Film Study: Scouting Kent State

By Kyle Jones on September 11, 2014 at 10:10 am
33 Comments

For the Ohio State coaching staff, the week three matchup with Kent State finally gives them some room to breathe.

Though many fans are still standing on the ledge of fandom after last week's loss at home to Virginia Tech, the Buckeye coaches must feel better knowing that they'll finally be facing an opponent that looks somewhat familiar. 

After taking on the Naval Academy's triple-option attack in week one, followed by the aggressive, attacking defense of the Hokies, the Buckeyes will face a squad in Paul Haynes' Golden Flashes that run the same schemes they're used to seeing week in and week out in the Big Ten.

Kent State comes into the game also looking for answers of their own, after starting the season 0-2, losing to both Ohio University and South Alabama at home. But with a roster made up primarily of Buckeye state natives, there is little doubt that they will be fired up at the chance to play in Ohio Stadium, with a chance to perform on one of college football's biggest stages.


Offense

The Kent State offensive attack has been very much reliant on the short and intermediate passing game thus far in 2014. Averaging only 47 yards per game on the ground, the Flashes' trouble running the ball may continue against the very good Buckeye defensive line.

Relying on the inside and outside zone for the most part, the flashes split carries between #4 Nick Holley and #22 Miles Hibbler, neither of whom possess ideal size or have much experience. Though he's not a great athlete, sophomore quarterback Colin Reardon will occasionally participate in the run game as well, carrying out zone-read options on the backside defensive end, as well as occasionally running the inverted veer.

With a lack of big plays coming from the inside running game, the Flashes have an entire series built off the Jet Sweep, much like what we've seen from the Buckeyes with Dontre Wilson and Jalin Marshall. The Flashes like to get the ball to speedy receiver Ernest Calhoun (#25) quite a bit with in these situations, usually with short swing passes but also with the occasional handoff, always looking to use his speed on the edge.

Built much like Wilson at 5'6" and 151 lbs, the undersized Calhoun is small and quick enough to cause problems for OSU alley players like linebacker Darron Lee and safeties Tyvis Powell and Vonn Bell in the open field. But the key to the Jet series for Kent is not just the threat of Calhoun, but also the wrinkles they've built to take advantage of teams that overplay him in motion.

One such counter was shown last week against South Alabama, after establishing the threat of the sweep on the outside.

KSU Jet motion

After seeing the slot running away from them, the defenders on the right side begin to crash down on the backfield, paying no attention to any action on their side of the field.

KSU Jet motion 2

But after feigning a block on the outside defenders, the left tackle and guard as well as the running back, who appeared to be pass blocking, set up for a wide open "throwback" screen pass.

KSU throwback screen

But with only one defensive back and two lead blockers to lead him to the promised land, the running back (Hibbler) takes his eye off the ball and drops the easy pass, negating a potential big play. 

Unfortunately for KSU fans, such executional failures have been quite common so far this year. In an offense isn't anything special schematically, they have been plagued by drops, miscommunications between offensive linemen, and incorrect reads by Reardon when looking for receivers.

The offensive line situation is an extremely unfortunate one, as starting center Jason Bitsko tragically passed away on August 20th. The emotional loss for the Golden Flashes is clearly much larger than any such issue on the field, but they've had trouble replacing the senior anchor, moving players to new positions late in training camp to compensate.

Much like the young Buckeye offensive line hasn't had much opportunity yet to gel, the Kent State linemen are stilling learning how to play with one another, leaving the potential for some big plays this weekend from an Ohio State line that has a massive talent edge. Joey Bosa, Michael Bennett, Adolphus Washington and crew played extremely well against the Hokies, and with the return of Noah Spence, there's no reason to expect that to slow down on Saturday.

Getting pressure on Reardon will be the biggest key to stopping the Flashes, as he has struggled to keep his mechanics sound when facing pressure. South Alabama had good athletes on the defensive line, and was able to force a number of errant throws from Reardon, who only completed 17 out of 40 pass attempts after completing nearly 75% of his throws the week before.

When he had time though, Reardon looked most to senior tight end Casey Pierce (#7), who found a great deal of success in intermediate crossing routes, finding the seams between the underneath zones of the linebackers. 

KSU TE Cross

On this particular play, the middle linebacker has his eyes on the backfield, likely waiting to see if the running back releases on a pass pattern, and allowing Pierce to sneak right behind him on the crossing route. 

KSU TE Cross 2

Reardon doesn't feel any pressure from the South Alabama D-line, allowing him to throw an easy strike to Pierce just beyond the hash while the middle linebacker has no idea he's there. By alerting the middle linebacker early enough, Pierce may have never been open enough for Reardon to even attempt that throw, and if he had, the defender would've been in great position to make a play on the ball.

Virginia Tech found similar holes in the Buckeye coverage last week, as tight end Ryan Malleck caught 6 passes on very similar patterns to what Kent ran above. The linebacking crew of Lee, Curtis Grant, and Josh Perry will need to be better at communicating, alerting one another to receivers as they move horizontally from one zone to the next. 

Overall, the Kent State passing game has not looked particularly advanced thus far in 2014, relying on simple west coast passing concepts like curl/flat and double slants, looking to stretch the defense horizontally. The Flashes may connect on one or two short passes, especially to slot receivers as the Buckeye cornerbacks like Doran Grant continue to impress in their ability to lock down outside receivers in man coverage. However, the Flashes lack any athletes beyond Calhoun with the speed to get behind the Buckeyes' secondary without a breakdown in coverage.

