OFFENSIVE RECAP: 2023 Minnesota

A moderately inspiring performance is doomed by mistakes

Photo courtesy Nebraska Athletics

DRIVE 1

6 Plays, 7.1 Yards Per Play
33% Success Rate
1 Explosive Play, 1 Havoc Play Allowed

The Huskers offense under Matt Rhule began under inauspicious circumstances, backed up at its own 1. After a (pretty effective!) heavy personnel quarterback sneak to get some breathing room, Nebraska tried a seven-man protection deep shot to take advantage of Minnesota stacking the box on the goalline, but the Gophers were in a three-deep zone, and quarterback Jeff Sims pulled the ball down for a nice scramble and first down.

After a false start, NU got a chunk gain off of a QB Counter Bash concept, with Sims keeping around the edge:

“Bash” concepts are read run plays where the play is blocked for the quarterback to be the primary ball carrier, not the running back as usual.

Sims reads the defensive end to the short side of the field, circled in red, who widens with Rahmir Johnson on the “back away” path. Had the read man collapsed inside, Sims would have given the ball around the edge (in green). But with him widening, Sims follows the play as designed, following NU’s guard and tackle pulling to the other side on a guard-tackle (GT) counter blocking scheme. NU now has a numbers advantage to the wide side of the field, and two diving Gopher missed tackles allow him to get around the edge and turn it into an explosive run.

NU tried to power the ball up the middle with Duo on the next play and lost a yard, then tried to fool Minnesota by spreading out in a wide trey alignment and running a Trap, but right tackle Turner Corcoran blew his block at the second level, turning a 5- or 6-yard gain into a 0. After another penalty, NU got into empty and completed a short crosser out of a Mesh concept, but Minnesota was dropping eight into coverage and sitting at the sticks. Not a lot of good calls for 3rd and 16, but not a totally unsuccessful drive considering they got out of the shadow of their own end zone.

DRIVE 2

7 Plays, 5.7 Yard Per Play
43% Success Rate
1 Explosive Play, 2 Havoc Plays Allowed

With Minnesota having a sizeable time of possession advantage at this point, we’re three minutes into the second quarter and the Husker offense probably hasn’t been through its opening script yet.

No longer in the shadow of its own endzone, NU turned to more read-option on the second drive, to good effect. It opened with a Split Zone/Arc read play to the weak side:

On a normal Split Zone play, the blocker cutting across the formation — in this case tight end Thomas Fidone — would clean up the backside defender on the line of scrimmage, circled in red (the “end man on the line of scrimmage,” or “EMOL”):

But NU instead reads the EMOL and sends Fidone on an “Arc” block, hoping to get a seal on the the second level to spring a big play. The EMOL shuffles down on the Inside Zone action to Johnson, so Sims pulls for an explosive run around the end with a great dig-out block on the second level from X receiver Alex Bullock on a linebacker. 

It then got into 21 personnel for its first I-formation play of the season, running a Load Option play that seemed stolen straight from Tom Osborne’s playbook for another good run. After a swing screen to Johnson that Minnesota blew up from the get-go, NU turned to another read concept on third-and-short, again a variation off Split Zone.

The moving backside blocker — backup QB Henrich Haarberg? — again bypasses the EMOL, but this time leaks into the flat. This is a run-pass option play (an RPO), with Sims able to hand off up the middle to the back if the EMOL widens with Haarberg or throw the flat route if the EMOL collapses on the run:

You can see how hard the EMOL collapses from the end zone view, giving Sims an easy access throw for a first down.

I’m not sure if that was a two-quarterback package from which we’re going to see more plays or interesting concepts — I’m not sure what good having the second QB line up as a tight end does? — or if Haarberg is just moonlighting as a Y now.

On the next first down, NU again tries a big-protection deep shot but again can’t complete it. Minnesota had lined up in “heavy” boxes on three of NU’s last four alignments, so it wasn’t a bad gamble. But the Gophers had also made a point to cloud cover so far; UM ran three-deep Cover 3 or four-deep Cover 4 on 11 of its first 13 snaps. It was a priority for them not to give up a big passing play. Also notable about this play was Satterfield bringing in true freshman Jaylen Lloyd from Omaha — a Nebraska Class A 100-meter dash champion — as one of the two receivers to run deep. This was smart personnel usage; the small true freshman may not be able to see the field as an every-down receiver yet, but his speed is a weapon, and it doesn’t take a lot of training or instruction to say, “Go run this deep post and see if you can run past somebody.”

