Justin Fuente and Offensive Game Plans: Mitigating Talent Differential

Justin Fuente understands Virginia Tech's offensive scheme doesn't need to be overly complex to be successful. It's one of his strengths as a head coach and offensive strategist. His play structure forces the defense to defend the entire field, and each formation threatens a defense in multiple ways. I previously highlighted how Fuente employs a diverse series of running plays and play-action off of one simple formation combined with repetitive pre-snap motion. Rather than adjusting week to week, the defense will key on the repetition, which makes it much easier to influence them out of position with counters and play-action.

I analyzed a series Memphis ran against Ole Miss towards the end of their win over the Rebels last season. Keep in mind that Ole Miss had elite defensive and offensive talent and was weeks removed from off an impressive win against Alabama. After watching Memphis film from both 2015 and 2014, I thought that the Tigers' talent level was actually down a bit last season. Fuente's scheme had to fool the Rebels some in order for Memphis to have a chance to win the game.

Memphis' offensive structure completely kept Ole Miss off balance. Perhaps this two-play series illustrates it best. As you watch, focus on the outside linebacker/safety to the double running back side.

To start, here is the play-action running back circle route I reviewed in my last column. The linebacker has been conditioned to widen out because the jet sweep has been effective most of the game. Here, the linebacker comes forward to stop the sweep and the tailback (who usually lead blocks on the sweep) slips inside of him and is wide open on the circle route.

On the next play, Memphis runs the inverted veer jet sweep. This time, the tight end blocks down and the edge player hesitates instead of widening out because he just got beat on the circle route. This allows H-Back Alan Cross (No. 40) to reach the edge player and drive him to the inside, which gives the jet sweep a clear path to the end zone.

Cross along with tailback Doroland Dorceus (No. 28) both deliver great blocks on the edge. Sam Craft (No. 11) comes around and walks in for the touchdown. If the Ole Miss edge player widens out immediately, there would be no room for the back to run on the boundary. The slight scheme change up completely took the edge player out of position

The Invention of the Inverted Veer and Mixing it Up

Perhaps Fuente's most talked about innovation — the inverted veer — came during his stint as TCU's co-offensive coordinator.

Virginia Tech's hire of Justin Fuente is excellent. Also, I am pretty sure he invented the Inverted Veer/Power Read: https://t.co/plcPTlYJpb— Chris B. Brown (@smartfootball) December 1, 2015

"They ran just one play that we hadn't seen on film – but it was a good one," then Clemson defensive coordinator Kevin Steele said in 2009.

Clemson's defense looked silly as Andy Dalton ripped off chunks of yardage on the ground time and again.

"They were spreading us out and forcing us to play one linebacker and forcing that one linebacker to play two gaps," Clemson linebacker Brandon Maye added. "All you can say is they did a good job scheming us up."

Present day, the inverted veer is a heavily studied well used staple of many spread offenses, yet Fuente still makes adjustments that succeed. The repetition of Fuente running the same plays again and again with tremendous effort and execution conditions defenses to look for specific keys to help stop those bread and butter plays. When Fuente determines that a defense is reading those keys, he engineers subtle changes to influence the defense out of position.

Here is an example of Fuente changing up the inverted veer. H-Back Daniel Montiel (No. 80) changes up his blocking rule. Instead of opening his hips and stepping to his right on a veer release outside, he steps inside with his left foot at the snap.

For a defensive end reading keys, an inside step by the H-Back means the DE needs to beat him to the inside gap. The end bites hard inside and the Montiel reverses and cuts the play-side outside linebacker. Also, you can see the impact of the tailback aligned on the right side. The tailback opens up and heads out to block the edge. The safety flies up and to the outside to make sure that he doesn't get reached. The outside linebacker also takes a wide angle in response to: 1) Reading the H-Back's false key, and 2) Seeing the back breaking his tail to reach the corner. That linebacker gets so wide that Montiel just has to put his body in between the linebacker and the center of the field. He executes the block, and the slot has a wide open path to the touchdown.

The inverted veer also puts tremendous pressure on the Bearcats' linebackers. The Cincinnati middle linebacker has to respect the quarterback dive while still getting to the outside to take the sweep. He freezes just enough so the pulling left guard can seal him. The play also is successful without a dominant block at the point of attack. The safety and the linebacker take themselves out of the play because of the tailback busting out to the edge. The guard just gets enough of the inside linebacker and the corner isn't supporting because he has man coverage responsibility. The backfield movement causes the Bearcats to open up the hole themselves. As I watched film of Fuente's offense, this is a common occurrence. The scheme overcame the need for dominance.

Beating the Best: Blocking J.J. Watt by Not Blocking Him

As savvy as the inverted veer innovation was, it wasn't the most impressive scheme adjustment I saw watching film of Fuente's offenses. That honor goes to Fuente's game plan against the man who is now widely recognized as the best defensive lineman in the NFL: J.J. Watt. TCU faced off against Watt and Wisconsin in the 2011 Rose Bowl. TCU was undefeated, but didn't feature top-end offensive line talent capable of controlling Watt. Prior to the game, Watt and the Wisconsin defense had only given up seven rushing touchdowns in 2010. TCU was a run-first offense with two future NFL players in quarterback Andy Dalton and receiver Jeremy Kerley. How would Fuente prevent Watt from ruining the Horned Frogs' perfect season?

Fuente's bold strategy was to avoid blocking Watt entirely on key running downs and instead option him. Fuente aligned twin receivers to the wide side of the field along with a tight end and an H-Back to the boundary where Watt was aligned. From this alignment, the offensive line would zone block hard to the wide side. The tight end and the H-Back veer released hard to the boundary side, with the tight end blocking outside and the H-Back hesitating and then sealing the outside edge linebacker after the tight end clears. The wide release by the tight end causes the linebacker to stay wide, which allowed the H-Back to seal him easily to the outside.

Here is a terrific example. The offensive line zone blocks to the left, while the tight end veer releases and the H-Back slips behind him to seal the outside linebacker to the outside.

Watt is unblocked and flies to the zone run fake. Dalton steps outside and has a beautiful alley to run up into for 10 yards and a first down.

Fuente continued to use a variety of change ups to confuse Watt, including some quarterback draws where the offensive line basically let Watt get up the field untouched. Time and time again Watt took himself out of the play. Finally when Fuente needed a critical third-and-short conversion in the red zone, he came back to the inside zone read with the two tight ends to Watt's side.

This time Wisconsin blitzes a linebacker on the boundary side. Watt now has outside contain, yet he still gets seduced by the run action and dive fake. Dalton pulls the ball and wins the race to the corner of the end zone against Watt. For X's and O's guys like me, this play design and execution is a thing of beauty.

Perhaps most impressive is the level of execution and discipline by Fuente's skill players. These are not highly recruited kids or All-American talents. However, they run every fake and execute every block with tremendous effort and desperation. The speed with which the skill position players carry out their fakes makes a defense commit to defending every option on a play. They don't give away which play is coming. The blockers may be out-talented, yet they stay engaged on their block and stick with it enough to allow the influence of the blocking scheme run the defense out of position. That doesn't happen unless the coach is able to sell his scheme and the players buy in. Recruiting will take time to turn around, yet I am confident Justin Fuente will improve the offensive production of the Virginia Tech program by leaps and bounds. In order to do it, he understands what kind of players he needs and will recruit more to those needs than to recruiting rankings. If the offensive players buy in this season, and he is able to get the level of quarterback play he produced with Lynch and Dalton from one of the current quarterbacks on the roster, we could see a really special season from the offensive unit.