William and Mary Film Review: Simple Game Plan, Major Production

The first game of the 2014 season is over and Hokie Nation has a lot to be excited about. Frank Beamer's squad is undefeated and showed that there's reason to be cautiously optimistic about next week's chances against Ohio State. The defense looked rusty in spots, but did show a knack for creating negative plays and forcing turnovers. Virginia Tech was able to rely on their talent advantage and smart quarterback play to put up almost 500 yards of offense, looking downright competent at times. I almost feel foolish getting too hyped up about a win over an FCS opponent, but it's hard to watch that game and feel like things aren't heading in the right direction for Frank Beamer and company.

Simplified Game Plans

It became obvious early in the game on Saturday that William and Mary was going to focus on keeping everything in front of them defensively. They didn't want to give the Hokie offense anything cheap down the field, and against a more talented Tech team, that was probably the correct strategy. W&M head coach Jimmye Laycock wanted to force the Hokies into extended drives to increase the likelihood that his defense could make a big play or give more opportunities to the offense to shoot itself in the foot. Tech's offense was so inconsistent last year that William and Mary figured eventually they'd get the Hokies into a third-and-long situation or get lucky with a turnover.

On a third-and-short play, William and Mary uses a Cover-2 scheme. They kept two safeties deep to prevent anything from getting over their head and relied on their linebackers to help with any routes that broke underneath their umbrella. It's a very conservative play call. William and Mary isn't bringing any additional pass rushers or pressing the receivers at the line of scrimmage. They know that if Virginia Tech's wide receivers and quarterback are on the same page, and if the offensive line wins their blocking assignments, someone will get open. William and Mary is banking on the fact that no offense plays perfectly 100% of the time.

Loeffler loves playing against Cover-2 schemes because it invites throwing the ball short to his athletic tight ends.

Bucky Hodges runs a corner route, which forces the field outside linebacker and the middle linebacker to get depth. Malleck is aligned to the inside and threatens the boundary outside linebacker with a crossing route before planting his foot and turning away. He has the size and leverage advantage against the linebacker for what should be an easy first down catch.

William and Mary's "wait and see" approach paid off on this play. The receivers ran the right routes, the right man got open, the offensive line made their blocks, Brewer recognized the coverage and found his man. Tech just got unlucky because of a tipped ball. Despite this turnover, I couldn't help but feel encouraged by the state of the offense. It was clearly more capable of taking what the defense gave it than last year's team.

On this second-and-long play, William and Mary is once again in its two deep shell. Using three receivers at the top of the formation, Tech has a distinct numbers advantage once the Tribe only places two defenders to match up. Right after the snap the safeties get depth and Brewer finds Byrn for an easy six yard gain.

Time and time again the Tribe conceded the short throw towards the sideline, and Brewer had a field day completing those short passes to a multitude of different receivers. Loeffler has a firm grasp on west coast passing concepts and I think he is perfectly content throwing underneath all game long. He has said time and again that his primary goal as a playcaller is to protect the football. If he doesn't need to throw the ball down the field, he's not going to do it. By taking those high percentage throws, Loeffler stays ahead of the chains, avoids sacks and interceptions, and forces the defense to make tackles against his skill players in space.

Even with Kalvin Cline out, the tight ends were a huge factor in the passing game. As was hinted at during training camp, Bucky Hodges and Ryan Malleck spent much of their day spread away from the tackle box. This forced William and Mary's linebackers into space and allowed Hodges and Malleck to use their size and speed advantages in the passing game. Regardless of who the competition is, I expect these two will be matchup nightmares the rest of the season.

The Quick Screen and the Zone Read

One thing that the offense did really well on Saturday was use quick swing screens to slot receivers to open up the inside zone and the zone read play from shotgun. Early in Virginia Tech's first drive it's apparent that William and Mary's outside linebackers aren't paying enough attention to the two tight ends in the slot.

Right off the bat, the first thing that we notice is how much of a pain it must be for defensive coordinators to face Bucky Hodges and Ryan Malleck. With two wide receivers, two tight ends and a running back in the game the defense has to keep three linebackers in. When Loeffler lines those two athletic tight ends out in the slot, William and Mary has to flex their linebackers outside if they want to keep their two safeties deep. From here, the outside linebackers have the dual responsibility of covering Hodges and Malleck and providing run support.