NU gets into a manageable third down by again running a GT Counter concept for the quarterback, this attached to a swing screen to the running back. Through this point in the game, NU has run five plays with a read element, and Sims has (correctly) kept the ball on four of them, a contributing factor to his high rushing carry total.

Then comes the first of Sims’ big mistakes. The first interception occurs on a 989 concept, a deep isolation passing pattern with two vertical routes on the outside (called “9” routes on the route tree) with a post from the inside receiver (an “8” route):

The Gophers were in Cover 1, a man coverage with a single deep safety playing zone over the top (he’s just off screen in the diagram above). Sims goes to the post route to slot receiver Billy Kemp, a misread against a one-high safety coverage, as the correct action would have been choosing the 9 route to the opposite the side that the safety shaded to, throwing into one-on-one coverage down the field (or checking the ball down to the flats if you didn’t like the look). But you can see slot receiver Billy Kemp gets a step on his guy; and the pick primarily happens because Sims is hit as he throws and the ball sails on him. So I can at least comprehend why Sims made this decision, even if it wasn’t the correct read. I can’t really say the same for the later two picks.

Also notable on that drive was NU’s motion usage; after the safe first drive featured just one play with motion, Satterfield had motion attached to six of the seven plays on the second drive. The motion was causing Minnesota to widen on some of the run concepts and pulling guys out of the box, especially on the Sims GT Counter keeper. Overall, the rate for motion usage in this game was 45%, a bit higher overall than Satterfield’s preseason tendencies I charted at South Carolina, but Nebraska’s motion rate on pure runs or RPOs was 43%, almost five percentage points higher than what Satterfield did at S.C. He was really effective at using motion to manipulate defensive gaps or create misdirection.

DRIVE 3

11 Plays, 5.7 Yards Per Play
72.7% Success Rate
0 Explosive Plays, 1 Havoc Play Allowed

Nebraska opened this series with a trio of gap-scheme power runs, moving the chains on a QB keeper lead play with a freeze flash to the linebackers, which was one of NU’s main goal-line schemes with Adrian Martinez (that also works well with Sims):

With time running out in the half on just their 17th offensive play, NU spread the formation and got some chunk gains on a pair of timing completions and two nice runs on quarterback draws to take advantage of Minnesota playing deep shell coverage.

On 1st and 10 from the 20 and running hurry up, Satterfield called a play that featured a Curl/Flat concept to one side and a Slant/Flat concept to the other:

With Minnesota in Cover 3, Sims correctly went to the Curl/Flat side, but the Gophers’ deep corner was sitting on it and jumped the route, nearly getting an interception:

This concept and Minnesota’s treatment of it will rear its head again later in the game in another spot where the offense is moving at fast pace before the end of the half; it’s the play Sims throws his third interception on.

But first, the second pick. After the goalline false start/replay review snafu backed them up to the 6 yard line, Satterfield called a popular goal line and short yardage concept called “Spot” or “Snag.” Spot/Snag is a three-person concept, consisting of a flat route to the sideline; a “spot” route, in which the receiver begins crossing the field diagonally but stops and sits down at 3 to 5 yards; and a deeper route to the corner:

Graphic credit Matt Bowen/Syed Schemes

The concept accomplishes two things, the first of which is a high-low stress on the outside corner: If the corner stays shallow to cover the flat route (by the F in the diagram above), they aren’t in position to make a play on the corner route (by the Y in the diagram above), with the opposite being true if the corner gains depth to cover the corner route. Many concepts create high-low reads — the corner route/flat route dynamic is essentially just a “Smash” concept — but the second thing the Spot/Snag concept adds is the creation of an additional horizontal stress on the coverage: Not only are the pass defenders to the side being stressed high to low vertically on the corner route and flat route, but now they have to consider cover a width element as the spot route (by the Z in the diagram above) breaks to the inside of the formation and the corner and flat break to the outside. This is sometimes called a “triangle” read for the three axes a defense must consider, and its ability to quickly create separation in three directions for a short pass is what makes it so effective on the goal line, in short yardage, or against pressure.

