What about blocking? Screenshots show importance of I-Formation

I hate to beat a dead horse, but I saved some screenshots from the Boise game that might better illustrate why the I-formation was successful, and bring more confusion to why we abandoned it.

Some have mentioned that our overkill use of the shotgun was likely due to how poorly our offensive line was playing, and that it was in our best interest to give Murray space behind the line of scrimmage to have any adequate time to get a pass off.  In some cases, this is true, because the shotgun should give the QB a better view of rushing defenders and an ability to avoid being sacked.

But the I-Formation is important to UGA because of another factor: protection in numbers.  At the start of the revealing drive I referenced in my last post, the ESPN commentator made mention of I-formation being Georgia's "maximum protection" because it allowed for 7 blockers to guard the QB (5 linemen, 1 tight end, and 1 fullback or running back).  If you feel comfortable enough, the TE can become a receiver, and you still have 6 man protection.  But the I-Formation also appears to be more successful for UGA in pass blocking even with numbers aren't the advantage.

Here is the I-Formation in the first play of that drive:

Just for a better view, here's another shot of I-formation from behind:

Here is the same play after the snap.  Notice Murray has plenty room in his pocket and time to throw as the defense is sending five pass rushers against five blockers (we send the TE on a route).  He probably could have stood there for another second or two if he wanted.

As Georgia made their way down the field, the commentator continued to praise the decision of the offensive coordinator to switch to the I-formation, because it was allowing Murray much more protection and time to pass, while he was running for his life in the shotgun.  I also noticed that on the one play of that drive that we decided to run out of the I-Formation, Richard Samuel actually found a large hole to run through in the line (but unfortunately it looks like he ran into one of our blockers, just shy of the vast field of freedom ahead of him).

But just as soon as the commentators praised the change, we decided it was time to return to the shotgun (I presume just because it has such a cool sounding name).

Here on a crucial 3rd down, we go with 5 OL, no TE, and a freshman RB to pass block.  We have a four receiver set and no fullback for extra help in the backfield.  It doesn't end well.

Now the defense sends five pass rushers against a weaker UGA offensive protection, despite Georgia having 6 pass blockers.  The edge rushers get around that smaller line in a hurry, and the middle of the pocket collapses along with the ends.  Murray gets sacked here, and we miss a long field goal in a crucial moment.

It could be argued that we might as well go shotgun on that 3rd down, because everyone knew we would pass the ball.  That's true, but the bigger problem was the 2 shotgun plays before that, both of which were unsuccessful, right after we made it quickly down the field in I-Formation.  And pass blocking in the shotgun broke down much faster, even when having a numbers advantage, than it did in the I-Formation.

Also, that particular play above wasn't pretty.  Other than going back to shotgun, a formation in which we saw our offensive line fall apart and the pocket frequently collapse, Mike Bobo also apparently decided we would have plenty of time for Murray to pump fake a short pass and then try to hit the end zone 30 yards downfield.  The short pass might have been successful (or would at least give a better shot at a field goal), but instead we got a sack and no points.  Then again, we've complained about not being aggressive enough on offense before... right?

Boise Game Analysis: 78% of plays were shotgun formation

That's right.  I just wasted about 20 minutes fast forwarding through each play to figure that out.  78% of all offensive plays in Saturday's game were out of the shotgun formation.  Does that sound like UGA football to you?

Honestly, the stat by itself doesn't really matter that much.  Sure, Georgia is traditionally a power-I team that runs the ball with a lead fullback and then passes from under center, usually with a play-action fake.  But it isn't necessarily bad to try new things more often... as long as they work.  The problem isn't that 78% of plays were out of shotgun; the problem is that when good old fashion play-action passes and under center plays actually worked, we abandoned them and returned to the flashy deep snap.  The problem is that our offensive play calling has recently had a tendency to stick to things that don't work, and abandon things that have success.

Here are some more quick stats I compiled:

Total Plays in Game: 60
Total Plays Under Center: 13
Plays Under Center in 1st Half: 6/30
Plays Under Center in 2nd Half: 7/30

PASSING

Passing out of shotgun: 13 of 23 for 182 yards, 2 TD 1 INT, 14 yards per pass
Passing under center: 3 of 6 for 54 yards, 0 TD 0 INT, 18 yards per pass

Sacks: 6 of 6 sacks on Murray were in shotgun formation

The funny thing here is I (un)fondly remember the Arkansas game from last season, a loss which I blamed mostly on atrocious offensive play calling for the first 3 quarters.  I argued that we repeatedly attempted play-action passes without mixing things up, and it was obvious to the defense what we were doing.  I called for more shotgun plays to give Murray better sight of rushing defenders and the play as it develops, and when we began to pass from the shotgun in the 4th quarter, the offense suddenly began to improve.

