Emerald Bowl Review: Part IV: Cal's Zone Blocking Busts a Big One
by HydroTech on Jul 9, 2009 4:00 AM PDT
in California Golden Bears Football
27 comments
In this fourth part of a twelve post analysis, we're going to look at Cal's Zone Blocking scheme. In case you missed the previous installments, here is Part I, Part II, and Part III.
Through most of the Tedford era Cal has used a man-blocking run scheme with a pulling backside guard. Most Cal fans are familiar with this scheme since it has been dissected on this blog and other blogs. However, every so often Cal has called zone-blocking run plays too. In the 2008 Cal @ Maryland game, Cal switched to its zone blocking scheme for most of the game due to Maryland's unusual 3-4 defense but remained largely ineffective. As the 2008 season progressed, Cal used more and more zone blocking and improved their execution as the season wore on. In Cal's final two regular season games, Cal's zone blocking gashed Stanfurd and Washington. The effectiveness of the scheme did not stop with the end of the regular season and carried on into the 2008 Emerald Bowl where Jahvid Best used his excellent vision to see a cutback lane in the zone blocking and scored on a 42 yard touchdown.
Here is the pre-snap look below:
Cal has its base personnel on the field (2 WRs, 1 TE, 2 backs). Cal is facing a 1st and 10 within Miami's territory.
Above is another pre-snap picture.
Here is the post-snap picture. Every offensive player along the line of scrimmage takes their first step to their right cluing the defense into the direction of the run. Cal's left tackle will let the Miami defensive end (#97) go unblocked on this play because the run is to the offense's right and the defensive end is already behind the play. Instead, the Cal left tackle will focus on the weakside Miami linebacker (#31) because that player is more of a threat to stop the play due to being further back on the field. On zone runs it is typical for the backside tackle to not block the backside defensive end and instead immediately move to the second level.
Another key aspect of zone blocking is that some blockers will jointly block a defender before one of them moves off the defender to another defender. In other words, the offense will have 2 on 1 blocks at the line of scrimmage. On this play, Cal's left guard and center will jointly block the Miami nose tackle and the Miami middle linebacker. In this situation, it is more desirable for the Cal center to block the Miami middle linebacker because the center has a better angle (being more in front of the middle linebacker) than the left guard. Thus, the left guard will do his best to dispose of the Miami nose tackle by himself so the center can immediately move to the second level and take on the Miami middle linebacker. On this play, the Cal left guard nicely cut blocks the Miami nose tackle without the help of the Cal center allowing the center to move towards the second level to block the middle linebacker (#3).
Cal's right guard, and right tackle have picked up the Miami defensive tackle and strong side defensive end respectively. Off the screen, Cal's tight end has picked up Miami's cornerback on the edge. In the backfield, Cal's fullback is looking through the linemen in front of him towards the Miami strong side linebacker (#51).
In the picture above, you can see Miami had 8 defenders in the box (4 defensive linemen, 3 linebackers, 1 defensiveback). I am not counting Miami's safety #29 since he is further back and outside of the immediate box. Cal only has 7 blockers in the box (5 offensive linemen, 1 fullback, 1 tight end). Because Cal is out numbered, this would normally be a tough play to gain yardage. However, because the zone run attacks the defense at such a wide angle (more east-west rather than north-south) it takes the backside defensive end out of the play instantly. That is why Cal didn't even bother blocking the backside defensive end. And thus Miami only really has 7 defenders in the box who are in position to stop the play (3 defensive linemen, 3 linebackers, 1 defensive back). So the numbers are really 7 blockers on 7 defenders. Assuming Cal's two wide receivers can block their defenders then the ball carrier, Jahvid Best, only has one defender to elude (#29).
Miami does a nice job walling off the playside of the offense (the offense's right side). However, because they know of Best's deadly speed, they have over-pursued and left open a cutback lane. Zone blocking is known for having cutback lanes because the defense often is in such a rush to wall off the point of attack due to the fact that there are so many more blockers at the point of attack in a zone-blocking scheme than a man-blocking scheme.
