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Football
Spring Wrap up - How They Will Line UP
By John Porentas

Spring football 2009 was a time for experimentation as coaches looked for players and combinations of players for the two-deep next fall. It was also a time for experimentation with respect to the style of play the Buckeyes will adopt.

To a large degree, the players who emerge as the "best 11" on each side of the ball will determine how the Buckeyes line up and play next fall. OSU Head Coach Jim Tressel is very much a coach who likes to play to the strengths of his players rather than a coach who recruits to a system. To the contrary, Tressel insists that his teams be versatile, be able to do a little bit of a lot of things. He also analyzes what his personnel does best and makes sure his team is doing that the most. When you have a 235 pound tailback that can run, you run off tackle. If you have a Heisman-caliber quarterback and NFL-caliber wide receivers, you put the ball in the air.

The Offense: To tell you that the offense will be built around the abilities of Terrelle Pryor would be like telling you that water is wet. The Buckeye offensive staff will do everything they can to take advantage of Pryor's talents. We think there have been some hints this spring as to how the OSU coaching staff is thinking.

OSU running backs Dick Tressel had one of the most interesting quotes of the spring, and perhaps one of the most telling when trying to guess what the OSU coaching staff might be thinking regarding their offense next fall.

"The evolution of this quarterback-off-the-line-of-scrimmage kind of football where backs are running laterally and they're reading things, when to give it to them and when not to, the defenses have caught up to that, bottom line," Tressel said categorically.

The spread option is not likely to leave football, just as the wishbone never left totally, but the element of surprise is now gone from that offense. Defenses now know they have to account for the quarterback as a runner and do so. The defender assigned to him still has to make the play, and if your quarterback (runner) can beat that defender you will make positive plays, but the days of the quarterback simply running around unchecked are gone. Axiomatically, the probability of getting your key guy hurt, your quarterback, are up, since somewhere in the defense there is going to be somebody intent on doing him bodily harm every time he lines up off the line of scrimmage and takes a snap.

That doesn't mean that the OSU coaching staff wants to forget about Pryor as a runner. What they're thinking is that there might be better ways to get him free.

"As a running back coach the disadvantage I see in that (shotgun snap) for Terrelle as a runner is that they're accounting for him in that mode," said Tressel.

"When he's taking the ball under center from the I-formation, they're really not accounting for the quarterback running the ball or having it in his hands because that's a passing situation, so maybe that's the best way to get a big play out of Terrelle," Tressel said.

Using Pryor under center rather than off the line of scrimmage takes away the spread option package but leaves Pryor unaccounted for as a runner. The Buckeyes could take advantage of that.

The spread option draw that the Buckeyes ran from the spread formation with less and less success last season as defenses assigned a man to Pryor in the spread could replaced by a straight quarterback draw, a play that would stand a better chance of success with no defender assigned to Pryor. Additionally, Pryor is probably at his most dangerous as a runner when he can create in open-field scramble situations. Passing from a drop back formation without a defender assigned to Pryor would give Pryor one less defender to worry about and more space to create, and that can only be a good thing for the OSU offense.

The Buckeyes have also made some moves with their personnel that make sense if you make the assumption that the offense will try to free up Pryor as a runner by formation and personnel groupings. For one, there is the possibility that teams may elect to spy Pryor even if he is under center. The usual method of doing that is with a linebacker or safety. The strategy can be very effective at limiting a running quarterback. It also leaves a defense vulnerable, usually over the middle where the linebacker or safety would normally be but is now chasing Pryor. We don't think the move of Jake Stoneburner to tight end and a slimmed down Jake Ballard are random events or accidents. Passes over the middle to the vacated area will be the cost to defenses that elect to spy the OSU quarterback. If they don't spy him, he'll hurt them with his feet. Pick your poison.

We think the Buckeyes will use a lot of one-back formation next fall with Pryor under center and a tight end in the game. The tight end will be the threat over the middle to keep defenses honest while the three wide receivers will concentrate on the deep and short routes. The tight end will also give the Buckeyes extra blocking leverage when they elect to hand the ball to running back, while the three wide receivers will spread the field enough to create lanes for Pryor if he is running the football.

