The Seduction of the Inverted Veer: Running Game Reviewed

One of the narratives stemming from the Duke game from media outlets and fans alike is criticism of Scot Loeffler. On Tuesday, Daily Press scribe David Teel tweeted that the Hokies were, "averaging an #ACC-worst 21.5 points per game. On pace for program's most anemic season since 1989's 18.5.". Others have commented on both on Twitter and within our community that the offense has regressed under Loeffler. I think both viewpoints lose track of the bigger picture.

• Scoring numbers are down for the Hokies in part because Virginia Tech found itself trailing early and often at the beginning of last season. Tech had to throw the ball down the field in an attempt to get back into games. This season, the Hokies have maintained leads and have been in the position to kill the clock more often. The focus has been on working the clock through short runs and passes underneath zone coverage. Last season, Tech finished 57th nationally in possession time (30:08). This year they rank 19th (32:43).
• When I review the film, a cohesive offensive system is in place. Multiple plays are run from a variety of formations, each play has a counter which makes it difficult to defend, and formation and alignment are designed to garner favorable matchups. Loeffler has been able to get guys open despite having a special teams guy (Byrn), three guys with very little football experience (Knowles, Cline, and Stanford), and a hobbled veteran in D.J. Coles, none of whom have consistently shown the ability to get separation or go up and bail out the quarterback. I think he has done an excellent job of building an offense with receivers who each bring something, but not the complete package to the table.
• A tremendous amount of responsibility has been placed on Logan Thomas' shoulders. When he plays well, the Hokies likely will win. Thomas played better than Tom Savage versus Pitt. The Hokies won. On Saturday, Thomas played a poor football game. Even those of us, like me, who ardently state that Logan is the quarterback and should remain the quarterback unless injured can recognize that Logan had receivers open last Saturday, and either missed them or didn't throw to them. Against Duke, Logan seemed to miss read options on both veer and inverted veer. Regardless of play calling, if Logan makes the correct decision on only 3 or 4 more plays, the Hokies win against the Blue Devils.

During the bye week, we heard that the Hokie running game was being tightened up, and that the Hokies would self-scout and cut chafe out of the playbook. In my review of the running game, I concluded that Loeffler re-establish the zone running game that he had so much success with at Auburn. That would alleviate some of the running burden from Logan Thomas, and establish a credible running threat that would cause defenders to bite on play-action from ace sets.

On the first couple of series in the Duke game, it appeared that Loeffler had come to the same conclusion. Three of the first four running plays that Loeffler called were zone blocking concepts from the one back formation with Logan under center.

On the opening play of the game, the Hokies ran a stretch to the left. Note the formation. The Hokies align tight end Darius Redman on the right side, and align fullback Sam Rogers as an H-Back to the left. The Hokies also align their two receivers to the left side. The Hokies run the play to the passing strength of the formation, but away from Redman.

00:00:39–00:00:47

At the snap, the offensive line takes a hard zone step to the left, with Jonathan McLaughlin forcing the Duke defensive end to widen out with him. McLaughlin gets outside leverage on the end without overextending and allowing the end to cut inside and up field to disrupt the play. This is the critical block. As long as none of the other linemen are beaten to the inside, Edmunds can attack the edge or can get his shoulder turned and cut up the field.

Watching the play develop, the focus shifts to the skill position players. Willie Byrn effectively option stalk blocks one defensive back, but Josh Stanford overruns his guy to the inside and loses outside leverage. At this point, Edmunds likely sees that missed block and knows that even if Sam Rogers gets the player that Stanford missed, there will be one unblocked man on the edge. By cutting back, Rogers allows Stanford to suddenly have inside leverage on the play. He takes two hard steps, plants his outside leg and moves back.

Now, rewind the film to take a look at the penalty. It appears that the Hokies have adopted a technique I called for last year called a "roll it" block. (Mason has used the term "pin and pull.") Andrew Miller and Brent Benedict both engage the back side defensive end. Perhaps Benedict was supposed to give ground and curl around behind Miller to move to the linebacker, but Benedict is making contact high and Miller cut blocks the end. It doesn't look like an intentional chop block, but it certainly makes the hole that much bigger. Edmunds hits the seam, and gets 8 tough yards.

On the second drive of the game, Loeffler again features the zone stretch. Again, he aligns Redman away from the strength of the passing formation. Again, they run away from the tight end behind Rogers, Stanford, and this time Knowles. The variation is the motion, which gives Stanford and Byrn a bit of inside out leverage. Benedict, instead of trying to reach the end like McLaughlin did earlier, instead puts his head on the inside shoulder and drives the end to the sidelines.

00:01:33–00:01:41

Miller gets downhill, and Wang does an outstanding job of reaching the defensive tackle. Edmunds reads off of Benedict's block, and cuts inside for a nice chunk gain of six yards. The only blocking error is on Sam Rogers. The strike safety flies forward to force the play inside, and Rogers overruns him. Fortunately, Edmunds makes such a decisive cut that the Duke defender flies by.

