Possible dumb FB question.

[Pett]

On the option who has the pitch man??


Ian was always in the face of Zac when he was going to the outside on the option, because that is his assignment. But when no one would cover the RB on the pitch many times Ian bit on the fake to cover someone else's ass to go get the RB. Than Robinson would just keep it and gain some big yards. Or actually pitched it and no one was on the RB.

Killed us numerous times.

[fatty fat fat]

Multiple times during the radio broadcast I kept telling myself "God, just for this one play, let me be zac robinson"

Then I would fumble/throw a pick..on purpose!

[The Manhatter]

Multiple times during the radio broadcast I kept telling myself "God, just for this one play, let me be zac robinson"

Then I would fumble/throw a pick..on purpose!

 

You would see all the open green field and get greedy.  Vanity, fatty..vanity.

[cireksu]

DL, need to get to the qb, force the pitch and let the OLB and Corners clean it up.  Key to stopping th option is forcing the pitch early, or just forcing the pitch.  by doing so you take away the "option".

Without seeing the game I'm guessing that the ends got doubled and could not get to Robinson to force the pitch, the doubling, tackle or TE then could come off the double and get the playside MLB(who was not beating the block) while the OLB had to get the pitchman, if the OLB goes for the qb they've lost outside contain.  Didn't sound like Robinson was making many pitches on his runs, and their WR's were blocking the corners out of the play, then the safety's are forced to come up and make the play, they are out of position to make a play on the qb who is by then 5-10 yds up field.

The dE has to be a stud and beat the Double team, the DE can't go outside because it creates a cutback, the DE can't go inside bc it gives the qb his outside lane.  Our DE's cannot defeat double teams and get penetration.

[skerinKansas]

Which is exactly why the option is tough to defend out of the shotgun.  cire was right, it's on the DE to force the pitch, but if he gets doubled (what most coaches will want out of the TE and T), then it puts enormous pressure on the OLB to cover both QB and RB. 

Me personally, I'd try to put 8 in the box as much as I could, preferably something like a 4-3 with a safety walked up.  Edge blitzes can cause havoc as well, the quicker you force the pitch the better.  Obviously, NU wasn't the only team to have trouble with OSU's option this year.  Of course, NU's defense could make fatty look like a Heisman candidate.   

[ksu_FAN]

It really depends on the defense and the type of option that is being run. 

For example, a team may run inside-veer in which they read (which means you leave him unblocked) a defensive lineman (usually a 3-tech) and give or pull to the FB based on what he commits to; not something used in college football very much.  Usually there is a pitch man available, but that becomes a secondary read.  In outside-veer you are going to read the first guy outside the OT and any fake to a FB (if there is one) is simply to hold ILBs.  Then you have true triple option where you leave both guys mentioned above unblocked and read both, but that is not used very often anymore.  Then you have speed option (which is often what we see out of spread/shotgun sets), which involves no FB (if their is one he is a lead blocker) and you can run that a couple of ways too.  First, you can pitch off the first guy outside the OT, similar to outside veer, OR you can "solid block" it and go all the way to the edge and read at the corner or saftey for the pitch.  With spread offenses you have multiple options as well on who can be the pitch man.  You have teams that will run a shovel route and a pitch route which is a form of the triple option run in a different way.  Then you also have counter read, which is really an option play as well.

Now, based on that teams will have a guy responsible for QB, for pitch, and for FB if one is used (not often in today's option game).  Prince indicated part of the issue was we did not often put 8 in the box b/c we wanted to give the secondary help on Bowman and the TE.  As a result you take a guy away and force players to make one on one plays which is difficult to do.  And usually good teams in today's game are going to switch responsibilities to try to confuse the offense, for example one play the safety may have QB and the OLB may have pitch and the next it may be reversed based on the defensive call.  In our game against OSU the plan was really to pick your poison, and it seemed we were willing to give up yardage underneath but then roll the dice and bring people on obvious passing situations.  Unfortunatley OSU was able to win many of those 3rd down battles when we tried to blitz Robinson and he made us pay.  I don't think we thought he could do that going in and he beat us not only with his legs, but with some key throws when he had pressure.

IF we play relatively mistake free on offense (limit TOs) and contain in special teams, we still win this game.  I think going in we were confident OSU could not stop our offense and thought we could win special teams (OSU had bad numbers going in) and contain their offense enough to win.  In hindsight I think that plan was sound, we just had too many TOs and gave up two critical mistakes in STs.  We couldn't afford to do that and we paid dearly.

[cireksu]

I didn't watch the game and wyatt and stan didn't describe it but were they running option out of the shotgun or under center, I assumed that they ran it out of shotgun.

bottom line on every running play all 3 dlinemen are getting double teamed and are getting beat badly on them, totally taking the lb's out of the play and forcing the safety's to make tackles.

[Pett]

Thanks!!