Drew takes a look at one of the many busts in the secondary from Saturday.
Any road game you walk away from with a W next to your name in the win column is a beautiful thing. At the same time, I hope the ‘Cats went straight off the field, to the bus, to the airport, and tucked safely in bed at home, because they stole the game.
No, I’m not talking about the correct offensive pass interference call, because that was offensive pass interference and something Tulane got away with earlier in the game. They tried it twice and got away with it once. Ladies and gentlemen, your coaching staff hard at work. Chris Klieman had offensive pass interference in the minds of the refs on that play because they missed it earlier in the game.
I’m talking about the defense handing out touchdowns like Vegas comps rooms for high rollers.
“Yes sir, right this way Mr. Green Wave Tight End, can we interest you in a wide-open passing touchdown or would you prefer…well no, sorry all we have is wide open passing touchdowns available tonight. I hope that’s O.K.”
I’m not sure what happened. My only thought is the defense is still trying to figure out the new on-field communication, because the busts weren’t caused by a lack of skill, or even Tulane putting the defense under extraordinary pressure; the busts were causes by a strange misunderstanding of basic defensive principals, like the ability to count eligible receivers.
I keep coming back to Tulane’s second touchdown. I couldn’t figure out what happened live, and it took me a while to figure out what happened on replay. At first glance, as the announcers mentioned, it looks like Garber cuts the tight end loose, because he’s playing zone, and everyone is playing man. The problem is, the longer I look at it the less it looks like that’s the problem.
I could be 100% wrong, but what I see is a pre-snap mistake in the defensive call, and not a mistake made during the play. To me it looks like Garber made the correct play but was in the wrong defense, or at least covering the wrong man, from the start.
It looks like Garber is playing man, but the defense fails to account for an eligible receiver. I’m not sure who to blame, but I don’t think this is all on Garber. No one appears to know what they’re doing.
That’s far worse than a single busted coverage.
Count the Eligible Receivers
How many eligible receivers do you see on the screen?
I’ve got:
Boundary TE – Light Blue
In-Line Tight End – Green
Running Back – Yellow
Slot WR – Purple
That’s 4 and then…
Field WR – Not shown (on the near sideline).
That’s 5 eligible receivers.
The problem is, I’m almost certain the defense only counted 4.
Garber doesn’t turn the tight end loose for the touchdown, that would indicate he was covering the tight end. To me, it looks like no one is covering the tight end because K-State blitzes one too many players and ends up trying to play man coverage 4 on 5.
I don’ t think they did that on purpose.
Who is Covering the Running back?
The first thing I do when I look at a play like this is try and figure out the coverage.
If Kansas State is playing man, this is what the everyone thought the coverage was supposed to look like:
Blue – TE vs S
Green – TE vs CB
Yellow – RB vs ?
Purple – WR vs S
Off Screen – WR vs CB
This is what I think Kansas State is playing instead:
Blue – TE vs S
Green -TE vs ?
Purple – WR vs S
Yellow – RB vs CB
Off Screen – WR vs CB
Garber doesn’t fail to cover the tight end because he thinks he’s in zone. He fails to cover the tight end because he thinks he’s in man coverage with the running back, and the running back stays in to block. I’m guessing when that happens, his job is to drop out and cover deep. If you watch the replay long enough, he actually drops underneath a deep crosser. He’s not necessarily out of position, but he’s in the wrong position.
It looks like he’s cutting the tight end loose without someone on the other side to pick him up, but in reality, it’s a simple case of no one covering the tight end, I’m guessing because the defense doesn’t recognize him as an eligible receiver pre-snap. Again, I’m not sure who that’s on.
It’s easier to see from a different angle.
Garber (yellow triangle) isn’t looking at tight end about to cut across the field unopposed (green square) and instead is focused on Tulane’s running back (yellow square). The back is stepping up to block the defensive end, and I think that might be what throws the defense off.
Instead of blocking the defensive end with one of the two tight ends lined up to the boundary, both of the tight ends slip inside run crossing routes while the back steps up to block the now uncovered defensive end. My thought is the defense didn’t realize both of the tight ends were eligible. They are covering like there are only two eligible receivers on the boundary, when there are three.
Back to the Other Angle
K-State is sending the house. That’s understandable against a quarterback in his first real game, although I now advise future opponents to try something else. In order to send everyone, they’re playing “0” coverage, or man across the board. It’s a high risk/high reward gambit but the first key to success is counting the pieces on the board.
In order to cover the three eligible receivers to the boundary side, K-State needs three defenders. Either the outside linebacker (green Triangle) or middle linebacker (green triangle) needs to be in coverage. In this case, I highly doubt Tobi Osunsanmi, the best pure pass rusher on the squad, is supposed to chase a tight end across the field.
My guess, and I will happily stand corrected if wrong, is that linebacker Austin Moore should be responsible for someone. If they counted the eligible receivers correctly, my guess is that Moore ends up on the running back. Since they missed a tight end, Moore thinks he’s free to blitz. I’m not blaming Austin Moore, it might be his fault, it might not be, I don’t know the call or how K-State adjusts the defense. What I do know is Tulane doesn’t have enough men to block Moore because the man who Moore should be covering is wide open down the field.
As you can see in the picture below, Moore is unblocked.
Again, I think Tulane having their running back step up and block the defensive end is what caused all this confusion. Normally the running back steps up to block a blitzing linebacker, but because Tulane releases both tight ends, no one is left to block Austin Moore. At the same time, Kansas State doesn’t have anyone to cover the tight end rumbling across the field.
Too Easy
All the quarterback needs to do is drift back in the pocket, buy a little time, and feather a pass into the arms of the waiting tight end.
I may not be able to run, jump, climb stairs, walk, get out of bed without making terrible noises, eat spicy foods, or grow a strand of hair on the top of my head, but in this one particular instance, I am fully confident in my ability to make this catch. Sometimes guys go untouched into the endzone, but this tight end went unnoticed.
In Conclusion
I expected this defense, on occasion, to lose a matchup on the outside. I did not expect the defense to forget that a 6’5”, 250-pound tight end is, in fact, eligible. I’m still not sure who to blame but trying to cover 5 receivers with 4 defenders is rarely the right move.
I’ll put this one down to opening road jitters combined with an unusual formation from the Green Wave. More than one person has made a mistake in New Orleans that they would prefer to stay in New Orleans, let’s hope Kansas State botching coverages stayed in the bayou and didn’t follow the team home.