NU ran a sort of inverted version from the diagram above, with the tight end and receiver running a switch release (a further mechanism intended to confuse the defense), and replacing each other’s pre-snap alignments after the snap, meaning the receiver is on the corner route (in green), with the tight end on the spot route (in blue):

Minnesota is in a zone, with the outside corner and safety standing under the “M” in the end zone and dropping deep, and the edge defender (#9) going to the hook/curl area of the field toward the sideline (circled in purple below). The progression on Spot/Snag is first to the flat, here the running back Johnson in purple. The hook/curl defender takes that away, widening to the sideline with Johnson. The second in the progression is the snag route, which comes open when both the safety and corner both cover the corner route (highlighted by the green arrows below):

Sims throws the corner route, a completely inexplicable decision based on the coverage he gets, the behavior of the defenders, his progression, and the situation in the game. With the flat taken away, he should have never gotten past the tight end on the snag route in his progression, sitting shockingly open with the blue arrow above. Screenshotting an open receiver after the fact and dropping a, “Why didn’t you throw it here?” is often misleading and stupid, but this is a play that happens quickly with extremely defined and well-known reads; I think it’s fair under these circumstances to say this was a real bad one. Hopefully Sims is able to learn from that, because it was a good call by NU’s coaching staff that should have been converted for an easy score against one of the best secondaries in the country.

He’s not the only one at fault, though. I also have some slight beef with the direction on the field in which Satterfield chose to run this play; he runs it into the boundary side of the field, with the condensed space making the three-way stretch less effective. You aren’t going to get the defenders to widen quite as well if there’s less space for them to widen into. I don’t get why this wasn’t run to the opposite side, toward the field, where there was much more area to allow the corner route and flat routes to pull the defenders away from the snag. It was also a pretty shallow corner route from receiver Isaiah Garcia-Castenada; he works more to the sideline initially than to the back pylon. That partially allows the corner to pick it off.

DRIVE 4

2 Plays, 17.5 Yards Per Play
50% Success Rate
1 Explosive Play, 0 Havoc Plays Allowed

The double pass gets a major LOL for its clown-car execution, but it was an excellent call. Minnesota had given NU a “normal” or “light” box count on 79% of its plays in the first half, which the Huskers had exploited in the running game. NU had also shown no ability to burn the Gophers’ coverage downfield. It was a likely guess, then, that the Minnesota halftime adjustment was going to be to put more bodies close to the line of scrimmage — and fewer in coverage deep — and preach flying down on the run. They came out to start the second half with eight players in the box on both of their first two snaps, the second of which got thrown over their head when they bit hard on the run. Beautiful.

DRIVE 5

6 Plays, -2.2 Yards Per Play
16% Success Rate
0 Explosive Plays, 3 Havoc Plays Allowed

This was a disaster drive. NU went back to Spot/Snag on first down, likely just hoping to pick up 5-6 yards to get things rolling. Sims again didn’t throw a deeply open Snag route, instead losing 5 yards on a sack, though at least this time he had pressure against him as an excuse, with two NU linemen getting beat by one pass rusher.

After another quarterback draw got things to 3rd-and-9, NU again got in empty and tried to run the same Mesh play they did on their third-and-long in Drive 1, but one Minnesota rusher again beat a double team by left guard Ethan Piper and left tackle Corcoran. The Gophers were again in “drop eight” coverage on that play, meaning that NU gave up a sack on a play in which there were just three rushers.

NU got a second chance after a personal foul on the punt, and after a couple successful runs on Outside Zone and Duo went back to the same Haarberg Split Zone-Arrow RPO. Minnesota ate it alive this time, taking away both the run and flat element. That was the only route on the play, so Sims eats a sack and NU punts again.

