It's the beginning of the dog days of summer, so I've spent the past week or so watching a ton of Mizzou offensive film and breaking down the bread & butter play of the Eli Drinkwitz era - the wide zone (also referred to as the "Stretch" or "Outside Zone" play).
WHAT IS THE WIDE ZONE PLAY?
For those unfamiliar, the outside zone is an off-tackle, alley run play where the entire offense works in unison in one direction. The offensive linemen are trying to capture the outside/playside wing of the nearest defender and the running back is to read the movement of the widest defender - this is where he can
bounce it outside,
bang it straight ahead, or
bend it back behind the center. The blockers are trying to create a wash of defenders and move as many people side-to-side as possible. It is the centerpiece of most NFL running offenses and extremely versatile.
While being a simple play on paper, the wide zone play is one of the most complex and expensive run plays in the game. On his 3rd step, the RB must get the handoff
and already know if he is going to bend/bang/bounce the play and he is not to make a cut until his 5th step. This requires an intricacy of mesh timing established with the QB as well as natural instinct in reading the blockers. The offensive line has a simple instruction - "run that way," but the combinations require the OL to be agile six-inch punch masters that can also pick up any stunt or blitz in the world. What makes the play amazing is that it's incredibly forgiving. You do not need a 5* running back (it actually can hurt the play to have a specimen) and you do not need road-graders up front that'll knock people on their ass. The entirety of the play is just simply letting the defense take themselves out of position and capitalizing on it. It's a play that is almost guaranteed to not get a TFL if run correctly and keep your offense on schedule.
THE WIDE ZONE PLAY AT MISSOURI
Every wide zone team is different. Some guys like to man-block it, some guys like to work thick double teams to LBs, some guys like to run it as pure elephants on parade with their OL running to a certain spot. The best teams can do a little bit of it all, but major in one school of thought. The Kyle Shanahan coaching tree has 12 different ways to run this play.
Just watch a few minutes of this collection of outside zone cut-ups from Kyle Shanahan. When you really look into the intricacies of the blocking, it's slightly different and they throw a boatload of different formations, motions, and shifts at people to distract them from the fact that they're beating them up with the same damn play.
Mizzou is a team that majors in the "track blocking" tree where we get elephants on parade running in a direction. It's worked well for us. We've had the league's leading rusher twice in Eli Drinkwitz's 3-year tenure here on the backbone of this play. This style of blocking is prone to having a workhorse back that sees the same picture hundreds of times throughout the year. It's like Bruce Lee once said, "
I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who had practiced one kick 10,000 times." Cody Schrader was not the best athlete in the world, but you could watch his progress as a wide zone back over his two-year span here. By late in the 2023 season, we were feeding him every other play because he had finally reached that subjective 10,000 reps mastery level. Staying on schedule is everything. You need to get into a ton of 3rd & medium-short downs and stay away from long-yardage situations. Watch the times where Mizzou mysteriously goes away from wide zone for drives at a time and they usually either stall out or we rely on an insane display of athleticism from a skill guy just to stay alive.
It's really, really tough on an OL to track block. The wide zone is already tough, but getting the backside of the play right on wide zone in a track scheme is next-level stuff. You'd see a lot of times in 2023 where we'd have Javon Foster try to dig out an A-gap defensive lineman who was running
away from him. That was an NFL draft pick that struggled with it. The unique part of the wide zone play is that the backside is actually
more important than the playside of the play. You typically want to run this opposite of your best linemen and not at them. The playside guard and tackle just have to not get bullied backwards and you'll be fine. The Center-Backside Guard-Backside Tackle are the heart of the play.
I question whether our track-blocking style is what will be good for us immediately, at least as the
only style of blocking the play. Alex Gibbs, the renowned Godfather of the play, always demanded that the backside of the play cut defenders down and
prevent them from moving with the play. The more you can cut the defense in half, the bigger the running lanes will be. Gibbs would be turning over in his grave watching some of our wide zone cutups, despite that we were the best rushing team in the SEC. Look at how many times Cody Schrader had to bust an arm tackle just to avoid losing yards. I think we need to look into more vertical, combination styles on the backside to at least change it up, even if it means changing the picture for the back. Look at the Shanahan 49ers video again, they were mixing it up on the backside all the time, whether it was using RPOs with a "locked" backside (Guard and Tackle block head-on) or using a lead blocker that pushed combinations back one guy. You can't just have a fastball, it's important to have an offspeed breaking ball as well.
NATE NOEL
I've dedicated this time to studying some Nate Noel film from App State. I can say without a doubt he will look different than any other back we've had in the Drinkwitz era. When he gets a handoff, it looks like he was shot out of a cannon. The first thing I thought when watching Noel was "Marcus Murphy," and I stand by that comp. He's small, but runs hard behind his pads and makes quick, explosive cuts. While Schrader and Badie were some of my favorite players in Mizzou history, they really lacked explosiveness. The name of Noel's game is that he is a threat to score any time he is on the field.
The intriguing question is how we will use Nate Noel. I don't doubt that Nate Noel will be a great player for us, but I'd have to think this is the year we finally use a backfield-by-committee approach. For a 5'9, 190 lb. back, Noel runs hard with no regard for his body. He's a straight up dog and we should all admire that. However, I can't help but think he runs like someone who's never been smacked before. He doesn't seem to be the most headstrong back in the world. The offense was simplified with him in the game, he really struggles to follow lead blocks, and he lets recent mistakes get into his own head too much. For example - he fumbled early on @ UNC, and you can watch his eyes looking at the handoff a lot of the game on outside zone - a CARDINAL SIN for RBs in that offense. No matter how hard he runs, he's also 5'9 190 and the progressive beating of a season will take a toll on him if we use him like Schrader or Badie. Badie was a similar size, but protected himself well and was a thicker 190 unlike Noel.
I think this is a year you have to use a committee approach. Noel is best when you don't give him a lead back or pullers and you hand him the ball behind a vertical/combination style outside zone play (how App ran it). Then he just hits the seams like a missle and it's an explosive play. He's capable of running the inside zone, but that's not really his thing. I think you need a primary inside runner in Carroll and a primary wide zone runner in Noel. What makes me nervous is that I'm haunted by the ghosts of us trying a RB-by-committee approach in 2022, where we never established a rhythm in the run game. I'd like to think that we could handle it better now, but that requires slight evolution in our offense. It's a make or break year and we have to make it work.
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