JT5 and wasting Timeouts

wesleyd21

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He had this problem last year and it has most certainly carried over into 2015. Is it because we physically run in our plays with an A-back every time...and he doesn't have enough time to change the play?

It really hasn't come back to bite us just yet....but after watching the NFL games (NYG in particular)...I think this is just one more thing we need to shore up.
 
I honestly think we were confused by ND's presnap alignment. He was trying to change the play before we called those timeouts, and we couldn't seem to figure it out.
 
I think ND's alignments were so unfamiliar that he had no idea how to make the read.

I could be wrong but that's what it looked like to me.
 
He didn't know how to read the defense. So he was looking to the sideline and waiting for the coaches to make the call, which was a very slow process.

A lot of spread teams get checks from the sideline, but they usually no huddle, so they have plenty of time to do this at the line. When we run plays on from the sideline we don't even break the huddle until over half the play clock is gone.
 
I noticed a lot of plays that we barely got the snap off. Seemed like we were always getting up to the line with only 6 or 8 seconds left on the play clock which was clearly not always enough time to make reads/audibles. I really hope we fix this in practice.
 
Re watching. JT did this in both halfs. Wasted 4 TO's on the day. Terrible.
 
Notre Dame's band was apparently like 20 feet from our bench. Something that only happens at this particular school. I forget which writer was talking about that. May have played into that problem.
 
I also think he was having trouble finding the play clocks. They aren't very visible and it doesn't get noticed as much by other teams because most teams aren't taking it down inside of 5 or even 10 seconds
 
It was super loud on the field. I was shocked how loud that low bowl stadium got. I was sitting 7 rows from the field and I couldn't hear myself think on third down when we had the ball. On the flip side, you could hear a pin drop after every time we made a play. (the few of them we had.)
 
Was on the aisle entrance just below scoreboard. Took me a few mins.
 
Notre Dame's band was apparently like 20 feet from our bench. Something that only happens at this particular school. I forget which writer was talking about that. May have played into that problem.

Yes, they're in the NE corner, on the field. I was in the south end zone and cod hear them pretty well. Also, the stadium music played for a long time. I'm surprised CPJ didn't complain about it. At one point it was still playing with 8 seconds on the play clock. Then again, when the pitch key can force the pitch and still tackle the pitchman, which happened at least once, the stadium music isn't your biggest problem.
 
I was also surprised how loud it got with a relatively low bowl. They were pumping in music, band, and loud fans really made the place rock on those 3rd downs.


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I honestly think we were confused by ND's presnap alignment. He was trying to change the play before we called those timeouts, and we couldn't seem to figure it out.
I'm not an option expert so can someone explain what they were doing that was confusing JT so much?

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I'm not an option expert so can someone explain what they were doing that was confusing JT so much?

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Sure.

What matters for the reads is whether the front is 'odd' or 'even.' So a 4-3 alignment has 4 down linemen, so that's an even front. A 3-4 is an odd front. A 3-4 with both OLBs walked up to the line is effectively a 5-2, also an odd front.

So your reads change between fronts, not just in terms of who the option key is, but who we block and who we let through. So not only does the QB have to get the read right, so does the entire line and the leading A back.

Most teams who play against us pick one front they're going to use, and then have different defensive calls they use out of that front. So Miami and Georgia last year used the same alignment, 4-3 even front, deep mike LB. After the first drive, our reads are pretty much the same, so we settle in to running our stuff and everybody's on the same page.

ND is the first team I've seen that legitimately switched the entire front with almost every defensive call. They'd go 4-3, 3-4, 3-5, 4-4, 5-2, 5-3, and then they had maybe 2 or 3 defenses they would pair with each alignment. Mostly this screwed up our line. They would let two people through instead of one, so then we couldn't eliminate the other with the read. That or they'd just get beat on blocks, but a lot of times we weren't getting beat physically, we were not understanding who our man was.

The closest team to this is VT, who shows a 4-3 and then blitzes (or doesn't) an OLB to make it a 5-2 presnap, which would change the read at the last second. But not even VT rolls so many different personnel groupings and formations.

It was a very sophisticated defensive system. And yet, when we made all the blocks we'd still get a 60 yard run. And yet, if we could just block in pass pro and catch, we still could have moved the ball, because they were keyed up to stop the run and our guys were in single coverage most of the game.
 
We are normally very good at getting up to the line with 15 seconds or so on the play clock and snapping it would ~8-10 seconds. It seemed like we were always getting to the line with 10 or fewer seconds against ND and then snapping with 5 or fewer seconds. This did not leave much time for adjustments when ND would switch fronts.

Were we slow getting the play in? Slow out of the huddle? Was play clock starting early? It's hard to see things when watching on TV, but this is a problem that is very much out of character for us.
 
I bet they started the clock two seconds early, and we were five seconds late getting the play in because the band was blasting their horn section at CPJ while he was trying to relay the play.
 
I doubt the band playing loud at PJ had anything to do with it. This wasn't PJ first rodeo at ND. If it was going to be a problem, he would have prepared for it.
 
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