PackerBlues
09-14-2007, 04:22 PM
http://www.theacc.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/092006aac.html
Extra Points: NFL Roots To Carolina Attack
Lee Pace on Carolina's new blocking scheme.
Charlston Gray
Sept. 20, 2006
by Lee Pace, Extra Points
Charlston Gray was put on an island, asked to go 1-on-1 against one of the best defensive tackles in the ACC. A redshirt freshman guard against a senior who would earn second-team All-ACC honors. Not the best of odds, for sure.
Carolina had the ball third-and-8 at the Virginia Tech 26 with time running down in November, 2004. Tech led, 27-24, and the Tar Heels were trying to set up a game-tying field goal from Connor Barth. But Davis made a powerful move around Gray and sacked QB Darian Durant for an 11-yard loss, putting Barth in the difficult spot of attempting a 54-yard kick. The rest was history: Barth missed and Tech escaped Chapel Hill with a win.
The relevance of that play to 2006 is this: In the Tar Heels' new pass protection scheme implemented by first-year coordinator Frank Cignetti and line coach Mark Weber, Davis might well have not gotten through. Probably would not have, in fact.
No longer is the Tar Heels' run blocking and pass protection playbook built around 1-on-1, man-to-man and trapping blocking principles. It's now a zone-blocking scheme, and pass protection rules are always looking for 4-on-3, 3-on-2 and 2-on-1 mismatches in the Tar Heels' favor. In a similar situation Saturday night against Furman, a Paladin bolted through the line but was quickly scooped up by tailback Barrington Edwards; QB Cam Sexton had plenty of time and found Hakeem Nicks downfield for a 40-yard gain. Through three games this year, Carolina has allowed only two sacks. One of those was when Joe Dailey decided to run with the ball and took it in the direction of the defender; Sexton was hit only once against Furman.
"Our success has been because of the players and the scheme and the players who have bought into the scheme," Sexton says. "Coach Weber is extremely meticulous in what they do. They prepare hard, work hard, and play hard, and it's an excellent scheme. The idea is you want to get 3-on-2 and have the back scan to pick up the blitz. Barrington and Ronnie [McGill] are doing an excellent job. Being hit one time the other night is a testament to what our line and backs are doing."
Adds Cignetti: "If they have two guys on that side, we try to get three. If they have three over here, we want to have four. We want to make sure our numbers always give us an advantage."
Here's some more minutiae about the running game and pass protection system: It was essentially developed by a Mt. Airy native who took graduate courses in European history at Carolina back in the 1960s. You saw it during the Denver Broncos' march to Super Bowl triumphs in 1998 and '99. You saw it last year in the NFL as the Atlanta Falcons and Broncos were the No. 1 and 2 rushing teams in the league. You saw it on national TV last Saturday when Michigan throttled Notre Dame. It's built around zone blocking principles, utilizes smaller, quicker linemen, and features vertical cuts by the running backs and cut-blocks on the backside of the play. For an offensive lineman, footwork above all is crucial.
It's the Alex Gibbs influence on the NFL and now, by trickle-down, the college game as well.
"If you go back and look at football in the NFL in the last 15 or 20 years, Alex Gibbs has probably had as big an impact in the running game as anybody," says Michigan coach Lloyd Carr, who brought in Gibbs as a consultant during the off-season. "He's one of the game's greatest teachers, and his expertise is the zone blocking scheme, not only in the running game but the pass off the running game."
Gibbs is a Mt. Airy native, played football at Davidson and did graduate level work at Chapel Hill and Auburn, earning a doctorate at the latter institution and acquiring the nickname throughout the NFL as "The Doctor." He coached Mt. Airy to the 1968 Class AAA state championship and then began a coaching odyssey that took him to, among other places, Duke (where he was a staff mate of current Carolina tight ends coach John Gutekunst), West Virginia (where he worked for Frank Cignetti Sr., father of the current offensive coordinator) and Kansas City of the NFL (where he coached the offensive line in 1993-94 against John Bunting's linebacking corps). The coaching business is truly a small world.
"Alex Gibbs is an absolute wild man, a tyrant, a fiery little guy," Bunting says with a smile. "And he's a good friend. His system is like Tiger Woods' golf game - it's all about repetition, repetition, repetition, doing the same thing, over and over and over again. You don't have a lot of different runs. But you get very good at the ones you do have. You use the backs for pass protection. We were at Kansas City when I saw how good Marcus Allen became at pass protection. Very seldom did we see our quarterbacks get hurt."
