Film at 11: Maryland Offense

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After five drama-filled, tumultuous, ‘Behind The Music’ years, apart Mike Locksley and Josh Gattis finally decided to get the band back together!

Flashback to 2018. The setting: Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Tua Tagovailoa is the quarterback for the Crimson Tide, Najee Harris is their third-best running back, DeVonta Smith is their fifth receiver and they have five different defenders with double-digit TFL — one of whom is named Quinnen Williams. That’s, like, a lot of talent on one roster — enough talent to (checks Wikipedia) lose by 4 touchdowns in the national title game to then-ACC bully Clemson?!? Hmm.

Disappointing ending notwithstanding, Alabama had the 3rd-best scoring offense in college football that year, a potent attack piloted by Co-offensive coordinators (you guessed it) Locksley and Gattis. When the elder of the two playcallers landed the head gig at Maryland, it was a foregone conclusion that Gattis would tag-along and dispose of the “Co” in his job title…except that never happened. Without even sitting down for an in-person interview with Jim Harbaugh, Gattis stiffed Locksley and accepted the OC position at Michigan, pledging to bring “Speed in Space” football to Ann Arbor.

Both Locksley and Gattis appeared to have hurt feelings, publicly beefing about who deserved a bigger slice of the credit pie from that 2018 offense. Gattis was the OC at Michigan for three years — he even won the 2021 Broyles Award for the best assistant coach in college football despite not running his offense — but it didn’t bring fulfillment. He went to South Beach to try and recapture that old magic but The U fired him after one year.

Dramatic pause.

Able to suppress their monstrous egos and let bygones be bygones, Locksley and Gattis reunited once again this past off-season and have (for the most part) got right back to belting out sweet music on offense. Despite tripping through another trademark mid-season collapse, the Terps offense ranks 3rd in the B1G in scoring (32.6 pts/game), 3rd in yards/game (418.4), and 3rd in Red Zone efficiency (84.5%).

Starters

Philosophy

Anticlimactically, Locksley and Gattis are running the same spread-em-out, air-raid offense from Alabama, they just did a big “find and replace” one Tagovailoa for another. Taulia’s letting them fly from the blue line, with more passing attempts to targets 20+ yards down-field (56) than any QB in the conference, per Pro Football Focus.

Not only is the QB free to dial it up, each of his eligibles has the green light to forego their assigned route should they notice the defense presenting a weakness. 10-Tai Felton — their primary X-receiver — believes that trust puts them in more playmaking positions:

“We have some fast guys, some big guys, so we’re able to make our own choices out on the field and read defenses,” said Felton. “It allows us to get the ball in our hands more often.”

Maryland is one of four teams in the B1G that pass (54%) more often than running on first down. If you exclude RPOs they’re throwing on 58% of first downs. They flip the axiom “establish the run” on its head: they establish the pass, put you on your heels, then put you on your butt with the ground game.

Their rushing identity is zone — slightly favoring outside to inside zone — but they’re not allergic to running power, either. For those who don’t know, “power” running involves pulling a(some) lineman(men) out of ranks to lead the charge for the ball-carrier.

When they run power, they run POWER. No team in the B1G uses multiple pullers more often than the Terps. Generally in that scenario one blocker will perform a “kick-out block” to seal the hole and the other will “lead block” –some of us still remember fullbacks — through that hole:

Although they prefer to win with speed, leverage and fundamentals, there’s a little bit of trickeration to this team. LB 22-Sean Greeley has played two offensive snaps, both in the low red zone, and he has two TD catches. In the Illinois game Taulia handed off a jet sweep, leaked out into the flat, then turned around and caught a pass-back from WR 6-Jeshaun Jones for 21 yards. Against Michigan State their punter ripped off a 15-yard scamper on a gutsy fake from their own 25:

Formation

Gattis likes to widen the field and force you to cover sideline-to-sideline. When you match their wide alignments you have less tackling support in the middle of the field, like not enough butter spread across too much bread.

They use a ton of “trips” (18 times vs MSU) with three receivers aligned to one side of the field. This is one of my favorites in Madden because you can disguise your best man- and zone-beating schemes from this alignment.

When multiple receivers are running through the same defender’s zone, that guy has to make a choice. He can only stick with one of those receivers; once he declares it should be a simple matter of pitch and catch. Consider the “divide” concept (a deep post just inside a go route) shown below:

Both routes threaten the same deep zone defender, he can only jump one of those routes, leaving the other dude wide open. Of course, that’s contingent on keeping your QB upright long enough for your receivers to make it to the third level of the defense.

You can stack those guys in tight in a “bunch” formation. Defenders don’t know which receiver is going where so they play it by ear: usually the CB assumes responsibility for the first out-breaking route, the LB takes the inside crosser, and the safety jumps anything vertical over the top.