DRIVE 6

12 Plays, 7.0 Yards Per Play
66% Success Rate
2 Explosive Plays, 0 Havoc Plays

If you’re looking for positive offensive takeaways from this game, this drive would be it. Backed up at its own 11, NU methodically drove to the doorstep of the goalline against a good defense before a penalty put them in a disadvantageous spot. That’s something to build on.

It started with a beast run from Gabe Ervin, who took the full brunt of a linebacker’s tackle off penetration on a Counter play, was completely unfazed, and rumbled past a safety on a cutback for a huge gain.

Ervin looked like the best player on the offense to me, full stop, and although game flow dictated a lot of who got carries, I’d greatly prefer he get the ball more than Anthony Grant next week.

Two snaps later, NU got another chunk run off counter, this time on a fake pulling action that turned into an end-around to Lloyd. This is, again, seems to be one definitive strength of Satterfield’s: He’s getting guys with special traits onto the field to do specific things. Lloyd can’t play as a receiver right now, but you can tell him, “Hey, catch this pitch and run past everyone.”

With Minnesota now feeling the run, Satterfield played off that on the next snap, getting into the I-formation to generate a stacked box and running a short play-action glance route behind it. The Gophers linebackers fast flow early on the fake weakside zone to Ervin, giving Sims easy access to the middle of the field for a 17-yard completion:

NU followed that up with another chunk run off a Sims keeper on the weakside Split Zone/Arc read play that it ran for 12 yards in the second quarter. Sims then converts a 3rd and 3 with the 13 personnel QB Lead play they also had success with in the second quarter. That looks to be a staple of their short-yardage package this year. On both of the short-yardage plays, it’s interesting to note NU was bringing in redshirt freshman Justin Evans-Jenkins as a sixth offensive linemen as one of the tight ends.

NU gets a couple more nice runs — another one off of a counter concept — to get a 1st-and-Goal from the 8. NU runs a playaction Leak/Pick concept, with two eligibles to the field running interference by working left to right, with backside tight end Nate Boerkircher working against them right to left:

The idea is to generate movement to the side the two receivers are toward to create a pick to spring Boerkircher open or make the coverage forget about him entirely:

It initially works, with Boerkircher cutting through the traffic and seemingly having an open lane to the end zone, but Gophers All-America safety Tyler Nubin — who made the first interception of Sims, and will also make the third — sniffs it out and tackles Boerkircher for just a 4-yard gain. After another false start puts NU in long distance, the Gophers stop another Glance RPO and QB Draw to force a field goal. 

If not for an exception effort by Nubin on the Boerkircher pick play, I think that becomes a TD. Nubin has a convincing case for pretty much single-handedly winning this game down the stretch for Minnesota.

DRIVE 7

3 Plays, 0.0 Yards Per Play
0% Success Rate
0 Explosive Plays, 1 Havoc Play Allowed

Satterfield tried to take a couple shots here to end the game on this drive, and was small margins from each of them working.

The first was a seven-man protection, play-action shot off under center Split Zone similar to the one they tried in the second quarter with Lloyd, though this time was on more of a Yankee concept (two deep crossing routes on an in-breaking route and a post) and had defensive back Tommi Hill running the deep breaking route. Again a smart use of personnel; Hill is not a receiver but is a rare athlete, so have him just streak down the field for one play. Minnesota’s linebackers bit hard on the run fake and their secondary actually blew a Cover 4 rotation here, with Hill ending up one-one-one with Nubin streaking up the seam — Nubin is a great player, but not a great athlete, so not a good position for him — but Sims throws the ball to the inside expecting more of a break, while Hill kept the route vertical. Arguably the biggest missed opportunity of the game, with potentially the chance to be up 14-3 in the fourth.

On second down, NU again tried to take advantage of Minnesota biting on run fakes with a Glance RPO. The LBs again fly up on the run, so Sims pulls the ball for an easy-access throw to Kemp on the 8-yard glance/post. But Minnesota’s linebacker is able to get a hand on the ball at the line of scrimmage, knocking down what would have been a 20-yard gain.

Now in third and long again, Satterfield went with a safe Shallow Screen to counter Minnesota’s tendency of blitzing and playing man on third and long after the first drive. The Gophers show man coverage and a blitz before the snap:

but all drop into zone coverage after it, rallying to the ball for no gain.