Gibbs took his ideas from Kansas City to Denver in 1995 and began developing outstanding offensive lines using smaller, quicker, more agile players than was the NFL norm. Those linemen were technicians, dancing laterally along the line of scrimmage and taking their opponents in the direction the opponent dictates. Their quickness allowed them to attack their opponents off the ball, get to the second level where linebackers roam and clean up loose ends downfield. Tailbacks spent little time running parallel to the line of scrimmage; the worst you can do, in theory, is no gain. One of the bread-and-butter runs is the cutback: the tailback presses the line, presses, presses, the play evolving like a stretch play or outside zone play; then he cuts back against the grain.
"They knock out one yard, two yards, three yards, then, crack, bang, 60 yards," Chiefs Coach Dick Vermeil once said of the Broncos' running game efficiency. "They do it all day and are very patient with it."
The Broncos won back-to-back Super Bowls as the offense set numerous NFL and franchise records, most of them in rushing yards and fewest sacks allowed. The Denver rushing offense, centered on tailback Terrell Davis, ranked in the top five three times from 1995-2003, and the Broncos did not allow more than 35 sacks in a season from 1995-2000. Gibbs then moved to Atlanta, where the Falcons led the NFL in rushing in 2004. Today he remains on staff as a consultant to head coach Jim Mora.
Not coincidentally, the computers in Kenan Football Center are loaded with plenty of Broncos and Falcons game action. There's also tape of the Green Bay Packers, whose head coach, Mike McCarthy, is a good friend and mentor to Cignetti and whose new offensive coordinator, Jeff Jagodzinski, was most recently tight ends coach under Gibbs in Atlanta. Last year Cignetti was coaching at Fresno State when he sat down with ESPN commentator David Diaz-Infante for a pre-telecast background session. Diaz-Infante asked Cignetti where he got his blocking and pass protection schemes. Told they were from Gibbs' playbook, Diaz-Infante said, "No wonder they look familiar. I played for Alex Gibbs in Denver."
"My dad and Mike McCarthy have had the biggest influences on my philosophy of coaching and teaching quarterbacks," Cignetti says. "You at Mike's influences, the coaches who have molded him, and you have to look at Paul Hackett. And Paul was a Tom Landry and Bill Walsh disciple. Ideas are stolen and borrowed from others in this business. A lot of people today have adapted Alex's run-game thoughts. Ten years ago, the buzzword was Jim McNally. His ideas were very popular then."
Center Scott Lenahan marvels at the precision with which the pros execute the offense. "They're surgical with it," says Lenahan. "They're perfect. You can see the cut-back lanes open up. You look at your position and say, `Okay, that's what I have to do.' You see it in live action. That makes more of an impression than just looking at the Xs-and-Os on the play sheets."
Adds tackle Brian Chacos: "It's fun to watch games on Sunday and see the same plays we run. The cut-back is a key part of our offense. The play-action is another big part. We have a ton of play-action passes off zone runs. Virginia Tech had a hard time defending our play-action. We killed Furman with naked screens off play-action. We've just shown a little bit of what we can do."
Weber is a proponent of the system because it's a good fit for the Tar Heels' personnel and it's aggressive.
"With this offense, we can block everything they throw at us," he says. "We can block an eight-man front. It gives us a lot of flexibility. You can use guys a little under-sized for Division 1 football. Our philosophy is, we want them to play fast, play hard, finish blocks and get downfield."
After Edwards bolted 34 yards for a touchdown against Furman Saturday - an exact play from Gibbs' blocking playbook at Kansas City 13 years ago - Weber was 15 yards out on the field to greet and congratulate his blockers, Lenahan in particular. "Tank," as he's known to his teammates, stands only 6-foot but has learned to flourish in the system.
"I'm no huge lineman who's going to drive someone back 15 yards," Lenahan says. "I utilize my quickness and speed. I am definitely sold on the system. It's a tenacious, get-after it offense."
[b]As with all "systems," this one is only as good as the players implementing it. Thus the coaching staff is working to develop the players it has on campus and recruit the quarterbacks, runners, receivers and blockers to make it work in the future. In two weeks, we'll take a look at the evolution of the West Coast passing game that constitutes the foundation of the Tar Heels' passing game.
