As we saw last week, Gus Malzahn's best red zone offense over the last eight years was at Tulsa in 2008. It had a lot of success by using three- and four-receiver formations to stretch defenses across the width of the field and then taking what the defense gave up. It also had success by making defenses account for the quarterback position in the run game.
We’ve heard over and over that Malzahn tailors his offenses to his personnel, so how did his red zone offenses evolve while he was the offensive coordinator at Auburn? Today, we examine that evolution from 2009 through 2011.
2009: Playmakers in the backfield
In 2009, Auburn had Ben Tate, Mario Fannin, Eric Smith and Onterio McCalebb splitting time in the backfield, albeit in different roles. Tate was the every-down back, Smith was the blocking H-back, Fannin was a hybrid running back/H-back and McCalebb was the speedster. What’s interesting is that they all contributed as receiving threats as well, especially in the red zone. Sometimes it was by design, like the H-back running into the flat on a bootleg or the running back catching a screen pass.
Sometimes it was simply Chris Todd finding his check-down option for five yards when nothing else opened up. However it happened, Fannin, Tate, and Smith ended the season with the second-, fourth- and fifth-most catches on the team, respectively.
The running backs also helped the 2009 team by making power runs more useful. Tulsa’s 2008 team had much more success in the red zone running outside the tackles than inside, but that wasn’t the case with Ben Tate in the backfield. Add in Eric Smith at H-back, Tommy Trott or Philip Lutzenkirchen at tight end, and a solid offensive line, and Auburn could get tough yards up the middle against a lot of teams. (Four of the five linemen would start on the 2010 team as well. They were really good.)
In the Tennessee game that year, Auburn ran counter and power on two consecutive plays in the red zone. The Vols answered with a six-man front, so perfect blocking by the line and H-back up front sprung Tate into the second level. Once there, he was able to speed ahead to and through the safeties before being brought down.
Kodi Burns did his part in the backfield, too, as the Wildcat quarterback. As I was watching the video, it seemed like Auburn snapped the ball directly to Burns on 50 percent of its red zone snaps and it worked more often than not. Some of it was the good blocking up front, but some of it was the added threat of the pass from that formation, something Malzahn rarely used while at Tulsa.
In this play, Mississippi State is crowding the line of scrimmage with no defender further than six yards from the ball. The safety gets caught with his eyes in the backfield and Lutzenkirchen flies right past him. Burns easily gets the ball to the wide open tight end.
2010: Playing off the fear of Cam Newton
With the departure of Chris Todd and Ben Tate, Malzahn had to find a new passer and a new battering ram for the 2010 season. In walked Cam Newton.
Auburn didn’t know what it had at first. Did you know the first red zone possession of the year ended with Burns running for a touchdown out of the Wildcat?
After just a couple of games, Malzahn discovered Newton could run all the power run plays himself. QB power and counter? Yep. Inverted veer and zone read? Yessir. QB buck sweep? Sure, why not? That jumbo play with an offensive tackle in the backfield? Of course (but Cam’s just going to jump over the pile).
It got to the point where defenses were so worried about Newton that McCalebb had a lot of success outside. He had three touchdowns on 12 rushes against Georgia and added eight more touches in the Alabama game.
In the play below, you can see the defense crowding the line of scrimmage again with only one overhang defender to the offense’s left. When the play begins, the wide receiver to that side (Burns, I think) crack-blocks the first linebacker and seals him inside.
Burns’ motion inside also draws the corner covering him inside for just a step. This corner is the force player in this play, meaning he is supposed to force the ball back inside where his teammates can help make the tackle. He cannot let the ball carrier get outside of him no matter what, but his step inside is all McCalebb needs to get the edge and dive inside the pylon for the touchdown.
Burns effectively took out two defenders with one block while the rest of the defense was concerned with Newton.
While we’re thinking about the Georgia game, the Bulldog defense not only forgot about McCalebb, but they also forgot about Lutzenkirchen at tight end. Newton forced so much attention on himself that defenses basically left other players uncovered. There are consecutive plays in this GIF. The first is the typical jet sweep from the Wildcat formation. The second looks exactly the same, except that the tight end on the left, Lutzenkirchen, runs a route downfield and the H-back blocks back across the formation to take the tight end’s place.
Oh, and the second one scored a touchdown.
This is a great example of series play calling or sequence football, something Malzahn picked up from his Wing-T days. Each basic play is grouped with similar plays (into a series) that take advantage of various defensive reactions to the base play.
In this case, the defensive flow toward the sweep stopped the first play. Assuming the defense would react the same way to the same formation and motion, the second play was chosen to specifically take advantage of that defensive flow.
You might have noticed the play is the same as the one above from the 2009 Mississippi State game: Wildcat formation, jet sweep motion, touchdown pass to an uncovered tight end.
This actually highlights something else about Auburn’s offense in 2010. The starting quarterback and the Wildcat quarterback were one and the same when Newton was in the backfield. That led to fewer substitutions and more hurry-up, which obviously led to more success.
Auburn didn’t have that luxury very long.
2011: Many new parts
Everyone knew the quarterbacks in 2011 couldn’t replace Cam Newton. Barrett Trotter and Clint Moseley simply were not dual-threat quarterbacks.
Malzahn had to go back to his 2009 tactics in the red zone.
Unfortunately, leading receiver Darvin Adams joined Newton in declaring early for the NFL Draft and H-back Eric Smith was dismissed from the team.
Furthermore, the four returning offensive linemen from 2009 to 2010 had all finished their college careers, leaving just one returning starter for 2011. With a freshman Reese Dismukes at center and a redshirt freshman Chad Slade at guard, the line was young at some positions and inexperienced at most — and it showed.
In 2009, Auburn passed the ball 364 times. The quarterback was sacked 21 times, or on roughly 5.5 percent of all dropbacks. In 2011, Auburn had 292 pass attempts and the quarterback was sacked 32 times, about 9.9 percent of all dropbacks, which was nearly twice as often.
Likewise, in 2009, Auburn rushed 550 times and was tackled for a loss 78 times, a rate of 14.2 percent. In 2011, Auburn had 536 rushes and gave up 97 tackles for loss, a rate of 18.1 percent. That’s almost two more rushes that lost yardage per game.
What success they did have in the red zone looked a lot like the 2009 offense, but with a bigger focus on Lutzenkirchen in both the H-back and tight end roles. In fact, McCalebb and Lutzenkirchen were the second- and third-best receivers Auburn had that year.
With a porous offensive line and without a reliable receiving corp, Malzahn had his worst year in the red zone.
He took his first college head coaching job after 2011 at Arkansas State. I don’t have enough video of his offense in 2012, so we’ll have to skip a deep analysis, but his red zone offense did rebound from 4.9 points per red zone possession to 5.3 points.
It got even better in 2013, when Malzahn took over as Auburn’s head coach.
We’ll take a look at what made 2013’s red zone offense so good next week. We’ll take a look at what went wrong halfway through 2014 and throughout 2015. And I’ll attempt to diagnose what Auburn’s red zone offense might be capable of achieving in 2016.
....I have to many doubts this year....
