Mod Edit - Closing this, JT4P - this one ran long and over the margins. Can you try to trim down and repost? Looks like you have a ton of good info to share...
An ongoing question amongst our fanbase is what we can expect out of the '24 offense. I've spent the past week diving into some of BoB's schemes, and thankfully, there are tons of Youtube videos of BoB himself explaining his system. I wanted to summarize some of my findings to hopefully answer some of your questions.
Let's start with why Day hiring BoB makes sense - Both coaches have very similar ideals for a personnel standpoint. Both coaches love having the ability to run 11 personnel from a variety of formations, including splitting everyone out wide in a de facto empty set. Both coaches also prioritize having a versatile TE to pair with a hardnosed blocking TE. A versatile TE allows the coaches to run 12 personnel with a variety of options. They can utilize power runs with both TE's blocking, or they can run plays you'd normally see out of 11 personnel. Both coaches love max protection PA passing out of 12 personnel, as well.
With this said, there are some differences. While Day has shown his love for attacking outside of the hashes, BoB prioritizes the middle of the field. Using a variety of formations and pre-snap movement, he toys with the LB's and Safeties to allow his offense to attack the "Levels" inside the hashes.
With this in mind, let's see how BoB schemes his offense to match his high level philosophy.
HOSS and Starbucks- These concepts are a staple of BoB's offense. I will be treating them as one concept, as for the sake of this film study, they are very similar in what BoB is trying to accomplish. This is a "matchup" concept out of empty with 5 split out wide (3 WR's, RB, and TE). Often utilized in crucial situations, motioning the RB or WR out of the backfield to make a 5 wide set, allows the QB to identify a "matchup", and attack that area of the field. The most crucial aspect is the slot WR. In most instances, this is the position that will get a favorable matchup, as often a LB or Safety will be responsible for covering them. See below. This is HOSS-Y Juke (you'll see what Juke means in the clip).
By splitting the field wide, John Metchie is left 1 on 1 with a LB. His route is dictated fully by what the LB does, and BoB gives freedom to his WR's to get a little fancy in their routes. Hence "Juke". While this concept may look different than anything OSU fans saw in 2023, HOSS was a large part of OSU's offense in a time not so long ago.
In casual viewing, this play "looks" different. But that is simply due to JSN being covered up. The beauty of HOSS, is how much freedom it gives the slot WR to essentially play backyard football. Here is the same play with JSN on a 4th and 4, which shows how much Day trusted this concept in 2021 with an electric Slot like JSN. He is not covered up at the LOS, so again, he changes his route and makes a "juke" to get open.
Bunch Formations - BoB doesn't go 5 wide on every play. However, he still loves splitting the TE off the LOS and lining him up out wide in de facto 10 personnel looks. And there are no formations he loves more, than Bunch. While Bunch can be effective in any situation, BoB loves attaching Bunch sets on short yardage situations, and has shown he is willing to utilize the passing game to convert in these scenarios. On the 3rd and 2 play below, BoB calls for a levels concept to attack Georgia's tendency of blitzing a LB on traditional running downs. The outermost WR drives his route into the void left by the blitzing LB to draw the safety up, leaving Jamo 1 on 1 vs. the safety.
While bunch sets vs. zone coverage have been prevalent in Day's playbook at times, levels concepts have been less common. Generally, bunch sets are either a screen or fake screen with a deep shot attached, seen below.
Adding levels concepts to the pre-existing concepts in Day's book could potentially be a great addition.
Tulane Concept - One thing you will notice with BoB, is his love for a "naming system", as opposed to a "numbers system". Instead of labeling WR's as 1, 2, 3, etc. he offers quick names, such as HOSS, Tulane, etc.. HOSS meaning Hitch outside Strong Seam. Tulane meaning literally 2 lanes telling his WR's to run 2 lane concepts. It is yet to be seen if BoB fully implements this system or not, or modifies his to match Day's. But that is beside the point.
Tulane is essentially a Slot Fade concept on one side of the field, and a levels concept on the other. To add additional complexity, the levels can either be in-breaking or out-breaking, again, depending on the coverage. In general, man-to-man or Cover-1 will make the Fade route open, while 2 deep zones, will make the levels concept open.
Below is a great example of the levels concept working. With Jamo already torching Georgia, they opted to have 2 deep coverage on his side of the field. The underneath routes and the Fade on the other side of the field, leave the middle of the field wide open. Georgia was hosed on this play regardless, as the Fade was also open due to them committing so many bodies to Jamo.
Next, I want to talk about tendency breakers. No scheme can be good forever unless you can mix in tendency breakers to keep the defense honest. A common trend you will see with BoB are double moves. The first play I will show you is a tendency breaker for the play I just showed, Tulane. BoB refers to this next play as Tulane Pump.
Unfortunately, without the All-22, you can't see the play develop. But essentially, this play is the exact same as the play above. However, after Jamo breaks inside on the levels concept, he does a double move and shoots deep, past the Safeties who jumped the gun expecting the same levels route.
Below, you'll find another example of attacking an over aggressive defender. While not covered in this thread, BoB, like Day, utilizes crossing routes quite often. In this play, Miami is running Cover-3 Match, meaning defenders will play man coverage within their designated zones, and handoff WR's to other defenders as they leave their zone. This defense, popularized a ton by Bill Belichek and Nick Saban, fixed the weakness of zone covererage, which is WR's simply finding the area between the zones and sitting down. In this play, Metchie appears to be running a simple drag route to open up space for the WR's running posts behind him. However, as soon as Metchie "feels" his defender switching off of him, he shoots deep. Bryce Young does a great job moving around in the pocket to let this play develop.
I hope you guys enjoyed the info I was able to provide. There are still tons of aspects to his offense that obviously can't all be discussed in full. I will offer a few of my takeaways, as I learned a ton during this process.
- Quicker than fast Slot WR is crucial. BoB loves getting them in matchups they can win. Have to win them
- QB and WR have to be able to make quick post-snap reads - Every play shown above has at least 2 WR's who are running option routes. The QB and WR have to make the same read at the same time to be able to make it work
- All of the plays shown above are staples of BoB's offense, but only account for a small portion. Most of his other schemes look very identical to Day's. If I had to guess, next year's offense will look a lot like the 2021 offense, with the potential for a few QB runs thrown into the mix.
- Offensive line has to be great. Not good. Great. And the QB has to have pocket awareness. Empty sets and/or Option routes can cause pressure issues for the QB if the pressure is not picked up or the QB can't move around to avoid it.
- Short yardage situations will look different. Will Howard coming along already changes this. But with the addition of BoB, you will see more 3 or even 4 WR sets on 3rd/4th and short.
