Even though UM was running zone most of the game, Riley's play calls were typically using routes for man coverage. This was especially evident with all the screen passes and routes in the flats that didn't work, and ended his TE's season. WTF.
The only correct zone route I saw yesterday was Deuces' TD catch, where he actually intentionally sat down in the dead spot.
Contrarily, everyone is trying to decide who's to blame on Moss' pic 6, either Moss or ZB. In fact, Riley, Moss and ZB all share blame for that play. You don't make that play call against zone coverage, Branch has to come back to the ball on the throw, and Moss had to see UM's db geting a 15 yard run on the pass. You can't make that throw when it's all in front of you.
I continue to have serious misgivings about Riley's scheme. If you continually telegraph your running plays and you can't run your offense vs zone defenses, um, you have problems, esp with a qb with limited mobility. Riley needs to wake the fuck up, bc the DCs are gonna eat his offense alive after yesterday. Expect a lot of zone coverages and zone blitzes from here on out. Defenses will keep everything in front of them and force USC to complete drives using a lot of plays to navigate the field, basically waiting for USC to make a mistake.
Riley doesnt or doesnt know how to make adjustments. 3rd Quarter and 2nd halves have been as bad with him as they were with Huggie Bear.
And he has a strange desire to keep trying plays that dont work.
Like the TE screen that got LM injured or the shovel passes to win the game.
C.LR calls plays accordingly to what he thought Michigan DC would do. But, the Michigan DC was very smart. He showed zone then instantly played man and vice versa. Our Wr and Qb must adjust to these last minute defensive changes.
Our Wr’s must see the change from zone to man coverage then run a man route. If they see the change from man to zone, run a zone route (open spots of the zone). Many times our young Wr’s did not do that and QB Moss did not inform them via signals. C.LR’s O has to have smart and instinctive Wr’s and Qb’s to make these last second change up by the D. Michigan did a great job of confusing our Wr’s and QB Moss.
A passing attack needs to have Wr’s and QB’s make their counter moves quickly.
I think the biggest thing that hurt USC were the 4 big runs which = to about 200 yds. If USC stopped those 4 big plays, they would have won and beat Michigan.
Its a very good question. CLRs O vs Zone Defense. Same thing happened with run to grass Kliff Kingsbury’s
“Run”.
CLR has looked so average to me as a playcaller. For 3 seasons
I watched a Michigan preview predictions for the game on YouTube and one of the 3 guys said the difference in the game will be ,Moss will throw the same pick six to michigans nfl cornerback that was dropped twice already this season .
s c