Later on the drive, Loeffler calls one more zone, this time back to the left, again following the H-Back and twin receivers and away from the tight end.

00:01:52–00:01:58

A beautiful seam forms, but Edmunds trips on his jump cut and falls forward for three yards. McLaughlin again throws a terrific block, aided by a Duke stunt inside.

On all three plays, the Hokies gained solid yardage. The offensive line not only completed their assignments, but got downhill on Duke and drove them off the football. The way it looked, we should have expected Loeffler to dial up the zone stretch at least 15 times. Yet, it vanished. by my count, It was called only one more time the entire game, the 4th-and-1 in the 3rd quarter where Edmunds was inexplicably stopped when he appeared to have a hole.

Instead, Loeffler changed course mid-stream to focus on running power plays from the pistol and read option with both jet sweep action and a tailback aligned in a traditional shotgun. Loeffler used some new wrinkles (both a tailback counter off of inverted veer and a quarterback counter, both with two lead blockers pulling across the formation) but the zone stretch was abandoned. Oddly, Loeffler continued to attempt using play-action off the zone stretch action. In fact, Logan Thomas' first interception was an overthrow to a wide open Josh Stanford on a post pattern.

Loeffler started to feature a power concept from both the I, ace, and pistol formations. The Hokies blocked the play side tackle and guard down, and then pulled the back side guard to lead through on the offensive line. They used it on short yardage (note the beautiful back side seal block by David Wang).

00:02:06–00:02:11

In the second quarter, Loeffler featured the same power concept from the pistol formation. On a long drive, Loeffler hurried the offense up, calling no huddle and running the same power play three times in a row for significant yardage.

00:06:51–00:07:08

Essentially, the play is blocked almost exactly the same way that the inverted veer is blocked, except the tight end blocks down inside instead of taking the veer step outside.

Again, sustained success in the running game, but the power lead also seemed to go away. Edmunds got a couple of touches in the second half, but too few to make any kind of difference. Even more baffling, Loeffler (or whoever is in charge of the tailback rotation) decided to use J.C. Coleman as a goal line tailback. He also decided to run the power behind Kalvin Cline, who was replaced by Rogers and Redman on every power and zone play up to that point. This utilization of personnel defies reason, and despite an excellent lead block by Derrick Hopkins, Coleman ran into the back of Cline and couldn't push the pile into the endzone.

Meanwhile, as the game progressed, Duke maintained their lead, and Logan Thomas continued to play tighter and tighter, Loeffler relied more and more on the inverted veer. I get that the inverted veer is a terrific weapon, and Thomas ended up with 101 yards on 24 carries. But, in a game where Thomas wasn't sacked and was only hurried a couple of times, he took a pounding. Imagine for a moment how an NFL coach would react to his quarterback taking those additional hits. If the Hokies were an option team, I could understand it. But, the Hokies are dependent on Thomas to be a proficient passer in the pocket. I can't believe that all those hits are not having some impact on Thomas's consistency.

I fear that Loeffler has been seduced by the prospects of having that power runner at quarterback. It is too easy to see Thomas push the pile for a first down, or burst up the middle for a long gain to not be tempted to go back to the well time and again. I can't imagine there is any reason for Loeffler to rely so heavily on Thomas, as his running backs were very successful at both Temple and Auburn. Bernard Pierce, Onterio McCalebb, and Tre Mason all rushed for well over 5 yards per carry, with Pierce and Mason gaining over 1,000 yards. Thomas is too tempting, and Loeffler can't seem to help himself when things get tight.

It doesn't help when drives are derailed by the occasional poor reads on the veer that continue to creep up in Thomas' game.

00:02:11–00:02:19

The Duke defensive end comes way up field, clearly taking away Coleman on the jet sweep. Thomas should be able to read this easily, and a huge hole opens up in the middle. Instead, Coleman gets eaten up, and the Hokies are backed up to second-and-11. With the lack of big play production, 2nd-and-11 is a situation Tech can't afford to be in. Those poor reads serve as drive killers, and if Thomas can't almost completely eliminate them, the inverted veer won't butter the bread. Instead, I believe the Hokies would be well served to incorporate the inverted veer on occasion, and make sure that Thomas reads it perfectly. If they can do it, Thomas can make 100 yards on 12 carries instead of 24. I continue to think that Mangus makes the jet sweep more dangerous, especially on play-action off the inverted veer motion. There's no questioning Coleman's effort, but right now, Mangus may bring more to the table given he has more polished receiving skills.

So, now the Hokies are four days away from a trip to Boston College. The Eagles will play their tough 4-3 defense and will keep everything in front of them just like Duke did. The Hokies offensive line played their best game since Alabama against Duke. If Virginia Tech can get a similar performance from their blockers, Scot Loeffler must trust Trey Edmunds to remove the running burden from Logan Thomas, and then focus on Thomas beating teams with his arm until his legs are absolutely necessary.