Let’s zoom in on that linebacker for a moment. His attention is so laser-focused on the receivers’ feet and hips, trying to diagnose who’s going where. Suddenly he’s looking at someone’s outside shoulder instead of their chest plate. He knows he’s at an athletic disadvantage so he has to drive hard on that route and doesn’t have time to ask questions. The next thing he knows he’s on his butt seeing stars. What happened there?

The “mesh” concept, that’s what happened. It’s simple to draw up: just have any two receivers run routes that cross over each other. The design is to have the defenders covering those guys “rub” each other off, giving you the breathing room you need to rifle the ball in there. Remember the 2021 game Michigan cheated to win Kalen King’s freshman year? Yeah, you remember the play I’m talking about.

If you notice all these were 3rd down plays: situations in which one can reasonably predict a blitz, which often means man coverage. Locksley said he’s expecting Penn State to play a lot of man this Saturday. If you see Maryland in a 3×1 formation on 3rd down, impress your friends by telling them what play they’re about to run. 

Lion Tamers

3-TAULIA TAGOVAILOA, QUARTERBACK: I’m not going to make any quarterback-to-quarterback comparisons. That’s what drives me nuts…well, that’s one of the things that drives me nuts about the two-week media circus preceding the Super Bowl, to which the game itself is quite secondary. No football game in the history of mankind has ever been settled by both signal-callers having a fist fight at midfield. Still, they’ve got airwaves to fill so every year they dust off the “Tom Brady vs. Kurt Warner, who’s better?” Go back and read that quote in a Boston accent; life’s short, tragedy’s never far, make a moment to have a little fun with your mouth, you miserable f[foghorn]ks.

Whoa, hey, you went from zero to De Niro in 1.9 flat there (which is the world record time for a production car accelerating from a dead stop to Robert De Niro). Go get a cup of coffee and cool off.

I’m sorry about him, he’s the Bad Cop, and he’s a little schizophrenic. You want a soda or something? I’ll hike down to the good vending machines, don’t look in that manila folder on the table there, there’s no cameras in here or anything but, ya know, be cool.

*Big Time Throws: a PFF signature stat enumerating passes of considerable difficulty

Anyway, I’ll admit I didn’t see it with this kid last year, when Penn State’s defenders were throwing him around like a human frisbee. I popped on his tape from this year…what hubris! He is a legit athlete, a legit passer, a legit gadget threat… I’m sure some of you are trench gurus, you love those big-on-big clashes, but this game might be one where you keep your eyes glued to the ball.

As a gentleman of a certain height (5’11”) Taulia prefers to get out into the fairway rather than trying to work around the trees. During their five-game win streak to open the season no B1G passer had more passing attempts (35), completions (21) or yards (348) thrown from outside the pocket. He has excellent mobility, his eyes always stay downfield so flushing him is only half the battle:

74-DJ GLAZE, LEFT TACKLE: Penn State’s ferocious defense is driven by their pass rush off the edge; LT DJ Glaze (2023: 90.9 PFF pass blocking grade) is a threat to stall that engine. In his entire career at Maryland (four seasons, two-and-a-half as a starter) he’s been charged with only four knockdowns (3 sacks, 1 QB hit).

You look at the heavy anchor he drops in his pass sets and you think “this guy’s pants are full of horseshoes.” Then, because it’s Maryland, they’ll get him out on the run and he’s sneaky-quick for 6’5”/328. I wonder why we haven’t heard more about this guy in terms of draft hype?

Pro Football Focus seems to think Glaze’s run blocking isn’t quite there (62.2 grade, barely above replacement level). I’m here to tell you he’s perfectly proficient at everything you need your left tackle to do in the run game. He’s got the “hinge” technique down, he can move a little bit…you may ask more of a RT (most runs go that way) but the LT position has always been slanted towards pass blocking.

It irks me when people go “yeah but his run blocking…” about offensive tackles, kinda like when people ding defensive backs for dropping interceptions. If the DB had better hands he’d be a receiver; if your tackle was a better run blocker he’d be a guard.

Red Circles (Problem Areas)

COACHING STAFF: Co-offensive coordinator Kevin Sumlin was arrested for DUI over their bye. He was not with the team for their game against Northwestern this past weekend.  As of publishing, there’s no news on whether he’ll be available this Saturday vs. Penn State. You can preach “next man up” when you lose a player but how do you replace the brain trust of the offense?

Well, brain trust may be a bit strong. He’s probably the third potato in the think tank, after Locksley and Gattis. Still, any time there’s a coaching shuffle-up, suddenly guys are responsible for things they’re not used to dealing with, don’t be surprised if something slips through the cracks.