Extra Points: NFL Roots To Carolina Attack
Lee Pace on Carolina's new blocking scheme.
Charlston Gray
Sept. 20, 2006
by Lee Pace, Extra Points
Charlston Gray was put on an island, asked to go 1-on-1 against one of the best defensive tackles in the ACC. A redshirt freshman guard against a senior who would earn second-team All-ACC honors. Not the best of odds, for sure.
Carolina had the ball third-and-8 at the Virginia Tech 26 with time running down in November, 2004. Tech led, 27-24, and the Tar Heels were trying to set up a game-tying field goal from Connor Barth. But Davis made a powerful move around Gray and sacked QB Darian Durant for an 11-yard loss, putting Barth in the difficult spot of attempting a 54-yard kick. The rest was history: Barth missed and Tech escaped Chapel Hill with a win.
The relevance of that play to 2006 is this: In the Tar Heels' new pass protection scheme implemented by first-year coordinator Frank Cignetti and line coach Mark Weber, Davis might well have not gotten through. Probably would not have, in fact.
No longer is the Tar Heels' run blocking and pass protection playbook built around 1-on-1, man-to-man and trapping blocking principles. It's now a zone-blocking scheme, and pass protection rules are always looking for 4-on-3, 3-on-2 and 2-on-1 mismatches in the Tar Heels' favor. In a similar situation Saturday night against Furman, a Paladin bolted through the line but was quickly scooped up by tailback Barrington Edwards; QB Cam Sexton had plenty of time and found Hakeem Nicks downfield for a 40-yard gain. Through three games this year, Carolina has allowed only two sacks. One of those was when Joe Dailey decided to run with the ball and took it in the direction of the defender; Sexton was hit only once against Furman.
"Our success has been because of the players and the scheme and the players who have bought into the scheme," Sexton says. "Coach Weber is extremely meticulous in what they do. They prepare hard, work hard, and play hard, and it's an excellent scheme. The idea is you want to get 3-on-2 and have the back scan to pick up the blitz. Barrington and Ronnie [McGill] are doing an excellent job. Being hit one time the other night is a testament to what our line and backs are doing."
Adds Cignetti: "If they have two guys on that side, we try to get three. If they have three over here, we want to have four. We want to make sure our numbers always give us an advantage."
Here's some more minutiae about the running game and pass protection system: It was essentially developed by a Mt. Airy native who took graduate courses in European history at Carolina back in the 1960s. You saw it during the Denver Broncos' march to Super Bowl triumphs in 1998 and '99. You saw it last year in the NFL as the Atlanta Falcons and Broncos were the No. 1 and 2 rushing teams in the league. You saw it on national TV last Saturday when Michigan throttled Notre Dame. It's built around zone blocking principles, utilizes smaller, quicker linemen, and features vertical cuts by the running backs and cut-blocks on the backside of the play. For an offensive lineman, footwork above all is crucial.
It's the Alex Gibbs influence on the NFL and now, by trickle-down, the college game as well.
"If you go back and look at football in the NFL in the last 15 or 20 years, Alex Gibbs has probably had as big an impact in the running game as anybody," says Michigan coach Lloyd Carr, who brought in Gibbs as a consultant during the off-season. "He's one of the game's greatest teachers, and his expertise is the zone blocking scheme, not only in the running game but the pass off the running game."
Gibbs is a Mt. Airy native, played football at Davidson and did graduate level work at Chapel Hill and Auburn, earning a doctorate at the latter institution and acquiring the nickname throughout the NFL as "The Doctor." He coached Mt. Airy to the 1968 Class AAA state championship and then began a coaching odyssey that took him to, among other places, Duke (where he was a staff mate of current Carolina tight ends coach John Gutekunst), West Virginia (where he worked for Frank Cignetti Sr., father of the current offensive coordinator) and Kansas City of the NFL (where he coached the offensive line in 1993-94 against John Bunting's linebacking corps). The coaching business is truly a small world.
"Alex Gibbs is an absolute wild man, a tyrant, a fiery little guy," Bunting says with a smile. "And he's a good friend. His system is like Tiger Woods' golf game - it's all about repetition, repetition, repetition, doing the same thing, over and over and over again. You don't have a lot of different runs. But you get very good at the ones you do have. You use the backs for pass protection. We were at Kansas City when I saw how good Marcus Allen became at pass protection. Very seldom did we see our quarterbacks get hurt."
