Sarkisian's opening run game

On3 imageby:Ian Boyd09/07/21

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Texas has been in pursuit of a physical, smashmouth run game for some time now. Mack Brown’s Longhorns ventured away from it during the Colt McCoy era and as part of his attempt to process the trauma of losing Colt and the National Championship in 2009, Mack wanted to get it back. After Greg Davis struggled to produce a power run game with a completely retooled offensive line and Cody Johnson in 2010, Mack replaced him with Bryan Harsin.

Harsin brought a system from Boise State with multiple personnel packages, multiple run schemes, and an emphasis on probing play-calling which set up defenses and aimed to pick them apart with feints, steady gains, and then suddenly the well-timed deep shot. As I was rewatching Texas’ opener against Louisiana and charting all the running plays they used, I got a heavy sense of deja vu. “It’s really as though Texas hired Bryan Harsin to be the new head coach…”

On reflection, not only is Steve Sarkisian a philosophic cousin of Harsin’s, but he even made the exact same sort of defensive coordinator hire Harsin might have done in bringing aboard Pete Kwiatkowski from the Chris Petersen/Boise State coaching tree. Just something for contemplation.

Here’s the run game Texas deployed against the Cajuns.

Let’s begin with some caveats.

Texas ran multiple varieties of outside zone and inside zone which I lumped together. They also ran some of what might have been “Duo” and not “inside zone.” Which was it? I don’t really care and neither should you. The gist of it was they ran a straight ahead scheme with a lot of zone principles and no pulling blockers. One interesting quirk here though was the “Wild RoJo” run which was probably “duo” and featured Hudson Card split wide while Roschon Johnson plunged ahead for a two yard gain inside of the 10. Outside zone included some pulls and some wind backs by the H-back tight end on a few concepts. Wild RoJo has a lot of potential given Card’s athleticism and potential as a receiver combined with Johnson’s nose for the goal line.

Texas has a few different schemes which involve pulling a lineman around the edge, perhaps as many as four different concepts, but I lumped them into either “outside zone” or “pin and pull.” If Texas was blocking down on the edge and pulling linemen to the perimeter, I labelled it under “pin and pull.” If they pulled a lineman around the edge but also executed reach blocks rather than pin downs, I labelled it “outside zone.”

I don’t count sacks in these numbers, Hudson Card was sacked three times in this game. I did notice on review that many of what looked like at least slightly worrisome pass protection issues were not as alarming when broken down. They missed the corner blitz, obviously. Jared Wiley was torched for another one of those sacks and he’s A) a tight end and B) hurt. When Hudson Card was hit during a throw it was largely due to poor blitz pick-up by Bijan. The third sack happened on one of those play-action shots designed to look like an RPO. A linebacker ran through a hole and flushed Card and then the tackles were beat by ends who didn’t seem remotely fooled and went wide around them. All that to say, Texas’ protection issues looked more like Week 1 sloppiness then “these guys can’t move…”

If you didn’t see the box score…

  • Bijan Robinson: 20 carries, 103 yards, 5.2 ypc, one touchdown
  • Keilan Robinson: 8 carries, 41 yards, 5.2 ypc
  • Roschon Johnson: 8 carries, 27 yards. 3.4 ypc
  • Hudson Card: 3 carries, 13 yards, 4.3 ypc, one touchdown (sacks removed)

Am I going to do this every week? I don’t know…maybe. Texas’ emphasis on Bijan Robinson this season may make the run game worth tracking, but then the 20 personnel spread sets were pretty interesting as well and I’m not sure we want to neglect defense all season long.

Some other observations I had from watching more closely.

Jacob Majors played a good game. He handled Tayland Humphrey 1-on-1 a few times, particularly after they’d made him defend a few long drives in the heat. I imagine this will be a recurring theme for Texas when they face bigger nose tackles. Make ’em chase things around for a bit and then let Majors go to work. Hayden Conner looked solid in limited snaps but I’d venture to guess he may be better initially on inside zone rather than outside zone. Executing inside zone well is about covering up defensive linemen and getting push, whereas outside zone requires quickness and highly coordinated movements by the offensive line. Overall the line isn’t highly coordinated on outside zone yet but they have Majors, some athleticism, and then the cat-quick Robinsons (Bijan and Keilan) so it often works out pretty well.

They had a few different zone-option type schemes, sometimes giving the quarterback a keeper read (Card touchdown) but more often something like the early play where one running back is the inside zone runner and the other releases into the flat as another option for the quarterback if the end crashes.

In 20 personnel Texas ran three concepts. They had a lead draw play, a lead outside zone play (with one one back leading around the edge), and then some zone-option stuff which usually involved one of the backs as a flat route option for the quarterback. I’m sure they have a few more. They very notably ran one of the lead zone plays for Roschon with Bijan blocking, Sark isn’t going to allow defenses to slant or key on which way the play might be run based on which side Bijan is on. He’ll block too, not just run.

Overall the 20 personnel package is much better for spread passing sets with Bijan and/or Roschon flexed out as receivers than for the run game, although they certainly have enough in the run game to justify having the set on the field before it’s third and long. With the Sark hire Texas is not losing their ability to scheme slot receivers open on third down nor their ability to hurry to the line and get into a formation which can compromise defensive personnel when the opportunity arises. They’ve retained the ability to flex out tight ends and running backs.

There weren’t very many RPOs in this game. In fact, Texas occasionally motioned Joshua Moore (!!!) into the box to block on the edge like a tight end rather than giving him some sort of adjustable route to run to hold the safety. I can think of two reasons for this, one you’ll like and the other you will not. First I should say Moore, Marcus Washington, and Jordan Whittington could all be seen throwing good blocks on the edge in these scenarios. Overall the wide receiver blocking was better than I’ve seen in a while.

Reason one for not using as many RPOs could be they didn’t feel Moore was enough of a threat 1-on-1 against the corner to hold the safety deep so they had him block instead. Another reason might have been a desire to just play it safe, focus on running the ball, and save it for Arkansas/conference play. I think reason no. 2 is the real one, it’s possible reason no. 1 is also true but they probably would have at least tested it more if they’d needed the RPO dimension.

The better numbers on outside zone are not statistical noise. Not only was the play a steady concept for them (although inside zone was also pretty reliable) but it also produced longer runs of 17, 19, and 27 yards.

The battle for efficiency between 11 personnel and 12 personnel will be interesting to watch. 11 personnel was the more explosive running formation against Louisiana despite not including as many RPOs as I think we’ll see in future weeks, but 12 personnel can really pop a team by overextending the defensive front and Texas wasn’t at full strength at tight end.

It’ll be interesting to see how they attack Arkansas next Saturday and the extent to which RPOs are involved. I’m sure Sark would prefer to control the game via play-calling (as he did here) to the greatest extent possible. Then again, Texas controlled this game partly due to Card’s play-making on third downs. Eventually these two will be in greater sync as Sark dials up opportunities and Card improves at executing them, but in the meantime this quarterback’s Colt-like ability to extend plays and throw on the run is going to be a Godsend for their ability to maintain drives and establish the run.

This is a change from the Herman era, as Sark noted to our own Joe Cook:

“We have a real belief offensively that the more things we can do really well, the tougher we are to defend. And we don’t want to be a once dimensional team, so we should never really go into a game or have my openers with just one or two run schemes. We’re trying to tax our opponent physically. We’re also trying to tax them mentally to make sure that they’re playing all these runs the right way. If they’re not, then we’ll start to lean on those runs that are most effective for us. Quite frankly, we need four to five runs that we run really well.”

They’re getting there.

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