I noticed a formation and play out of our offense that I hadn't seen (or at least remembered) this past weekend against the peckers that might go on to later add something missing from our offense that we had last year, namely the option.
Auburn's best running play last year was the dash read/inverted veer. The typical spread option is the zone read where the QB reads the backside DE and determines whether to give the ball to the HB running playside or keep it himself to go backside. The way Auburn was running the option is to read the playside DE to determine whether to hand to the HB running wide or for the QB to keep the ball and run off tackle (this is called the inverted veer because like the veer the option is off tackle or outside, but inverted in that the RB and QB swap roles in who runs the inside dive). This play works fantastically with a big, fast QB like Cam or Tebow; Trotter however is neither of these. (To give credit where credit is due, Chris Brown, the writer for
http://smartfootball.com/run-game/what-is-the-inverted-veer-dash-read#more-2239, wrote the post where I cribbed pretty much all of the above paragraph from.)
As noted in the above link the typical blocking scheme for this play is power from a trips formation with a QB and HB in the backfield.
The new formation that Auburn broke out this weekend was our power running look with Phillips or Lutzy and H-back to the right; Dyer at HB, two yards deeper than QB and offset to right; McCalebb in a deep slot to the left side of the formation. Before the snap McCalebb would come into motion to line up to the left and 1 yd in front of the QB.
The play out of the formation was power blocking to the H-Back side (play side line blocks down, getting better angles on the down lineman and LBer's, H-back was blocking the DE, backside guard pulled and led Dyer through the hole. The playside OLB was left unblocked. The running back motion was a fake of the sweep to McCalebb, this froze the OLB and sent the MLB flying to the outside where he was an easy seal for the pulling guard. After faking to McCalebb Trotter would hand to Dyer off guard. This play generated yards for Auburn all game long, I kept waiting for a give to McCalebb if the LBer's started cheating on the dive but it never happened. I know it was not a read because the last man on the line of scrimmage was getting blocked and Trotter gave a rather perfunctory fake to McCalebb and did not really hold any kind of mesh for a read.
The wrinkle I hope to see is this play turned into the veer play we ran with such great success last year with a read of the DE and the two options being Dyer off tackle and McCalebb around the end. I think it could be a play that would help keep the defenses honest and gives us the option of keeping both of our RB's involved in the offense at the same time.
Feel free to pick me apart, especially if we ran this play about 20 times against FAU and I just didn't see it.
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