An X’s and O’s Question about Heupel’s Offensive Scheme

#1
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Volosaurus rex

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#1
It would be interesting to get the input of forum members who are more knowledgeable than I am when it comes to analysis of offensive schemes. In 55 years of watching the Big Orange wage war on the gridiron, I have never seen any previous head coach or offensive coordinator at Tennessee scheme our wide receivers so wide open with such regularity.

It truly is not uncommon to see our lads with 5-10 yards (or more) of separation from opposing coverage. And it obviously leads to big play after big play. So, precisely what is it that Heupel’s scheme does that so frequently places our receivers in positions where they are so wide open?

I truly believe that, at least from an offensive standpoint, we have found Tennessee’s answer to Spurrier, albeit without Steve Superior’s endless sarcasm. Furthermore, when was the last time that we pulled a page straight out of his playbook by scoring a touchdown against Florida just before halftime, on a 12-play, 99-yard drive no less, and then score another touchdown on the opening drive of the third quarter?
 
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#2
#2
Volosaurus rex said:
It would be interesting to get the input of forum members who are more knowledgeable than I am when it comes to analysis of offensive schemes. In 55 years of watching the Big Orange wage war on the gridiron, I have never seen any previous head coach or offensive coordinator at Tennessee scheme our wide receivers so wide open with such regularity.

It truly is not uncommon to see our lads with 5-10 yards (or more) of separation from opposing coverage. And it obviously leads to big play after big play. So, precisely what is it that Heupel’s scheme does that so frequently places our receivers in positions where they are so wide open?

I truly believe that, at least from an offensive standpoint, we have found Tennessee’s answer to Spurrier, albeit without Steve Superior’s endless sarcasm. Furthermore, when was the last time that we pulled a page straight out of his playbook by scoring a touchdown against Florida just before halftime, on a 12-play, 99-yard drive no less, and then score another touchdown on the opening drive of the third quarter?
Click to expand...

I'm no expert at football schemes, either, but I see a lot of blocking and screening by some wideouts on opponent db's that free up our other wideouts on any given play.
 
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#3
#3
From a coaching standpoint, player development obviously is also a factor here, and Cedric Tillman is a classic example. From 2018-2020, he had a grand total of 8 receptions for 124 yards and two touchdowns. Then he absolutely exploded on the scene halfway through last season and against our toughest opponents to boot.
 
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#4
#4
1: players. He has some dudes
2: When you play a wide split, ours is extreme, you put the defense at an interesting position of leverage. You have to pick where you put the extra defender, usually the safety. If you plus out really far, the safety has to play deeper to have any effectiveness which makes for a softer box and holes in the dig zones. If you commit the safety closer to the box, you are 1v1 in space. You only have to make one big mistake and it is a score.
 
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#5
#5
A lot of it is Hooker. He's making the right checks at the line and all the right reads after the ball is snapped. The mental part of his game doesn't get enough love... dude is a machine, as evidenced by his absurd TD/INT ratio.
 
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#6
#6
So we are not running a traditional route tree. Almost every receiver has a read... meaning they run different routes depending on what the defense does. Play over and they take the slant, or man coverage they will run a post route, as examples. It takes a special qb to make it look this good. Combine that with tempo and Hooker playing games with his eyes... and those are a couple of the reasons we see as many receivers wide open as we do... plus our wide outs are pretty legit.
 
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#7
#7
Volosaurus rex said:
It would be interesting to get the input of forum members who are more knowledgeable than I am when it comes to analysis of offensive schemes. In 55 years of watching the Big Orange wage war on the gridiron, I have never seen any previous head coach or offensive coordinator at Tennessee scheme our wide receivers so wide open with such regularity.

It truly is not uncommon to see our lads with 5-10 yards (or more) of separation from opposing coverage. And it obviously leads to big play after big play. So, precisely what is it that Heupel’s scheme does that so frequently places our receivers in positions where they are so wide open?

I truly believe that, at least from an offensive standpoint, we have found Tennessee’s answer to Spurrier, albeit without Steve Superior’s endless sarcasm. Furthermore, when was the last time that we pulled a page straight out of his playbook by scoring a touchdown against Florida just before halftime, on a 12-play, 99-yard drive no less, and then score another touchdown on the opening drive of the third quarter?
Click to expand...
IT'S A TRAP....
 