This time, it was exactly the opposite.  We came out determined to play some newfangled hurry-up shotgun offense.  Goodbye to the old Georgia power-running and play-action days, we're here to trick you with speed and finesse.  Unfortunately, it didn't work too well from the start, and the offense struggled severely from penalties, jitters, and plain old lack of execution.

THE REVEALING DRIVE

The most revealing drive of the game was the first of the 2nd half.  Georgia decided to do something different.

Georgia at 11:01		BSU	UGA
1st and 10 at UGA 15	Aaron Murray pass complete to Orson Charles for 12 yards to the Geo 27 for a 1ST down.   (I-FORM PLAY ACTION)	21	7
1st and 10 at UGA 27	Aaron Murray pass complete to Orson Charles for 28 yards to the BoiSt 45 for a 1ST down.   (I-FORM PLAY ACTION)
1st and 10 at BSU 45	Richard Samuel rush for 3 yards to the BoiSt 42.   (I-FORMATION)
2nd and 7 at BSU 42	Aaron Murray pass complete to Aron White for 14 yards to the BoiSt 28 for a 1ST down.   (I-FORM PLAY ACTION)
1st and 10 at BSU 28	GEORGIA penalty 5 yard False Start accepted.
1st and 15 at BSU 33	Isaiah Crowell rush for 3 yards to the BoiSt 30.    (SHOTGUN)
2nd and 12 at BSU 30	Aaron Murray pass incomplete.    (SHOTGUN)
3rd and 12 at BSU 30	Aaron Murray sacked by Jamar Taylor for a loss of 6 yards to the BoiSt 36.     (SHOTGUN)
4th and 18 at BSU 36	Blair Walsh 54 yard field goal MISSED.
DRIVE TOTALS: GEORGIA drive: 7 plays 49 yards, 03:40 GEORGIA FGA

Notice the formations listed to the right of each play in parentheses.  So for four plays in a row, Georgia played under center in I-formation, just like the good old days, and quickly moved down the field.  The ESPN commentators even happened to come on the screen with a graphic showing how Aaron Murray's numbers last year were significantly better when passing from the I-formation rather than shotgun.  The offense quickly gained 54 yards on 3 play action passes (with one run mixed in to keep the defense honest).  This was a sudden, incredible momentum for the UGA offense which had been struggling all night.  But then, it's as if Mike Bobo suddenly changed his mind, and the offense returned to shotgun formation.  THREE plays in a row of shotgun followed, stalling the offense completely, and then a missed field goal attempt to end the drive.

It doesn't take a genius or a blogger with too much time on their hands to watch that game and see what was working offensively.  That same non-genius could easily determine that we didn't try nearly enough of what was working, and we repeatedly tried to force what wasn't working.  Why?  Because that's the tale of Georgia's offensive play calling in recent years.

Also of note, although the other three under center passes were incomplete, one of them should have been a 15 yard gain and was a perfect pass to a wide open #12 (names will not be named) who dropped the ball.

Finally, all 6 sacks on Murray happened during plays from the shotgun.  Re-watch those I-formation play-action plays and see how much more time Murray had to find his receiver and make a good pass.  It makes it all the more sad that we continued to ignore what was successful and tried to force the shotgun to work.

RUSHING OUT OF I-FORM

There's a slightly interesting difference in the rushing stats as well, as you can see below in Isaiah Crowell's rushing numbers:

Rushes from I-formation: 4 for 19 yards, 4.75 yards per carry
Rushes from shotgun: 11 for 41 yards, 3.72 yards per carry

So not only the passing game benefited greatly from the change of formation.

CONCLUSION


I really could rant a lot more about the game, but pretty much everything worth saying has been said by countless reporters, message board posters, and bloggers.  I hadn't seen a statistical analysis of the offensive problems yet, though, so I figured I could make a contribution.  Once again, I hold the opinion that offensive play calling was a HUGE detriment to our game plan, and greatly contributed to our loss.  If UGA's offense was allowed to run plays that set them up to succeed, I think we could have won that game.  If these mind-boggling play calls continue, I'm afraid Georgia will struggle more and more.  Not every game can be won based on talent alone.

A Ridiculously In-Depth Look at Georgia's Running Game

At times when I have important things to be doing, I instead feel an urge to spend my time working on something completely unnecessary. So I decided to look back at last Saturday's game at Vanderbilt to see what exactly is going on with our running game.

(By the way, you can watch all SEC games from this season at the SEC Digital Network website)

I wanted to see how our different running plays have worked with each back. For example, we've seen a backwards toss play very frequently this season, as well as the traditional handoff, and handoffs from a shotgun formation. So I watched every single running play of the entire game and tallied which play was run and who ran it.

Here are the results.