Most of the time the cutback lanes aren't as huge as they are in this play. Additionally, not all runningbacks can see the smaller cutback lanes. One of Javhid Best's greatest assets is his vision. Although this cutback lane is huge, if it was much smaller, Best probably would have seen it anyways and ran through it. Jahvid Best has exceptional vision and can perform just as well in the zone-blocking scheme as he does in a regular man-blocking scheme.
Jahvid Best bursts through the cutback lane and wisely covers up the ball with to prevent the ball from being stripped on his way through defenders.
Jahvid Best scores a touchdown.
Conclusion:
Why did Cignetti call up zone blocking on this particular play at this moment in the game? Perhaps because Miami was being very aggressive on defense. Miami had been swarming the ball thus far in the game. Cal ran 6 run plays prior to this play, and only 2 had gained more than 5 yards. Miami was clearly keying in on the run. Zone blocking is all about movement; specifically getting the defense to move quickly to the playside. By calling up a zone blocking run, Miami would be quick to wall off the playside of the offense to prevent Jahvid Best from penetrating, but as I said earlier, overpursing on a zone blocking scheme can lead to cutback lanes. That's exactly what happened in this situation and it cost Miami a touchdown.
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Good breakdown of this play
This play shows a good offensive play call by the coaches combined with great execution by the players on the field.
Adding to Hydro’s observation that Best is an outstanding cutback runner in zone blocking, recall what Petros Papadakis said during the Cal-UW telecast last year. Papadakis said that Best and LenDale White were the 2 best zone blocking runners he’d ever seen in the Pac-10.
Marshawnthusiastic Jahvidtician and member of the PRileytariat.
Based on the pictures, #29 made a terrible play on this run, just completely taking himself out of the action. The run was set up well, so we were going to gain some yardage, but it shouldn’t have been a touchdown (or should have at least required breaking a tackle to be one).
Very true Barry, but “in his defense” he was treating the play more like a man-blocking play. A simple rule for the safety (WAY oversimplified, but work with me here) is to move to where the fullback is running to. The Fullback in most man-blocking plays is supposed to clear the hole of the last defender, so it’s logical that the safety wants to get to the hole that the fullback is going to with the knowledge that the tailback is headed there next.
Of course, as you said, that leaves you way out of position for a cutback play, particularly in a zone-blocking scheme (where more defenders away from the play are blocked).
For me, I’m not a huge fan of zone-blocking particularly when your tailback isn’t as blazing fast as Best, but it still is important to have in your playbook to keep the run defense honest so they can’t assume that every run play is a man-blocking scheme.
Great posts as always Hydro. Nice to see a positive one after the negative ones.
It’s interesting because if the weakside DE had run down the line of scrimmage, he probably could have squeezed the cutback lane down considerably since he was unblocked. However, it looks like he probably had bootleg responsibility, because he comes upfield about 3 yards, and looks like he is trying to decipher if there was a hand-off or not. By the time he realized JB has the ball, its too late and he’s out of position.
"The trees on the [Student Athlete High Performance Center] are not protected -- and cannot be 'saved' -- by any law."
I noticed the same thing
Had he not penetrated so far upfield, he might have been able to drop back and make a play. Note how he instead had to take a detour around the fallen pair from the LT’s cutback block. Maybe Longshore deserves some credit, too, for occupying the attention of that DE just long enough to keep him out of the play?
And what about Alex Mack?! It was his block on the middle linebacker that really sprung this play. It appears in the fourth-to-last photo that he’s not in good position to do so, with his torso and momentum heading toward the right. But he quickly changes direction and squares his body to engage #3, drive him back a yard or two, and effectively seal off the overpursuing safety at the same time.
Excellent play call to exploit the defense’s tendencies +
Very good team-wide execution +
NFL-quality play by Mack and Best
=
Touchdown Bears!!