#15
#15
They actually talked about this a bit on The Sports Source on Sunday in their weekly show. Our WR's are spread out 4-wide to the "extreme." Like, we send 2 receivers almost as close to each sideline as you can get without actually standing out of bounds. This causes the defense to have to "declare". There is no being wishy washy or second guessing who to cover. The defenders have to choose or "declare" what coverage they will run and cannot change it because of how spread out our receivers are each play. The safeties have to make decisions pre-snap in order to get set in time. It was an interesting segment, and they probably explained it a lot better than I ever could.

But, this was their primary issue with the "running out the clock" execution in the 4th quarter. We didn't spread out. We bunched our receivers closer to the line and it allowed there to be more defenders stacking the box to stop the run. The defense didn't have to declare and could stay home and didn't have to make decisions pre-snap. All of the action was close to the center of the field.
 
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#16
#16
Sea Ray said:
I think the answer is actually quite simple: the extreme hurry up leaves defenses out of position and confused. They can't make calls, substitute or otherwise figure out whose man is whose to cover. That's the #1 purpose of the hurry up offense.
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What was great to see this past week is our offense is effective no matter what pace we go at. Against Florida we were MUCH slower, I think in part to save our defense. But it didn’t matter. We did whatever we wanted, when ever we wanted. I was worried our that our success was mostly due the pace at which our offense runs but last game showed me it’s more scheme than pace.
 
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#18
#18
Sea Ray said:
I think the answer is actually quite simple: the extreme hurry up leaves defenses out of position and confused. They can't make calls, substitute or otherwise figure out whose man is whose to cover. That's the #1 purpose of the hurry up offense.
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No, it's a lot more than that. I mean, the hurry-up does help get defenses on their back foot, and even out of position. But that's not the primary lever of this offense.
GAVol said:
It’s more or less the Run and Shoot in hurry up mode with RPOs thrown in.
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Yes, that's it. It's Josh Heupel's special recipe, merging elements of Air Raid, Run and Shoot, and some concepts and wrinkles of his own.

It is a potent combination. But not really complicated for the players, we've been told. Once they get it, they got it.
 
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#19
#19
dduncan4163 said:
We need to enjoy this Offense because I don't think we'll ever see anything like it in Knoxville again.
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Hopefully, Heupel and White collectively will have a long and successful reign in Knoxville. It took a good decade before the wishbone ran its course as a dominant offense. Hopefully, Josh can squeeze that much out of this scheme. And imagine what he could do, with the level of notoriety that he is already achieving, after he has truly begun to stockpile elite talent on the offensive line, at running back, and defense to give the ball back to his offense more quickly and more frequently.
 
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#20
#20
loosecannon said:
1: players. He has some dudes
2: When you play a wide split, ours is extreme, you put the defense at an interesting position of leverage. You have to pick where you put the extra defender, usually the safety. If you plus out really far, the safety has to play deeper to have any effectiveness which makes for a softer box and holes in the dig zones. If you commit the safety closer to the box, you are 1v1 in space. You only have to make one big mistake and it is a score.
Click to expand...
Plus you know what coverage they are in pre snap. It’s hard for a defense to hide coverages when you have them spread all over the field.
 
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#21
#21
tn4elvis said:
Plus you know what coverage they are in pre snap. It’s hard for a defense to hide coverages when you have them spread all over the field.
Click to expand...
Yes. Then we run a lot of choice routes, so if the Wr reads the coverage correctly, people are always open.
 
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#24
#24
I think the main things that are getting guys open are the wide splits that really stress the DBs and those stacks on the outside which allow them to run some two-receiver games (rub routes, screens, curl/go, etc.).

One example from the Florida game when Bru went for 70 yards: he was split out wide, but they sent a motion guy outside him and the db switched over showing he was in man pre snap. Once that happened Bru and Hooker just had to read the safety on that side and of he didn’t flip his hips and start getting depth quickly he was toast.

It works really well at the college level because the DB talent is so spread out so a given team may only have one guy who can recognize leverage issues or WR games or can hold his own in press man with no help.
 
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