Fulton Analysis: Constraint City

After a shaky first quarter, Ohio State pulled away from Michigan State by constraining the Spartan defense in its 34-10 victory. The Buckeyes’ slow first quarter start was primarily a combination of both what Michigan State was doing and what Ohio State was not doing. Michigan State often played cover 3 on early downs to get an extra unblocked overhang defender in the box and defensive backs quickly triggering on run action.

The Spartans also frequently twisted and stunted up front to free defensive linemen.

The Ohio State game plan appeared to be to keep Michigan State as spread out as possible. The Buckeyes returned to more of a traditional shotgun, 11 personnel, tight zone, spread-to-run approach, with relatively few plays under center and only 13 snaps with two tight ends.

Yet Ohio State was unable to take advantage early of the resulting opportunities left by Michigan State’s aggressive eight-man fronts. In addition to a critical drop by Binjamin Victor, quarterback Justin Fields missed several open wide receivers early – most notably a wide-open Luke Farrell on the first drive of the game.

But the Buckeyes were eventually able to use Michigan State’s aggressiveness against them. This partly came from the threat of re-equating arithmetic with Fields’ legs. Most notably, Ohio State faked Fields keeping on a zone read – before have Fields throw over the head of the defensive backs who bit on the fake.

Head Coach Ryan Day next had his offense show pass to set up Fields on a Q-counter trey run, with the backside tight end releasing on a seam route to hold the deep middle cover 3 safety. Fields then showed remarkable patience in setting up his blocks.

Ohio State also reverted to more diversity in the run game to limit the Spartans’ stunting. The Buckeyes widened from tight zone to use more of a of an inside/mid-zone run that targeted the front side B-gap – most notably on J.K. Dobbins’ 67-yard touchdown run. On that play, Ohio State aligned in a tight-trips formation to pull Michigan State to the field and again put stress on the middle of the field safety – formational concepts that the Buckeyes have had success with against the Spartans in previous seasons.

And after Michigan State continued to overplay the frontside run early in the game, Fields successfully kept several times off the inside zone read to slow the Spartan pursuit

Note how Fields holding the backside end and the free safety initially committing to the threat of Fields keeping was critical to setting up Dobbins’ long touchdown run.

In addition, after the first few series the Buckeyes returned to their wide zone scheme.

And Day then added diversity off the play. After largely being absent from the game plan this season, Ohio State repeatedly threw bubble screens off wide-zone based upon a pre-snap read of the backside numbers – again showing the more “spread” aspect of the game plan. The Buckeyes also showed a bootleg flood off this run action for perhaps the first time.

Once the Buckeyes successfully used constraint plays to limit Michigan State’s stunting and numbers’ disadvantage, the Ohio State offensive line controlled the line of scrimmage where they were able to get a hat on every defender and create movement up front.

For example, on Dobbins’ long touchdown run, left tackle Thayer Munford, left guard Jonah Jackson, and center Josh Myers all successfully executed single blocks where they were able to get to the front side and turn the Michigan State play-side defender.

Fields also settled in throwing the football; particularly on third down where the Spartans often used use cover 1 man. Perhaps no play was more important than hitting K.J. Hill on this H-option route on third and long against a man defender to create positive momentum.

Fields also began successfully using his legs to extend plays and work through his progressions, such as on the X-vertical, shallow drive combination touchdown throw to Luke Farrell.

The upshot of the Michigan State contest is that, although the Buckeyes are perhaps an offense that first needs to find its footing with run constraints and avoid over-reliance on the downfield passing game, Ohio State’s offensive versatility provides Day’s staff multiple ways to constrain a defense. Next week I will examine the Ohio State defensive performance against the Spartans, with an emphasis on the bigger picture takeaways of how the Buckeyes are responding to opponents trying to target the holes in their single-high scheme, and what that might mean going forward.