How effective Alabama's screen passes/jet sweeps were at Ole Miss

JustNeedMe81 · Sep 19, 2016

A total of 13 plays were either screen passes or jet sweeps to receivers. Those plays netted 30 yards. Two produced first downs.
Another, Calvin Ridley's direct snap late in the first half, went for a touchdown. A screen to running back Damien Harris late in the first half was the longest of the group by covering eight yards. All 12 of the other plays involved either Ridley or ArDarius Stewart.

Note they ran over 50 plays in the game, and only 13 plays were screen passes or jet sweeps. It looks like we see lot of them in the game, but it is actually lower than we thought it would be.

Lot of people are saying that the direct snap ridley was an accident, but I'm not sure about that. Auburn ran that play several time and I think its a designed play.

dvldog · Sep 19, 2016

That's roughly 1/4 of the plays. How many of them lost yardage? How many of them contributed to killing a drive/3 and out?

JustNeedMe81 · Sep 19, 2016

dvldog said:
That's roughly 1/4 of the plays. How many of them lost yardage? How many of them contributed to killing a drive/3 and out?

Read the article. It shows list of the play and how much it resulted for.

RTR91 · Sep 19, 2016

Someone brought these up in the Damian Harris thread. Repeat what I said there, people were tired of the jet sweeps until the end of the Tennessee game.

And there's no arguing the screen passes last year helped win the national championship.

Casagrande shows us how they helped this week, too.

Easily missed in the wild action was the big play these short throws set up. Midway through the second quarter, Jalen Hurts faked the quick receiver screen to freeze the Rebel defensive back. That gave Gehrig Dieter space up the sideline for a 30-yard reception. The heavy dosage of receiver screens made the DB jump the route.

tidefanbeezer · Sep 19, 2016

Bulk was in the first half. I think the issue was that they weren't working and we kept doing them. Moved away from it in the second half.

RTR91 · Sep 19, 2016

tidefanbeezer said:
Bulk was in the first half. I think the issue was that they weren't working and we kept doing them. Moved away from it in the second half.

Good thing Casagrande has a breakdown in the article.

Bamabuzzard · Sep 19, 2016

At first blush those plays seem fruitless but running those plays at the start of the game serves a purpose that doesn't show until later in the game. It forces the defense to defend the entire field. It forces them to align their defense to account for those plays. Because if they do not those plays get chunk yards real quick. Once you convince them (in the first half) that those plays are apart of your offense they begin adjusting their defense accordingly. Which softens up the middle and allows for chunk running plays in the second half when they are spread thin by alignment and are also dog tired. It's not pretty to watch at first, but there is a method to the madness.

bamaslammer · Sep 19, 2016

Last year they didn't work well either but as the season wore on the WR's starting blocking them better and they became more effective. Having said that in my opinion the main purpose of the stuff is to tire out the D and force them to cover the entire field to set up stuff for later.

JustNeedMe81 · Sep 19, 2016

Clemson game is perfect. OJ Howard.

92tide · Sep 19, 2016

RTR91 said:
Someone brought these up in the Damian Harris thread. Repeat what I said there, people were tired of the jet sweeps until the end of the Tennessee game.

And there's no arguing the screen passes last year helped win the national championship.

Casagrande shows us how they helped this week, too.

iirc, we got a (maybe a couple) of very nice gains saturday on basically the same play derrick ran for a td vs tennessee

TideEngineer08 · Sep 19, 2016

They serve a purpose. It's frustrating. But it's kind of like running off tackle a bunch even though it may only be picking up a yard or two. Those safeties start creeping up to the LOS and then you burn them with play action.

RTR91 · Sep 19, 2016

TideEngineer08 said:
They serve a purpose. It's frustrating. But it's kind of like running off tackle a bunch even though it may only be picking up a yard or two. Those safeties start creeping up to the LOS and then you burn them with play action.

Bingo. Those fans complaining are fine with those plays, though. Those are the "tough earned yards," not "gimmicky."

tidefanbeezer · Sep 19, 2016

RTR91 said:
Good thing Casagrande has a breakdown in the article.

Yep. And 13 plays for 30 yards (2.3 yards per play) to me is ineffective when we were running the ball well in zone read and direct hand off situations (6.6 YPC in the 1st half between Harris and Jacobs) and you have true freshman QB making his first road start in the SEC.

selmaborntidefan · Sep 19, 2016

Not only do I think the Ridley direct snap was by design - I think the whole "only ten men on the field" was by design. Note that the guy who came out (Dieter) forced them to start thinking, "Huh, yeah, okay" and then the direct snap offset the defense's anticipated timing, too - and Ridley scored.

I may be wrong, but I think it was ALL be design and was Spurrier-esque in its design.

TideEngineer08 · Sep 19, 2016

RTR91 said:
Bingo. Those fans complaining are fine with those plays, though. Those are the "tough earned yards," not "gimmicky."

I've been guilty of it. But the proof is in the pudding.

stlimprov · Sep 19, 2016

Some plays are a litmus test: less about the immediate result than what it indicates about defensive game plan and reactions. If you look at it as an proper experiment, the first few are narrowing down what criteria you're going to measure in the second set, which is intended to set up a reliable read for the third set.

tidefanbeezer · Sep 19, 2016

TideEngineer08 said:
They serve a purpose. It's frustrating. But it's kind of like running off tackle a bunch even though it may only be picking up a yard or two. Those safeties start creeping up to the LOS and then you burn them with play action.

I understand they serve a purpose. So does picking up 6 yards a carry with your RBs (the off tackle situation you reference). For me the disconnect is that if both achieve the same result, why would you keep doing the jets/screens if they are netting ~2 yards per play? Why not run the off tackle for 6 yards per?

RTR91 · Sep 19, 2016

tidefanbeezer said:
Yep. And 13 plays for 30 yards (2.3 yards per play) to me is ineffective when we were running the ball well in zone read and direct hand off situations (6.6 YPC in the 1st half between Harris and Jacobs) and you have true freshman QB making his first road start in the SEC.

tidefanbeezer said:
I understand they serve a purpose. So does picking up 6 yards a carry with your RBs (the off tackle situation you reference). For me the disconnect is that if both achieve the same result, why would you keep doing the jets/screens if they are netting ~2 yards per play? Why not run the off tackle for 6 yards per?

Again, the yards might not come in the particular plays but come later when the defense adjusts. I don't have the time to do it right now, but I'm curious as to how many successful running plays happened after a player came in motion or with OM aligned wide to defend the width of the field.

tidefanbeezer · Sep 19, 2016

RTR91 said:
Again, the yards might not come in the particular plays but come later when the defense adjusts. I don't have the time to do it right now, but I'm curious as to how many successful running plays happened after a player came in motion or with OM aligned wide to defend the width of the field.

I think that would interesting. See the post above this one. For me, there is a disconnect - if the off tackle and the jet/screen both cause safety creep, why not take the one that yields more yards and moves the safeties up?

My crude analysis doesn't take into account the pre-snap motion. Will be interesting to see if you find that motion helped/hurt the running game.

92tide · Sep 19, 2016

selmaborntidefan said:
Not only do I think the Ridley direct snap was by design - I think the whole "only ten men on the field" was by design. Note that the guy who came out (Dieter) forced them to start thinking, "Huh, yeah, okay" and then the direct snap offset the defense's anticipated timing, too - and Ridley scored.

I may be wrong, but I think it was ALL be design and was Spurrier-esque in its design.

i also noticed that hurts seemed to act like he was confused at what happened.

How effective Alabama's screen passes/jet sweeps were at Ole Miss

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