One last thought. As Dick Tressel said, the spread options requires running backs to run laterally while the quarterback and running backs are looking for holes. That does not play to the strengths of Boom Herron and Brandon Saine. Both are straight ahead runners who are more likely to hit the hole fast and them make a cut in the hole to get free than than they are to linger in the backfield waiting for a hole to open. OSU's offensive line is hoping to adopt a more physical style of play as well. The goal is to do less "move them around and let the backs find a hole" and replace it with the traditional "make a hole and let the back run through it." That's not the spread option, but it certainly plays to the strengths of the OSU backs and what the OSU coaching staff would like the OSU line to be.

The Defense: There's been a lot written this spring about the Buckeyes using different defenses this fall in order to get certain players on the field. Those conversations usually revolve around the linebackers. We've seen talk of 3-4-4 alignments, 4-4-3 alignments, even 3-5-2 or 4-4-2. We think the Buckeye defense will certainly mix its alignments, and you may see all those alignments from time to time, but not to the degree that some think. Our guess is that the 4-3-4 base defense and 4-2-5 nickel or 4-1-6 dime packages will be the defense on the field most of the year.

Why you won't see a three man front: There are nine very good reasons why the Buckeyes won't play that front this year. In no particular order they are as follows: Thaddeus Gibson, Nathan Williams, Solomon Thomas, Doug Worthington, Dexter Larimore, Robert Rose, Lawrence Wilson, Cameron Heyward and Todd Denlinger. If you need some more reasons, there are Garrett Goebel, Wiley Mobley and Keith Wells.

Take a lineman off the field to make room for a linebacker and you cut the minutes for defensive linemen by 25 percent. With the nine-man (or 12-man) group above, that would hardly be wise. Still not convinced? There's more.

A 3-4 or even a 3-5 front takes some of your best players off the field because in either of those fronts the role of the defensive line is to eat blocks to allow linebackers to roam free and make plays.

The defensive linemen that best fit that role are Denlinger, Larimore and probably Heyward. There isn't much doubt they could do that job, but now these guys are not on the field: Gibson, Williams, Thomas, Wilson, Worthington and Rose. If you want to bench Thad Gibson or Nathan Williams to get an extra linebacker on the field (actually, both Gibson and Williams), raise your hand. Anybody? Come on. Raise your hand if you want to bench Thad and Nathan and even Solomon. OK, maybe you do put them on the field, but how do you feel about them as run stoppers against big offensive linemen? Confident? Me neither.

The Buckeyes are likely to play most downs with four defensive linemen next fall, though in passing situations they could gimmick it up some. Both Austin Spitler and Etienne Sabino got looks as a rush defensive end, and the Buckeyes might use them that way some, but for the most part, look for there to be two defensive ends on the field to rush the passer and two interior defensive linemen.

How about taking off a defensive back, or even two? A 4-4-3 or even a 4-5-2 look to get a linebacker on the field is more likely than a three-man front. The OSU coaching staff has made a conscious effort to recruit "hybrid" players that can fit that style of defense. Players like Jermale Hines and Tyler Moeller, and to a lesser degree Brian Rolle, can hold up against both the run and the pass.

An alignment with four defensive lineman (you pick them), four linebackers and three defensive backs could work well. The three DBs could be three corners (Chekwa, Amos, Torrence) to allow the Buckeyes to cover three receivers man to man with Moeller and Hines both on the field as hybrid safety/linebackers. The other two linebackers would come from the group of Rolle, Spitler, Sabino and Andrew Sweat.

In the case of a 4-5-2 (short yardage but not in the red zone?) a corner would come off in favor of another linebacker, but Moeller and Hines would have to be out there as quasi safeties.

The hybrids, Moeller and Hines, are the keys to making these alignments work. The Buckeyes actually lined up with both Moeller and Hines on the field a couple of times during spring ball. They're thinking about it, they really are, and experimented with the look this spring.

Defensive coordinator Jim Heacock is not opposed to gimmick defenses but has said repeatedly that every gimmick gives you both a strength and a weakness. Heacock would always prefer to play "straight up", but sometimes matchups don't allow that or an offense does something very well or something not so well. Under those circumstances Heacock has no problem with aligning to stop what they do well or downplay what they don't do well.

The Buckeyes always have the option of aligning according to the opponent. Three big linebackers against Wisconsin and Penn State, a smaller defense against Illinois and Michigan for example. The real test is a team like Southern Cal which historically both runs and passes well. Play a gimmick that takes away the pass and they run on you, and vise-versa. Jim Heacock would love to be able to play 4-3-4 against the Trojans on the early downs and 4-2-5 in passing situations.

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