Virginia Tech Must Corral Cincinnati's Passing Attack

When Virginia Tech faces the Cincinnati Bearcats in the Military Bowl on December 27th, they'll be playing against one of the better offenses in college football. Cincinnati is averaging 457 yards per game (29th nationally), and F/+ ranks them as the 25th overall offense. The Bearcats particularly shine when passing the ball, averaging just over 300 yards per game (13th nationally). Bud Foster strives to make each opponent Tech defends one dimensional in order to force the opposition into predictable situations so he can call the perfect blitz or coverage. His strategy will be no different as he prepares for the Bearcats. He'll try to limit Cincinnati's modest, but efficient, run game while also stifling the screen game they use to stretch defenses horizontally.

The Run Game

Like most pass-first spread teams, when Cincinnati does run it'll be to attack a defense that's keeping too few bodies in the box. On film I saw Cincinnati's run game go after defenses that kept two safeties deep, as they must feel it puts the defense's "alley defender" in a no-win situation. Ohio State was one of the teams that frequently aligned with two deep safeties when Cincinatti had four wide receivers on the field.

Ohio State is attempting to prevent Cincinnati from gaining any long plays down the field by keeping two safeties back. The Buckeyes are also relying on their slot defenders to help stop the run and short pass game. However, Cincinnati feels that those slot defenders are being asked to do too much and, if read correctly, will always be in the wrong spot to make a play.

As long as the offensive line makes their blocks and the quarterback makes the correct read, the offense should pick up positive yardage on this play. Gunner Kiel, the starting quarterback for the Bearcats, is similar to Michael Brewer in that he has "first down" speed. If defenders aren't careful he is capable of pulling that ball on the zone read and picking up important yardage.

If Cincinnati feels that the alley defenders are aligned too far to the inside of the slot receiver, they have a lot of success throwing the bubble screen to the slot. If thrown against the right leverage, this pass is a high percentage play which picks up decent yardage just about every time.

You can see how frustrating this play can be to defend. The throw wasn't even a good one, it prevented the receiver from getting his momentum heading up the field, but because of the space the slot defender's alignment gave him the receiver still picked up three yards. On top of that, look who ended up making the tackle. The safety, not the slot defender, was the one who came all the way over to the sideline to prevent an even bigger gain. When the Bearcats start to see the safeties making the tackles on those screen passes, they can start using double moves off of fake bubble screens to attack an aggressive defense down the field.

As soon as it became clear that the safety was the only one in position to make the tackle on those screens, this long pass was a forgone conclusion. The corner on the outside should have safety help, but the safety is too busy getting in position to defend against the fake screen. This is why it's so dangerous to allow Cincinnati the space to dink and dunk their way down the field. No matter how much players are coached up, it's only a matter of time before their instincts betray them and they get caught with their eyes in the wrong spot. When that happens, that safe two deep safety formation breaks down in a hurry.

Running a basic draw is another way that the Bearcats will try to pick up easy yardage when a defense is too focused on protecting against the pass. Once again, this is most effective against defenses which keep two safeties deep.

Watch Ohio State's defender who is lined up on the innermost receiver at the bottom of the formation. He is the defender whose alignment is being exploited. It's impossible for him to defend the stick route that innermost receiver is running as well as support against the run. Gunner Kiel freezes him by staring him down for a tick after the snap which allows the offensive line to secure their blocks. From here, Kiel can just hand the ball off and there's nothing the defense can do but hope one of their athletes makes a great play. If that doesn't happen, then Cincinnati can expect to pick up good yardage... and they do. So how does Foster go about shutting down this package from Cincinnati? I expect we'll see fewer two deep safety looks from Virginia Tech than Cincinnati saw when they played Ohio State.

Foster will take one of those slot defenders and move them towards the line of scrimmage, into press coverage. Then he'll take the other and move him towards the line of scrimmage. Lastly, he'll split up those two deep safeties, moving one into press coverage on the other slot receiver. The remaining safety will drop deep down the middle of the field to help cover up any deep mistakes in coverage.

Just look at how much more aggressive this defensive alignment is compared to what Ohio State was showing against Cincinnati. Virginia Tech has six defenders in the box (as opposed to Ohio State's five) and the slot defenders are right up in the face of the receivers. The bubble screen is out of the question here and the offense doesn't have enough blockers to run the ball. Foster is not a fan of the "bend but don't break" defense. He is going to try and get a three-and-out every possession.

Preventing The Big Play

Bringing a safety down into man coverage just to keep a linebacker in the box is a high risk strategy—one that has burned Foster this season. By packing bodies near the line of scrimmage and taking away any horizontal space, Foster will invite Cincinnati to attack vertically. It's worked in the past for Tech because it's forced the offense to go after the most talented unit on the defense, the secondary. However, the ECU game taught us what can happen when an offense is used to completing low percentage passes down the field again and again. Cincinnati, like ECU, has wide receivers who have had plenty of practice going over a defender to make a play on the ball.

Nothing too complicated here, Ohio State is in a basic cover 2 look. The slot receiver gets vertical and the safety is a little too slow to turn and run with the receiver which prevents him from being in position to make a play on the underthrown ball. Instead, his back is turned and the best he can do is throw his hands up and hope to get lucky with a deflection. When he doesn't, the receiver makes a great play on the ball and strolls in for six.

Week in and week out Foster has schemed his defensive game plans on the assumption that his secondary is better than his opponents' receivers. Against Cincinnati expect for Foster to use a numbers advantage in the box as well as press coverage on the slot to force Tommy Tuberville's team to take shots down the field. That's how much Foster trusts his secondary, he often overplays the run and screen game to funnel deep passes towards them. Sometimes that trust isn't rewarded, as we saw against ECU. However, when the players rise to the occasion and win their battles, it is a sight to behold. Just ask Ohio State and Urban Meyer.