some suboptimal blocking from the TEs and not having a healthy Lyle except for his first 3 carries against ND, than any formation issues.

All that being said, I do think it would be beneficial if we ran outside a bit more, but I don't care whether we do it out of spread or a condensed set - please just pull CiCi and Cooper and get 1000+ lbs blocking along the left edge. Think Lyle getting hurt has affected the diversity in the run game. I don't think Brown's strength at this level is running outside the tackles. We've run Fletcher outside the tackles with a fair amount of success so far. Lyle will give us a more dynamic option on those runs I think.

great explanation. thank you

 

[rsa coral gables]

I think u just posted a screenshot of a josh gattis offense brotha, thats illegal

i did. and i profusely and sincerely apologize. i was half asleep.

i will take my punishment.

 

[HakaCane]

You should check out some of the game analysis done by Ro in Student of the Game. He breaks down the phone booth formation and the different options Miami runs out of it to their advantage.

 

[rsa coral gables]

one other point on whether Dawson or Mario/Mirabal call the run game. here's what Dawson said yesterday. what do you think he meant? its at the 39 minute mark

 

[jps2344]

We dropped 49 points on Saturday and are averaging 40+ per game with two of our three opponents being top 25 teams. That’s why.

Credit to Mario for having Dawson for at least three years. We haven’t had a legit coordinator for more than a couple in decades.

 

[rsa coral gables]

You should check out some of the game analysis done by Ro in Student of the Game. He breaks down the phone booth formation and the different options Miami runs out of it to their advantage.

i do watch Ro and Stevo and others. what do you think I am? average fan? i eat this ****.