Go Bears!
by California Pete on Jul 9, 2009 10:53 AM PDT up reply actions
I think what really got #29 was the lateral movement of the offensive line. Their movement got #29 flowing playside and took him out of the play. #29 didn’t need to move much since he was already lined up over the right C-gap, but it was enough to prevent him from being anywhere near the cutback lane to make a tackle.
www.californiagoldenblogs.com
An improvement suggestion
Hydro, these are awesome posts, but can I suggest a format improvement:
Include the video too.
See, the pictures are very nice and very necessary, but it’s hard to catch the flow of the play. What brought this to my attention was #29. In one frame he’s just starting (at least it appears that way) make it way towards the line and the next one he’s way out of position as if he had been sprinting towards the line the whole time. What’ unclear is how fast he was moving and if he momentum carried him away from the play from an early speed burst of if he was just very slow to recognize the cutback lane.
So, just add upload a youtube video clip of the play and post it as part of the post so that we’ve got the context of movement and motion.
Keep up the good work!
That might easier said than done. This play is obviously on a highlight reel somewhere, but if its a play where Morrah misses a block and theres an incomplete pass, that might not really be online somewhere. Maybe Danzig or somebody can put one up online, I don’t know.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah TwistNHook!
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Suggestion noted. I do not have the software on my computer to cut the plays out of the entire dvd hence why I just use screen captures.
If you are willing to assist with the uploading of youtube videos then I will contact you regarding future posts.
www.californiagoldenblogs.com
This play also seems to illustrate what happens when everyone on the offense IS on the same page, as opposed to the last play you broke down. Every Cal blocker is effectively blocking their man, and the result is a successful play. I can see why Tedford is so big into “execution”.
part of the design of the zone blocking scheme
was to take advantage of the overpursueing (sp) defense. It was developed in response to the “46” defense of Chicago Bears in the mid 80’s. So, the cut back lane is actually the preferred running path, though it doesn’t look that way on a diagram.
and rather than blocking a player….the offensive players are looking to block a ‘zone’ or area of the field. so, while the center looks like he’s going for the Middle linebacker, what he’s really looking at is something like “one step right, three steps forward”…that often means he is also in position to push the defensive lineman right their, effectively double teaming him with the onside guard, then moving up field and sealing off the cutback lane for the running back.
Go Bears Go
Yeah, the offensive linemen are assigned an area, not so much a man. However, the way the defense reacts almost the same way to the play, the defender they will block is almost always the same defender and thus the offensive linemen are already eyeing the man they are expecting to block.
www.californiagoldenblogs.com
#29 - DOH!
Missing Barry is right; #29 blew chunks on this play. Could have stayed home and taken away the cutback lane, but thought he’d be a superstar and join the rest of the team in the line o’ scrimmage scrum. Those DBs just can’t help but overpursue !!!!!!!
You can bet Oregon is dialing up this post to prepare for the Bears at Autzen !!!!
In #29’s defense, he’s kind of damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t. If he doesn’t aggressively hit that would-be-hole targeted by the fullback, he’s going to half a difficult time catching up to the fast-and-elusive Best.
As a Cal fan, I would love nothing more than opposing DB’s sitting back on their heels waiting for Best to come to them. I like #4’s odds of making them miss in the open field.
Go Bears!
by California Pete on Jul 11, 2009 9:08 AM PDT up reply actions
that's the beauty of mixing the man running game with the zone.
both plays are always there….but one is preferred in each blocking option, and unless the Safety reads the blocking scheme quickly and correctly everytime….he’s gonna give up a backbreaking play.
Go Bears Go
by Rocksanddirt on Jul 13, 2009 4:38 PM PDT up reply actions
I also think #31 sort of blew chunks on this play too. In the 5th picture he cuts upfield behind the Cal LT which opens up the cutback lane for Jahvid Best. Had #31 held his ground or cut across the face of the Cal LT, then that would have tightened up the cutback lane and given him a better chance at stopping the run.
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