Ultimately though, the Buckeyes won't have to change too much schematically from what they threw at the Virginia Tech offense. Hokies QB Michael Brewer stayed calm under pressure and delivered a number of great passes even with an oncoming pass rush.

The chances of Reardon completing those same passes is much less likely, and the OSU defense will likely be champing at the bit to silence the critics after only giving up an impressive 324 yards last week. As long as the Buckeye defense is fundamentally sound, making tackles and winning individual battles on the line and in pass coverage, the Golden Flashes will struggle to put points on the board in the Horseshoe. 


Defense

Much like the Buckeyes and many other teams across the nation, Haynes has installed a Cover 4 scheme, looking to keep everything in front of his defensive backs and not getting beat deep, especially on the outside.

KSU Cover 4

Against the spread offense of South Alabama, Haynes operated out of 4-2-5 personnel, leaving two cornerbacks and two safeties deep on nearly every snap, and bringing in a 3rd safety to play in the field (wide) side alley. Many Buckeye fans that remember the OSU defense of the late 2000's under Jim Heacock will recall this fifth defensive back as the "STAR" position which was manned by players like Jermale Hines and Tyler Moeller. 

Considering Haynes was a defensive back coach for the Buckeyes during that period, it shouldn't be surprising to see that role reprised in Kent. The role is very similar to that of the same role now occupied on the OSU defense by Darron Lee, disrupting screen passes to wide receivers and acting as the contain player on outside runs.

At 5'9" and 230 lbs, current STAR Elcee Refuge is strong enough to make plays on bigger running backs, but lacks the natural quickness to cover a player like Dontre Wilson, the man he'll usually see lined up across from him on Saturday.

Unlike what the Buckeyes saw against Virginia Tech, Refuge will often be the only player lining up outside in the alleys. The Hokies did a good job of crowding this area by bringing their safeties down to help stop quick screens and sweeps to the outside, two staples of the Buckeye offense under Urban Meyer. 

As Meyer eluded to in his Monday press conference, this is the first time the Buckeyes will be facing a defense that their offense was built to built to defeat. Although the OSU wide receivers struggled against Virginia Tech, they have an athletic advantage over most of the Kent State defensive backs tasked with covering them.

The only exception might be cornerback Najee Murray, who enrolled at KSU after being being dismissed from Ohio State in 2012. While Murray showed in his freshman year with the Buckeyes that he has the athleticism to play at the highest levels, he is still refining his technique in only his third game as a starter. 

By posing this home run threat on every play, the Flashes will keep their corners and safeties very deep before the snap, leaving the flats wide open and ready to be exposed by the Buckeye offense. This also means that OSU will be seeing only 6 defenders in the box for the majority of the game, meaning they'll likely try to establish the tight zone early and often.

OSU Tight Zone

The Golden Flash defensive line is undersized, although freshman nose tackle Jon Cunningham (#90) has shown flashes of being a very good player already. Whether he can translate that success to a far superior opponent to what he's seen thus far is still in question though. Beyond him though, few players in the Kent State defensive front appear to have "game-changing" ability, meaning they lean heavily on their back four. 

Free safety Nate Holley (#18) leads the team in tackles, with an impressive 27 in two games, and strong safety Jordan Italiano (#23) comes in second with 17 of his own. Although both line up deep at the snap, they're called on to be the force player in run support, taking down runners that have been turned back inside by the outside defenders as well as coming forward on interior runs. 

To keep these two from making plays, one can surmise that the Buckeyes will turn back to packaging quick passes with the tight zone. OSU saw success against Navy's deep defensive backs by combining screen passes to wide receivers, picking up quick chunks of yards on the outside before the deep defenders could get there to help make a tackle.

OSU packaged screen

Additionally, knowing these safeties will have eyes on the backfield if OSU can establish the running game early, they'll be prone to giving up a deep ball off play-action. Neither safety has the speed to run with the likes of Devin Smith, Wilson, and others on a deep vertical route, meaning they won't be able to take the false steps forward that got Navy in trouble in week one.

Devin Smith deep ball vs Cover 4

There is little doubt that the coaching staff on the offensive side of the ball has something to prove after they were effectively shut down for long stretches in their last showing. While finding success in base plays like the tight zone or screen passes builds confidence, it also has real value towards executing the complimentary pieces of the offense, such as the deep and intermediate passing game as defenses begin to focus more and more on stopping an inside running play.

Confidence and execution often go hand in hand for an offense, and Kent State's less aggressive defense offers just the kind of opportunity to foster both. This should finally be the day where we see OSU's young, explosive playmakers like Wilson, Marshall, and others get to shine, while re-establishing the inside running game that has defined the Meyer offense in Columbus. 

The one positive of losing early in the year as opposed to the postseason losses to Michigan State and Clemson, is that the Buckeyes get a chance to fix it right away. The 2014 Buckeyes are not a bad team, simply one trying to understand their own strengths. As much as the Ohio-born Golden Flashes will try to make a statement, they're unfortunately going against a team with even more to prove, which could make for a very long day for our friends from Kent.

33 Comments
View 33 Comments