In this article, I will break down how Mike Denbrock has used several similar passing concepts successfully. These concepts have traces to the West Coast offense and Air Raid offense and are popularized by nearly every college and NFL team. But first, I would like to share this youtube video and site I found where an SEC-fanatic broke down LSU’s 2022 offense.
Shallow
Now onto the Shallow concept. Shallow is one of the most popular passing concepts and one variation is called the NCAA pass because “everyone in the NCAA runs it”. It involves ~10 yard in route, opposite of the in is a shallow. The outside receivers can run a variety of routes, but the most common is some sort of vertical route. The running back can check-block and release to the flat. Shallow is effective versus man coverage if the slot receivers can generate separation. This concept is effective versus tampa-2 and cover 4 as there are fewer defenders in the underneath zones. On the other hand, cover 3 has 4 defenders in the flat/hook zones which makes this concept more difficult to execute, but not impossible.
In the lone example from the 2023 LSU-Alabama game, LSU dialed up a wheel from the Tight End and the in from the outside receiver. Daniels or the tight end, misinterpreted each other and Daniels throw the ball 15 yards past the tight end who had stopped his route.
Shallow Resources (1), (2), (3).
Drive
Drive is another very popular concept. It consists of an ~10-12 yard in route with a shallow route coming in from the same side. Considering the route is only a two-man concept, Mike can and has tinkered with the rest of the play for degrees of success.
Denbrock drew up a jet motion away from a bunch formation hoping to outleverage the defense to the field side of the formation. Alabama did not correctly account for the motion, and LSU threw for a nice first down.
In this play, the Tiger offense came out in an empty quad formation. The spacing of this formation forces the Crimson Tide defense to declare their lack of pressure. The four receivers on one side greatly reduces the fundamentally sound defenses that Alabama can draw up. Daniels buys some time from the rush and then completes a nice gain.
Dagger
Dagger is a slot seam paired with a deep in. The idea is either the safety will jump the in or the in will be breaking open unopposed. In the drawn up play below, Jayden is flushed from the pocket and scrambles for a large gain.
In this play LSU drew up a Drive-Dagger concept. . In this play Jayden had his deep shot covered and came back to his in route late. With time to throw, Daniels misses the receiver causing an incomplete pass.
Dagger Resources (1).
Conclusion
Denbrock is bringing a high flying and far throwing offense from the Bayeux. Notre Dame fans can expect an offense that utilizes NFL concepts that utilize the entire field and forces the opposition to defend in space.
General pass concepts (1).
If I remember correctly, Mike leach did a lot of shallow cross concepts in his air raid system; against cover 3 looks, you can have your low crosser “sit” in the soft spot between the 2 curl defender zones (about 5-8 yards right over the center).
This takes some practice of course, if the qb expects the drag to continue, and the WR sits, that’s a recipe for a bad time.
My college LB coach broke these passing concepts down for us with a few phrases to keep in mind as a LB
“If there’s someone in front of you, there’s someone behind you”
“If someone’s leaving your zone, someone else is coming in”
Not always true, but by and large, these rules hold pretty well, as most of the concepts above are designed to stress a single defender with a high/low concept to always make them wrong. We played it super conservatively, always letting the underneath stuff go, think a Clark lea approach making a team dink and dunk 14+ plays together. Also, d2 football had lower athleticism across the board; KVA or jaylen Sneed types have the speed to play the high side in-breaker and still disrupt the underneath throw. it really showcases the need to have rangy LBs. Think back to the 250lb thicker built guys we had during the diaco years, and how they just couldn’t move in space – exhibit A 2013 michigan game.
Good points! I didn’t think of it that way.
It’s crazy how fast the game has changed
rest in peace 4-3 defense
I don’t mean to continue to harp on people like Parker and Rees but it felt like we hardly ever got anything close to in-breaking routes from non TE receivers and from watching LSU last year I can already tell it is going to be a lot more fun in that regard. In-breaking routes offer a lot more in terms of YAC opportunities and with our newfound speed and skill on the outside I think we can catch a lot of teams sleeping in soft zones with a Greathouse catch and run especially early on with teams not being as familiar with our offense
If I remember correctly we did see a couple of those routes against Ohio State, one to Tyree for 21 yards and one to Greathouse for 35. Can’t remember another time though.
Clarence Lewis to the portal. I put him and DJ Brown as the kind of guys we had to play for more snaps than we’d like (See: Clarence in the Sun Bowl, DJ dropping the OSU INT). Good but not great players.
No knock on their effort or commitment to ND, but they were limited physically. Nice to see that we are getting the kind of talent to push this type of guy down on the depth chart to a backup role. It’s and example of HCMF talking about every position being a battle every day.
“No knock on their effort or commitment to ND”
Hell yes x1000. I totally agree, it feels like this is a transfer due to ascending youth talent, and mad props to Clarence for service to the blue and gold.
In all the kind of yucky aspects of wild west transfer portal, I do appreciate these situations where it feels like a transfer can benefit both the player with opportunity, and the team with roster management. So long as he doesn’t suit up against ND next year, God luck and good speed sir!