Indiana uses the snag route concept to break a man wide open (shown below), and the question arises as to who to blame and if players were out of position. The above photo, however, shows most of what you need to see: you’re probably in trouble. It’s a wide trips bunch (trips but detached from the formation), the corner isn’t in position to get a jam, and you’re outnumbered. Being third and 16 it’s not a given that Indiana could convert, but this defense is not well equipped for the formation. To illustrate, let me flip the question around: If you were IU’s quarterback or offensive coordinator (or if you were Michigan and IU lined up like this against you), what would you call? The answer, most coaches would agree, is most anything you like, especially with the techniques Michigan used.
Northwestern plays a lot of zone coverage and the speculation is that they'll play cover-2 against us as their main defense. This article from Chris Brown on SMART FOOTBALL shows a lot of cover-2 beaters, ones we've seen OSU employ quite a bit in our offense.
One play I'd like to see more of is the TE seam (running 3 verticals against 2 high). For some reason, we just don't throw that pass a lot.