Gibbs took his ideas from Kansas City to Denver in 1995 and began developing outstanding offensive lines using smaller, quicker, more agile players than was the NFL norm. Those linemen were technicians, dancing laterally along the line of scrimmage and taking their opponents in the direction the opponent dictates. Their quickness allowed them to attack their opponents off the ball, get to the second level where linebackers roam and clean up loose ends downfield. Tailbacks spent little time running parallel to the line of scrimmage; the worst you can do, in theory, is no gain. One of the bread-and-butter runs is the cutback: the tailback presses the line, presses, presses, the play evolving like a stretch play or outside zone play; then he cuts back against the grain.
"They knock out one yard, two yards, three yards, then, crack, bang, 60 yards," Chiefs Coach Dick Vermeil once said of the Broncos' running game efficiency. "They do it all day and are very patient with it."
The Broncos won back-to-back Super Bowls as the offense set numerous NFL and franchise records, most of them in rushing yards and fewest sacks allowed. The Denver rushing offense, centered on tailback Terrell Davis, ranked in the top five three times from 1995-2003, and the Broncos did not allow more than 35 sacks in a season from 1995-2000. Gibbs then moved to Atlanta, where the Falcons led the NFL in rushing in 2004. Today he remains on staff as a consultant to head coach Jim Mora.
Not coincidentally, the computers in Kenan Football Center are loaded with plenty of Broncos and Falcons game action. There's also tape of the Green Bay Packers, whose head coach, Mike McCarthy, is a good friend and mentor to Cignetti and whose new offensive coordinator, Jeff Jagodzinski, was most recently tight ends coach under Gibbs in Atlanta. Last year Cignetti was coaching at Fresno State when he sat down with ESPN commentator David Diaz-Infante for a pre-telecast background session. Diaz-Infante asked Cignetti where he got his blocking and pass protection schemes. Told they were from Gibbs' playbook, Diaz-Infante said, "No wonder they look familiar. I played for Alex Gibbs in Denver."
"My dad and Mike McCarthy have had the biggest influences on my philosophy of coaching and teaching quarterbacks," Cignetti says. "You at Mike's influences, the coaches who have molded him, and you have to look at Paul Hackett. And Paul was a Tom Landry and Bill Walsh disciple. Ideas are stolen and borrowed from others in this business. A lot of people today have adapted Alex's run-game thoughts. Ten years ago, the buzzword was Jim McNally. His ideas were very popular then."
Center Scott Lenahan marvels at the precision with which the pros execute the offense. "They're surgical with it," says Lenahan. "They're perfect. You can see the cut-back lanes open up. You look at your position and say, `Okay, that's what I have to do.' You see it in live action. That makes more of an impression than just looking at the Xs-and-Os on the play sheets."
Adds tackle Brian Chacos: "It's fun to watch games on Sunday and see the same plays we run. The cut-back is a key part of our offense. The play-action is another big part. We have a ton of play-action passes off zone runs. Virginia Tech had a hard time defending our play-action. We killed Furman with naked screens off play-action. We've just shown a little bit of what we can do."
Weber is a proponent of the system because it's a good fit for the Tar Heels' personnel and it's aggressive.
"With this offense, we can block everything they throw at us," he says. "We can block an eight-man front. It gives us a lot of flexibility. You can use guys a little under-sized for Division 1 football. Our philosophy is, we want them to play fast, play hard, finish blocks and get downfield."
After Edwards bolted 34 yards for a touchdown against Furman Saturday - an exact play from Gibbs' blocking playbook at Kansas City 13 years ago - Weber was 15 yards out on the field to greet and congratulate his blockers, Lenahan in particular. "Tank," as he's known to his teammates, stands only 6-foot but has learned to flourish in the system.
"I'm no huge lineman who's going to drive someone back 15 yards," Lenahan says. "I utilize my quickness and speed. I am definitely sold on the system. It's a tenacious, get-after it offense."
[b]As with all "systems," this one is only as good as the players implementing it. Thus the coaching staff is working to develop the players it has on campus and recruit the quarterbacks, runners, receivers and blockers to make it work in the future. In two weeks, we'll take a look at the evolution of the West Coast passing game that constitutes the foundation of the Tar Heels' passing game.