All-22 Breakdowns: Ryan Day's RZ approach

When an offense gets into the red zone, play calling tends to change and coaches use their “red zone” call chart. Every single coach in America has a call chart once they get into the red zone, but it differs from coach to coach.

Ryan Day's call chart for the red zone starts at the 20-yard-line. Day has three sections for the red zone to determine which plays he calls. From the 20 y/l to the 13 y/l, he calls this the hi-red. From the 12 y/l to the 4 y/l. it is the low-red. And then from the three-yard-line in, it is the goal line.

Here’s a quick video from his 2018 clinic talk to Ohio HS coaches. You’ll hear him talk about his call sheet and how he determines what he calls based on field position.

The following picture breaks down the red zone and how many plays they average a game in the red zone.

You’ll see that Day and his staff determined that they average 14 plays a game inside the red zone. With Ohio State averaging 85 snaps a game, 16-percent of their snaps come inside the goal line. You might think that 16-percent of 85 snaps is a small portion of the game, but being successful inside the red zone is a teller of winning on offense. Watch the video below to get a glimpse of his thought process of calling plays inside the red zone.

Day is communicating that a large chunk of the red zone call chart is coming from film study, and what tendencies they find on the opposing defense. Sometimes they ride the hot hand, but more times than not they have decided the red zone call chart of Wednesday of game week.

Space is the limiting factor when you get inside the 20, so you have to be creative on how to get your best guys the football. A huge factor inside the red zone was Justin Fields. According to PFF, Fields had a 90-percent PFF passing grade when inside the red zone, equating in 24 TD’s and 0 INT’s. So in the Buckeyes case in 2019, Justin Fields was the hot hand.

There are only so many things a defense can do when an offense gets into the red zone. The defenses objective is to limit the small space that the offense currently doesn’t have.

Because of limited space, there are only a certain amount of plays you can call. On the 10 yard line, you can’t call 4 verts (all WR’s run go routes) and expect the play to be successful. Because of space and timing, that play call takes too long and isn’t enough space for the QB and WR to work with.

What does Ryan Day believe in once he gets into the red zone?

He believes in finding favorable matchups in the passing game, adding TE’s to equate numbers, or using his QB’s legs.

In 2019, the use of Fields' legs was a huge part of Ohio State's success inside the red zone. Using the QB in the run game helps offenses equate, or gain numbers in the run game. I’ll be breaking down the hi-red, low-red, and goal line packages Ohio State and Ryan Day utilized inside the red zone and why they were successful.

After much research, I came to the conclusion that Ryan Day loves to attack the middle of the field in the hi-red. The play that led to most of Ohio State's success in the hi-red area was the ever so famous quarters/man beater: shallow and go.

You are going to see this play pop up more and more throughout college football in 2020. This play can defeat most coverage's in today’s football, and that’s why you’ll see a lot of it from Day and his staff. In this passing concept, one side defeats zone, and one side defeats man coverage.

I’ll explain this concept vs zone, and vs man coverage.

The first example is from 12 personnel vs Wisconsin.

Let’s first start with the zone side of the play. The zone side with this concept is a corner route from the outside receiver, and shallow and go by the tight end.

In a quarters coverage, the safety is responsible for the slot WR (second WR from the outside) if he goes vertical. In this concept, the TE with his hand in the ground is running a corner route so the free safety has to take him. The corner is responsible for outside WR if he goes vertical. If The outside WR runs inside or a shallow, he passes it off to the LB’s and back pedals into his zone. In this video you’ll see the corner pass off the shallow thinking he’s going to run across the field.

This is where the brilliance of Ryan Day comes in handy. As soon as outside WR runs past the CB and he passes off the WR to the LB’s, the WR will run a vertical off the shallow. The goal is to split the 2 high safety structure. The man side will control the strong safety as well and this is how the WR will run free down the middle of the field.

The man side is a smash fade combo that has become popular in college football the past three/four years. The outside WR will run a hitch and control the corner, and the slot WR will run a fade to the back corner of the end zone. Like I talked about earlier, if the second (slot) WR is vertical the safety has to take him. If the QB sees man pre-snap he will work this side to the fade concept. The goal in this play is to get the shallow and go route matched up with a LB. Athletes vs LB’s never ends well for a defense in pass coverage, and Day takes full advantage of this concept vs LB’s.

In the next clip, you’ll see Ohio State run the same concept from the same exact personnel grouping. Again, on the zone side the safety has to take the second WR with him going vertical, and The corner passes off the shallow and back pedals into his zone. On the man side, you’ll see the same smash fade concept. With the slot WR going vertical, the front side safety has to take him. This opens up the middle of the field for the shallow and go route.

In this final clip of this section, you’ll see the same concept vs man free vs Penn State. Pre-snap Fields sees that Penn State is in man free and works the man side of the play. With the safety in the middle of the field, it’s near impossible to gain ground on the smash fade route and Fields takes advantage.

One concept that consistently showed up on film in the low red was a play-action flood concept. This will look very similar to the “spider 2 y banana” play Jon Gruden always refers to, you’ll see that the concept Ohio State is running is very similar.

The goal of this play is attack all 3 levels of the defense and suck in LB’s and Safeties with the run fake. Like Gruden talked about in the video above, the entire OL is in full slide away from the play action.

The read for Fields is the quick out from the RB, shallow cross, and corner route from the TE. The difference with Day's play in the video below, he will get his skilled guys involved with the corner route that the TE is usually running. You’ll notice that the RB is usually running free and a lot of that has to do with the play fake and the defense not realizing he’s running a route.

The previous clip is from 12 personnel. You’ll see the Z WR short motion to give him space to run a corner route (last read in the progression). With this being the last read, this is why Fields gets the ball out late.

The clip above is from 13 personnel where Fields hits the RB (first read).

Here’s a good back end view from 12 personnel with a short motion from the outside WR. The outside WR is in short motion to run the corner route.

A big part of the red zone success was the use of Fields legs when he was healthy. That goes for the same thing inside the goal line. Using the QB in the run game serves as a numbers purpose. Using the QB in the run game adds a number to the box for the offense. It helps offenses get even or plus-1.

What’s that mean?

Offenses won’t be outnumbered and will not have a free running defensive player making the tackle. Here’s a overview of how Urban Meyer and his philosophy on the QB run:

To re-equate numbers, Meyer suggests reading a defensive player (example below), QB runs (example below), and a flash or fake sweep. In 2019, you saw all these examples in the red zone with the run game. I’ll show a couple different concepts they liked to run inside the goal line.

Above is a QB designed run with Justin Fields. They run a QB destined fake sweep from a 3x1 set. To the run side you’ll see a crack block from the WR to set up the alley for the QB run. The RB is a lead block on the play, and Fields is off to the races. Again, the philosophy here is to add numbers to the run count to equate numbers in the run game.

The play against Michigan State is another QB sweep with the RB as the lead block. With the clip above, Ohio State was in a spread set, and here they are in a TE oriented set. Again, adding numbers to the box to equate the defense.

In this example, Fields is now reading a player to equate numbers in the box. Ohio State is running zone read (inside zone paired with reading the defensive end). Again, another example where Ohio State is using Fields to gain a numbers advantage.