By trying to prevent the long ball and use their OLB's in run support, the defense has lost all leverage on the slot receivers. If the WR's can seal the corners to the inside, the tight ends can make the catch and pick up good yardage before a safety or inside pursuit can make a tackle.

That is a very high percentage throw for some very easy yardage. Tech would go on to score that drive and on their next possession Loeffler goes right back to the well.

The impact it has on the defense can be seen immediately. The very next play the outside linebackers take a wider alignment to help keep their leverage on the screen play, which leaves them out of position to help on an inside run. With every box defender accounted for—five offensive linemen vs. four defensive linemen and a middle linebacker—Brewer hands the ball off to Marshawn. Williams picks up what would have been a first down if not for a (questionable) holding penalty.

These two plays (one screen, one run) may look different because two different players ended up with the ball, but it's likely that the play call for both was identical. This is called a "packaged play", something that is all the rage in football nowadays. The quarterback has multiple options before he snaps the ball (hand it off or throw the screen) and it's up to him to make the correct decision based on the alignment of the defense. Usually, the only player that knows what's going to happen is the quarterback.

Take a look at both of those plays again, every player other than the quarterback does the same thing. The wide receivers either block or run a screen route, the running back meshes with the quarterback for a handoff, the offensive line zone blocks to their right. It's the same exact play. If the outside linebackers line up in the box, throw the screen. If they take away the screen, hand the ball off. To call this package, Loeffler must have faith in his quarterback to see the field correctly and to know what to do with the ball based on what the defense is giving him. It also helps to have multiple skill players who can hurt the defense when given the chance.

We saw this same backfield action in the second half and the results were the same. By the then, it was obvious that Laycock wasn't interested in seeing those tight ends or wide receivers catch wide open screen passes and instead rolled the dice on his front stopping the run. That gamble didn't pay off for him.

William and Mary is making it quite easy for Tech here. There is no linebacker in between Marshawn and the first down line. All three linebackers start the play by moving away from the ballcarrier and have to stop and redirect.

It's no surprise that Williams picks up the first down. He's a powerful back that can be really dangerous when he gets going downhill. Shai Mckenzie showed he's just as (if not more) dangerous when given a seam. Later in the drive, Shai comes on to give Marshawn a spell and comes close to making something special happen.

If you're sick of watching this play by now, imagine how sick the Tribe defenders were playing against it. Shai gets the handoff with, again, no linebackers in sight. The front-five for Tech manhandles the defensive line and Shai takes off. The OLB to the field comes up to make the tackle in the hole and Shai nearly makes him miss. The backer gets juked but manages to grab a hold of just enough leg to trip him up. Otherwise, McKenzie would have at least picked up the first.

Keeping It Simple

Scot Loeffler loves playing his cards close to his chest.With a big matchup against Ohio State coming up, he didn't show anymore of his playbook than he had to. Using these packaged plays gives the illusion of variety, but there's not a lot of complicated things going on out there. The formations, the personnel groupings, the offensive concepts... he made sure that everything he put on film for Urban Meyer's staff was as basic as it gets. If William and Mary had come out and played really aggressively on defense, maybe the Hokies would have had to resorted to some different things. Instead, they were able to run vanilla plays and protect the ball while picking up the easy yardage that comes from giving the ball to athletes in space.

There's no way to watch that game against William and Mary and not feel at least slightly optimistic. The defense held W&M to less than 200 total yards, the offense almost had 500 yards, and the game was never in doubt after Chase Williams destroyed the Tribe QB and forced a fumble. I feel confident that the offense will be better than last year's, but I'm not sure yet just how good it will be. There's no doubt that there are more players in maroon and orange capable of hurting an opponent, but this wasn't a great game to show what the offense is truly made of.

Last week I wrote about the efficiency and explosiveness of an offense and how the two are related. On Saturday we saw an opponent try to take away the offense's ability to be explosive and force Tech to efficiently move the ball and stay ahead of the chains. Loeffler's unit passed that test with flying colors, but what about when an opponent decides to get aggressive? How will the offense react when a team, like Ohio State for example, decides to play tight to the line of scrimmage and take away the offense's operating room? Are the newcomers who looked so good when given room to operate (Bucky, Malleck, Shai, Marshawn, Ford, Phillips) capable of making those difficult plays down the field? Or will the offense struggle to force defenses to back off like it did last year? The game on Saturday didn't provide answers to those questions but one thing is for certain, we won't have to wait long to find out.