(Note: I'm not counting fullback runs in this)

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Washaun Ealey (#24)

Total: 13 carries for 71 yards

Tosses: 3 for 38 yards

Handoffs: 9 for 29 yards

Shotgun handoffs: 1 for 4 yards

Caleb King (#4)

Total: 5 carries for 14 yards

Tosses: 3 for 13 yards

Handoffs: 2 for 1 yard

Shotgun Handoffs: 0

Richard Samuel (#22)

Total: 6 carries for 18 yards

Tosses: 4 for 5 yards

Handoffs: 2 for 13 yards

Shotgun handoffs: 0

Carlton Thomas (#30)

Total: 6 carries for 27 yards

Tosses: 2 for -2 yards

Handoffs: 1 for 7 yards

Shotgun handoffs: 3 for 22 yards

Dontavius Jackson (#27)

Total: 3 carries for 38 yards

Tosses: 2 for 34 yards

Handoffs: 1 for 4 yards

Shotgun handoffs: 0

All Running Backs

Total Yards: 168

Tosses: 14 for 88 yards

Handoffs: 15 for 54 yards

Shotgun handoffs: 4 for 26 yards

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These numbers alone lead me to a few conclusions:

1. The coaches have tried to pinpoint the strengths of each back in order to figure out which plays work best for them. For instance:

- Carlton Thomas with his quickness is a good fit for shotgun handoffs (and 3 of 4 shotgun handoffs in the game went to him). The toss play doesn't seem to work well for him.

- Washaun Ealey is the most "rounded" of the backs, as he ran all 3 types of plays and did relatively well with each type.

- Caleb King is our other "rounded" back, but he excelled most at screen passing plays.

- Richard Samuel primarily played in toss plays, which failed miserably. But on only 2 direct handoffs, he gained 13 yards.

- Dontavius Jackson is a bit of a mystery still, because we only saw him in a clean-up role with the game almost over.

2. I've had some problems with the apparent "backwards toss" plays we've been running, but we saw some mixed results in the Vanderbilt game.

While Ealey and King both did well with the tosses, Samuel's didn't work at all. This could be attributed to his running style, and perhaps when he's in the game we should focus more on direct handoffs.

But with a closer look, the tossing plays in general may not have been that great.

The longest run of the day was a 33 yarder off a toss by Ealey. The general philosophy is that when you keep doing the same thing over and over again, someone will eventually break free for a big gain. Ealey did that, but is that a sign that the toss play is working to perfection, or is it just more of an anomaly? Think back to Richard Samuel's 80 yard run at Arkansas. Was that a sign that he's the best back we have and should be our starter for the season?

So if we, just for fun, take away Ealey's 33 yard toss play, he'll have 2 tosses for 5 yards. And if we also take away Jackson's clean-up time numbers, we end up with something like this:

Total Yardage: 97 yards

Tosses: 11 for 21 yards (1.9 yards per carry)

Handoffs: 14 for 50 yards (3.6 yards per carry)

Shotgun handoffs: 4 for 26 yards (6.5 yards per carry)

I feel like the tossing plays can work with perfect blocking (as any play can), but we're simply not getting it most of the time. It looks like the direct handoffs are much more consistent in earning yards, while the shotgun handoffs look to be deadly if run with the right back (Thomas and maybe Ealey).

So let's see why these toss plays haven't been amounting to much consistently.

First, the basics.

On a basic handoff from the quarterback under center, our RB's are receiving the ball about 5 yards behind the line of scrimmage.

While on those backwards tosses, they usually get the ball about 7 yards back, near where they stand before the play starts.

It's assumed that this extra distance isn't supposed to be a detriment to our offense, but rather to give the blockers time to make their blocks and the backs time to see them and find the holes. Only problem is, the blocks haven't been working so well, especially on the offensive line. Below is a toss play to Samuel, where you can see the defensive front already making its way through our line just as Samuel gets the ball (7 yards back).

Luckily, Samuel manages to slip a tackle from a lineman.

But thanks to starting back 7 yards deep and missed blocks, he has no where to go and is tackled for a loss.

Conclusion

The toss play just isn't as consistent right now in our running game as it should/could be, but it shouldn't be phased out of our playbook either. It can be effective with the right back and good blocking (see: Ealey 33 yard run) but it usually doesn't do as well as a direct handoff, partially as a result of the 2 extra yards deep that the back starts with the ball. Personally, I would like to see us try a more "lateral" toss to the outside, with the back already in motion and offset from the quarterback, maybe receiving the ball only 3-5 yards behind the line of scrimmage rather than the 7 that is customary in our "backwards toss" plays.

But the real conclusion is this: We've got a great stable of backs, but things just haven't been clicking consistently between their play and the blocking. We'll continue to struggle running the ball if we can't get everything to work right at the same time. Let's hope we get that figured out soon.