DRIVE 8

4 Plays, 3.0 Yards Per Play
25% Success Rate
0 Explosive Plays, 1 Havoc Play Allowed

NU came out to physically run the ball this drive, with three gap-scheme runs in four plays, getting consistent yardage before Anthony Grant fumbled to give Minnesota a short field for the tying touchdown. 

The first was a Pin-Pull read play to the edge, with the center and backside tackle pulling in front around the edge. This was the first read play of the game Sims had given the ball to the RB, which should tell you how hard Minnesota was crashing down on the run all game. It followed it up with a four-yard gain on an up-the-middle Duo for four yards, then converted a third-and-short with a concept they ran several times Thursday in big spots, a Stick/Slot Fade variation to the trips side, with a post route from the backside receiver and a backside hook from the running back to that side. 

Here’s a rep of it from the second quarter:

NU ran this concept three times, with Sims going to the backside post/curl high-low every time. He was 3-for-3 here on this concept for 11.6 yards per play and converted three first downs.

Then came the fumble. Did I want to throw up at this point of the game? Yes.

DRIVE 9

5 Plays, 5.8 Yards Per Play
40% Success Rate
0 Explosive Plays, 1 Havoc Play Allowed

The game-ender. Minnesota came out in pressure-package looks and light boxes on NU’s first three downs, and Nebraska came out looking to run the ball and get an initial first. They got a nice creation play from Sims on a broken RPO; he pulled the ball looking to throw a hitch vs. single coverage, but the receiver went deep, and he improvised and scrambled for a first.

NU got closer to the potential game-winning field goal on another completion off the Post-Hitch with the running back and the backside trips receiver, then came the big one: Satterfield called the mirrored Curl-Flat/Slant-Flat concept he also did the last time NU was in hurry up, in the second quarter, when Sims almost threw a pick before the half:

With Minnesota in a rare man coverage snap (the Gophers ran man coverage just 14% for the game) Sims chose the other side of the concept, (correctly) trying to hit the slant. Nubin was the deep ceiling defender in Cover 1, but NU hadn’t threatened with a downfield pass all night and no route in the concept pushed him vertically, so he was able to sit flat-footed at 10 yards, read Sims’ eyes and break on the ball.

Sims’ throw was not good, and Minnesota’s aggressive press coverage throws off the timing and execution here. But this is just a strange play to run against a team that isn’t afraid of you beating them down the field. If there’s no fear of a slant or curl route challenging you vertically, the defense is going to sit on it and break quickly. And this version of the concept has deeper stems that normal; a slant route typically breaks at two steps downfield, but Satterfield’s version of the concept has the break at almost seven yards, making it more of a short post. This is a concept I saw Satterfield offenses run at Baylor and South Carolina, so it’s something he clearly likes for a reason. But for me, there’s nowhere for the QB to go with this ball if they’re overmatched by defenders. Sims made the correct read both times Nebraska ran this play Thursday, and almost both ended in interceptions. Some of it is that NU probably doesn’t have all of its stuff installed yet and appears to have pretty middling receivers, and was put in multiple situations where it had to work fast and pass with time running out. But Satterfield overall hasn’t shown a very diverse dropback menu in previous stops, and a lot of the concepts he prefers feature a lot of static, stopped routes, like curls or outs. That stuff is not going to work with the quality of players NU has on the outside.

TAKEAWAYS

There’s an optimistic takeaway and a pessimistic takeaway: NU was able to move the ball at times against a defense that has the chance to finish in the top 10 nationally, utilizing some creative concepts, doing some smart things and getting the most from its personnel. And most of the times it got off schedule from that came from its own mistakes. But the Huskers’ dropback passing game looked not functional, and NU had to give its quarterback an unsustainable amount of carries to get that ball movement. And NU’s opponents now have a week of film to prepare from, which is going to take some of the gimmicky stuff Nebraska had success with away.

Mostly my priors were just confirmed: NU will be able to run the ball pretty well from a diverse package, will test the defense with deep shots, and be completely helpless when forced to dropback pass. The goal this year is to stay ahead of the chains. GBR.