Post by davecisar on Sept 14, 2008 6:31:23 GMT -6
Got to view HMs team last night in person and read quite a bit about them in the papers this week. Observations:
Interesting offense, fun to watch
Very cool direct snap zone read series. QB in short shotgun, 2 backs side by side with him, maybe a 1/2 step in front of the QB. The ball is direct snapped to one of the side guys or on occaision the ball is snapped to the QB, but one of the side guys "intercepts" and steps in front of the snap. They then run a zone read with the other back, QB goes back in pass fake (very good one) Then of course they run the fake zone read and the QB hides the ball and throws deep (intercepted the one time they tried it) The backs are in very tight so from above it was real hard seeing who had the ball with the mesh, pullers, QB faking pass and so close to the LOS. Outstanding fakes.
Lots of trips mesh stuff and 2 stack shallow crossing stuff.
They took their deep shots too with a 4.3 speedster ( didnt complete any of those against 1st team)
Saw plenty of "shallow" plays, didnt see any Y sticks.
Poor under center running game
QB did a real nice job of going through his progressions, hit lots of short crossing stuff and bubble screen type stuff.
Nice pass protection until 2nd half
NMS cant get many players, so many have the odd body shapes, one RB 5-7 and 230 the other one is 5-7 and 180 etc
A few very small DTS and they run the 3-5-3 on defense, which was very ineffective at stopping the run, even NUs poor running game put 300+ on them.
QB was huge athletic former wishbone QB that everyone wanted at TE or LB< NMS was only one to offer him at QB and he is a good one. That is their modus operendi, take kids that are projects or want to play something other than what they are projected at by the big boys.
NMS moved the ball some but was very inneffective inside the red zone, only time they scored was when they returned a 2nd team fumble to the 3 yard line and had 4 cracks at it from there. Got some yardage late after the first team defense went out in the 3rd quarter.
Net: was fun offense to watch, they even ran an old starburst kickoff return to begin the game with. Can see how it would work against a team more evenly matched with, not sure that 3-5-3 would though, if not for a few breaks, fumbles and 8 penalties NU probably should have had 56-63 points and the 1st team came out inthe 3rd quarter, backup QB loses 2 snaps right away etc. NU isnt a top 25 team but even at that, they were too much for the kids he has. Will be interesting to see if that direct snap zone read to the HBs will stay as part of the offense, it was very effective the first half at least. Final NU 38-7, should have been a shutout, even though NU is a work in progress and still doesnt run the ball with consistent effectiveness.
Interesting offense, fun to watch
Very cool direct snap zone read series. QB in short shotgun, 2 backs side by side with him, maybe a 1/2 step in front of the QB. The ball is direct snapped to one of the side guys or on occaision the ball is snapped to the QB, but one of the side guys "intercepts" and steps in front of the snap. They then run a zone read with the other back, QB goes back in pass fake (very good one) Then of course they run the fake zone read and the QB hides the ball and throws deep (intercepted the one time they tried it) The backs are in very tight so from above it was real hard seeing who had the ball with the mesh, pullers, QB faking pass and so close to the LOS. Outstanding fakes.
Lots of trips mesh stuff and 2 stack shallow crossing stuff.
They took their deep shots too with a 4.3 speedster ( didnt complete any of those against 1st team)
Saw plenty of "shallow" plays, didnt see any Y sticks.
Poor under center running game
QB did a real nice job of going through his progressions, hit lots of short crossing stuff and bubble screen type stuff.
Nice pass protection until 2nd half
NMS cant get many players, so many have the odd body shapes, one RB 5-7 and 230 the other one is 5-7 and 180 etc
A few very small DTS and they run the 3-5-3 on defense, which was very ineffective at stopping the run, even NUs poor running game put 300+ on them.
QB was huge athletic former wishbone QB that everyone wanted at TE or LB< NMS was only one to offer him at QB and he is a good one. That is their modus operendi, take kids that are projects or want to play something other than what they are projected at by the big boys.
NMS moved the ball some but was very inneffective inside the red zone, only time they scored was when they returned a 2nd team fumble to the 3 yard line and had 4 cracks at it from there. Got some yardage late after the first team defense went out in the 3rd quarter.
Net: was fun offense to watch, they even ran an old starburst kickoff return to begin the game with. Can see how it would work against a team more evenly matched with, not sure that 3-5-3 would though, if not for a few breaks, fumbles and 8 penalties NU probably should have had 56-63 points and the 1st team came out inthe 3rd quarter, backup QB loses 2 snaps right away etc. NU isnt a top 25 team but even at that, they were too much for the kids he has. Will be interesting to see if that direct snap zone read to the HBs will stay as part of the offense, it was very effective the first half at least. Final NU 38-7, should have been a shutout, even though NU is a work in progress and still doesnt run the ball with consistent effectiveness.
