Establishing the run in 2023

I made no bones about insisting the path to victory for Texas in Tuscaloosa was through the air. Alabama has been taken down only a few times over the last decade and a half and almost always by teams who circumnavigated their big, physical defensive fronts in order to attack them in the secondary.

Nick Saban is a noted defensive backs coach and the Tide are rarely anything less than good in pass defense. But you can beat good pass defense with good pass offense, it’s hard to make anything in the run game against great run defense.

Dominant passing is the key to big time winning these days, but spread passing teams do need to be able to run the ball in a few ways in order to find success.

The key to a winning run game is being able to run the ball in short-yardage or goal line, when it’s time to chew clock, and to be able to mix in runs throughout a game without getting behind the chains. If you can consistently pick up 2-4 yards and give the offense a chance to stay on schedule while forcing the defense to consider the risk of getting gashed in the run game, that’s a win for a team with a potent passing game. It’s also clearly valuable for a team like Texas to be able to punish light boxes and sub-package personnel.

Texas hit their marks in virtually all of those areas against Alabama. The upcoming Wyoming game will be a good chance to develop the run game further but it’s a good time to pause and take note of the dynamics at play for Texas in this aspect of the offense which was so crucial a year ago. We’ll start with their 4-minute offense drive against the Tide to clinch the win.

The winning drive against Alabama

After receiving the ball with 7:14 left on the clock after an Alabama three-and-out, Texas ran the ball nine consecutive times. The results were as follows:

Down and distancePersonnelConceptResult1st-and-1012 personnelSplit inside zoneCJ Baxter 3-yard gain2nd-and-712 personnelOutside zoneJonathon Brooks 5-yard gain3rd-and-211 personnelToss sweepJonathon Brooks 3-yard gain1st-and-1012 personnelDuoJonathon Brooks 2-yard gain2nd-and-812 personnelDuo/now screen RPOJonathon Brooks 1-yard gain3rd-and-711 personnelUnoJonathon Brooks 14-yard gain1st-and-1012 personnelSplit inside zoneKeilan Robinson 3-yard gain2nd-and-712 personnelSplit inside zoneJonathon Brooks 0-yard gain3rd-and-711 personnelWind back zoneJonathon Brooks 4-yard gain

On the next play (4th-and-3), Quinn Ewers and Hayden Conner successfully baited the Tide offsides with this maneuver (watch his right fist) and that was all she wrote.

What stood out on this drive is that every run by Texas picked up positive yardage. They couldn’t plow the Tide out of their way, but they could at least control the line of scrimmage well enough to pick up gains and they converted both 3rd-and-2 and 3rd-and-7 to effectively ice the game.

Here was the 3rd-and-2 call.

They lined up in an unbalanced formation and ran a toss sweep, blocking down with the tight end and receivers so they could pull Conner around the edge. Alabama blitzed the cornerback but having all their defenders up on the line of scrimmage made it too difficult for Alabama linebacker and Duncanville product Kendrick Blackshire to get the angle to successfully bring down Brooks.

Here was the big 3rd-and-7 play.

Alabama definitely thought this would be a pass, which reveals some shoddy thinking on the part of Saban and his staff. They sent out a 1-4-6 sub-package with defensive lineman Justin Eboigbe at nose, Edges Dallas Turner and Chris Braswell at end, 3rd down blitzing linebacker Quandarrius Robinson just off the edge, solitary inside linebacker Deontae Lawson, and SIX defensive backs. To make matters worse for Alabama, they overplay the motion by Jordan Whittington and leave a massive crease for Brooks.

This winning drive for Texas was ultimately about picking up steady but unspectacular games when Alabama knew runs were coming and catching the Tide unprepared on a pair of 3rd down calls. Nothing remarkable but winning play nonetheless.

Running the ball from the spread

Texas has predictably increased their use of zone running concepts this season, as opposed to 2022 where they factored in but the offense was much more into power/gap concepts. DJ Campbell and Baxter in particular have seen a lot of reps together on the field running zone concepts.

For Texas this probably counts as “inside zone” but most programs would call it “stretch” or “midzone” since the running back is aiming wide. What’s notable in example one is how well Texas handled Alabama’s slants early in the game to avoid giving up penetration. In example two the Tide look tired and the Conner-Jake Majors combo block easily takes big Jaheim Oatis off the ball and gets a hit on the linebacker.

Campbell thrives in zone concepts because he has quick feet and long arms to control defenders. Cole Hutson is a terrific power guard, particularly when pulling.

Both of these concepts are effective for not asking terribly much of Ja’Tavion Sanders. Note his duties in these three plays:

Example 1: Flex out and run a route for the quarterback to throw if the linebacker gets nosy.Example 2: Work against the grain on a lateral zone play and make sure the backside defender can’t chase the play down from behind.Example 3: Lead block behind the pulling guard and make sure there isn’t a free-hitter so the back can cut behind the down blocks.

It’s essential that a spread passing team like Texas which doesn’t have a dual-threat quarterback who can read unblocked defenders on the option have solutions for how to keep their tight end from doing too much heavy lifting in order to block a 6-man front.

The Longhorns have schemes Sanders can execute when running the ball from the spread and they can also get into 12 personnel and turn him into a slot/tight end hybrid with lighter assignments. They can even do so with Whittington, one of the best blocking receivers you’ll ever see.

This is a pass-first Longhorn offense the likes of which we haven’t really seen since Colt McCoy was on campus, but they have better options this time for running the ball when they need to than asking their star quarterback to try and win the edge against an Alabama defensive line.

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