Film Room: Wake Targeted State’s Corners in the Run

Terminology to know

• Boundary side: The shorter side of the field horizontally

• Field side: The wider side of the field horizontally

• Crack block: A block from across the formation on a second-level defender

• Split flow: a run play ran one direction with one blocker blocking the other direction, typically blocking an edge defender and sometimes originating from a motion

• Nub trips: An alignment featuring three wide receivers on one side and a single tight end on the other side

Teams have expended a lot of energy this season involving State’s defensive backs in the run fits, mostly just by adding tight ends. Five linemen create six gaps, and the 3-3-5 only offers six players that aren’t DBs. One tight end usually adds a safety to the box. Two tight ends often add a corner. Wake specifically targeted the corners, but found a way to do so without adding tight ends and running counter plays, which has been the common approach for most teams.

I think the Demon Deacons ran one gap scheme play in the game. Wake runs duo, a play that looks like inside zone but has some key characteristics that make it function very differently. We’ve seen Duo work well against State in the past, but Wake’s additional wrinkles allowed it to attack the secondary with a single tight end look. Duo, in the simplest explanation possible, is a play designed to create double teams at the first level of the defense. Unlike a zone play, the linemen are not climbing to linebackers. The double teams hold and the back reads the back-side linebacker and cuts opposite his movement. Keep this process in mind when we watch some tape from Saturday’s horror story. 

Before we get to duo though, It really started with this crack sweep play. It was clear from the get-go what Wake was after, as this was on the game's opening drive. The point of this play is to create an isolation between the back and the corner out on the edge. Corners are often the worst tacklers on the team. Wake crack blocks the nickel and the box safety to get the ball to the edge against the corner. The corner misses the tackle and a negative play becomes a six-yard gain. 

Wake runs Duo here. Instead of the tight end playing toward a double team or up the field like a zone play, he is going to widen back and protect the back side. This is where duo gets the nickname "power without the puller." It functions a little like power run or a split flow zone play, creating a huge hole in the C gap. Fordham(10) makes an excellent open-field tackle, almost certainly the best open-field tackle the team has put on tape this year. 

This is the same play from Wake out of a slightly different look. The Deacons align the tight end to the boundary this time instead of to the field like above. It runs duo but asks the boundary receiver to crack block the D gap player, which is DK Kaufman(5). It’s the same play as above with the core of the formation flipped. 

You can see how the crack block removes Kaufman(5) from his fit and forces Aydan White(3) to pick up that responsibility. Unfortunately, Fordham(10) reacts like he's expecting the same cut as above and gets out of his gap, and the back reads his movement and cuts opposite it for a huge gain. Fordham is far down the list of players who have struggled with fits this year, but it’s another example of bad gap integrity from the team as a whole. Ironically, this may hit bigger if Fordham does play his responsibility, because it would create a one-on-one in space with the corner. 

Wake very clearly loved the picture that play created, because it ran the same exact play only two snaps later hoping to get the same one-on-one with White. The Deacs blow the assignment though, with the tight end not blocking Sean Brown(0). Brown gets a free pass to the ball, but allows the back to spin out of the tackle and improvise an explosive play. Not good! 

Wake runs the same play here with the addition of a split flow from the jet motion. State adjusts to this well at first, with Kaufman(5) bumping over to the D gap. He’s the target of the crack block from the boundary receiver, but he overplays the back's first step and ends up doing the job of the crack block for it, getting out of his actual gap. The back gets where he is supposed to go to get one-on-one with the corner, and White(3) never squares his body to make the tackle. It’s the whole season condensed into one play: poor gap integrity and poor tackling. 

This is the exact same play as above, identical actually, once again forcing the corner to tackle. Sean Brown(0) is physical here and is able to squeeze this down without losing lane integrity, and it makes the corner’s job a lot easier. Fordham shows some anger and physicality, blowing up the tight end. White plays with much better form and it prevents another disaster.

Wake goes nub trips to the field here, meaning one attached tight end on the boundary side and three receivers on the field side. This was another way of forcing the corner into the run fit. The Deacs get to the one-on-one, and the tackle gets made, but Claiborne gets three yards after contact here because he’s way more physical. 

Finally, Wake runs this out of a heavy set with a jet motion, but slips the back-side block and leaks the motion into a slide route. The corner has eyes in the backfield because he knows he has to come up and tackle, and nobody is around to cover the route. 

State's two most physical corners are Brandon Cisse and Corey Coley. Cisse is out with some sort of arm injury and Coley had to leave the game after a teach tape for offensive pass interference that couldn't quite wake the sleeping referee caused Coley to suffer some sort of injury as well. The DBs have been bad in run fits all year, but this made things even harder. Wake made no bones about wanting to go after Aydan White, who is an elite cover corner but has struggled against the run.

The Pack has not been able to mitigate its back-end issues with defensive line havoc, something it created a lot of last year. This game was certainly better than Clemson and Tennessee, but not good enough to cover the holes behind it. The result was 6.8 YPC for Claiborne and another bundle of explosive plays.