Film Review: Florida

Leave Garrett Nussmeier alone

The LSU offense is worse than it was entering October, but as easy as it is to just blame the Quarterback, it’s rarely that simple. Even when a QB is truly playing worse football than he had previously, there’s often an external cause for the change. Regardless, this isn’t one of those cases, Garrett Nussmeier is the same QB in a vacuum that he was in September, with the same strengths and habits. What has changed is the reality around him. That shift isn’t as much in supporting cast or play-calling, but what defenses have done to figure out what what they can get away with. Nussmeier isn’t more reckless than he was when the draft community fawned over him in October, he’s not missing more opportunities or mismanaging more pockets, but LSU’s path to open receivers and available offense has narrowed to a point where he’s made to look much worse while asked to do much more.

The book is fully out that LSU can’t run the ball, so defenses have a lot more freedom in how they can cover. With the way LSU’s receiver group is constructed, the passing game runs through the underneath and intermediate. When your best targets are a TE, a slow but refined route-runner/possession type, and a guy who is 5’8, all paths lie inside. With both safeties free from immediate run support, defenses can use them to nail down the 10 to 15-yard area and drive on anything breaking inside while the second-level coverage guys play underneath. A variety of coverages allow you to do this, but teams have taken to bracketing the slots with the safeties squeezing the seams from high and inside. If you remember earlier in the year, all of LSU’s success was coming in this area. With defenses selling out to take it away, how would an offense counterpunch?

With the Safeties staying shallow, an opportunity opens up in the deep passing game, as the area behind them is uncovered. The problem for LSU is that there isn’t a legitimate vertical threat on the roster, with Chris Hilton either being absent from the lineup or ineffective. The only other guy with any speed is again, 5’8, and too small to play through contact and get deep. With nothing credible outside, LSU can’t force the Safeties deep and create the air they need underneath, snap after snap giving Nussmeier nowhere to go with the ball.

The other solution is to run the football to punish the defense for being down a body in the box, but we all know how that has gone. Despite having only 5 bodies for 6 gaps, Florida could account for everything and control the space by two-gapping on the DL. With LSU’s front unable to dominate physically and its simplistic spread run game, Florida was never hurt enough on the ground to need that extra guy.

The defenders have rules to play it differently if they see pulling linemen, but against inside-zone, the head-up alignment of the NT and DT on the guards prevents easy double teams and makes it harder for the offense to get any push. It leaves more bubbles (gaps with no defender aligned in the space) along the line of scrimmage, but if they can hold up 1v1 one enough it allows the DL access to both of their gaps.

Fitting this like Florida does allows them to keep the Safeties free from any gap. While Texas A&M above is still above to play 2-high coverages with the safety involved, the 1-gap (players penetrate downhill into a single gap) nature of the front means the S has to have a gap to get every gap accounted for (7th guy for 7 gaps). In Florida’s case, the Safeties don’t have anywhere to be and can focus on coverage until they see the ball clearly handed off and just go play pursuit. So while LSU has had issues with unblocked secondary support defenders when running inside zone, Florida didn’t need them.

As they’ve continued to try to establish outside zone as an option, defenses have figured out a series of tells that were obvious since they first started running it. Almost every time LSU shifts the back into pistol like this, they’re running outside zone, and they always run it to the side of the TE. You can see the Florida defenders communicating at the shift, with the Edge aligned to the TE side bumping out to establish himself outside. LSU runs it to the TE side because defenses are more likely to set a soft edge there (end man on the defensive line inside of the offense’s last guy), which makes it easier to get to the perimeter. Most OZ teams can run it into a hard or soft edge but LSU isn’t very good at blocking it inside and creating cutback lanes, so they’re trying to steal the edge. As I wrote after they first broke it out:

Moving beyond scheme, the injury to Garrett Dellinger has wrecked Nussmeier’s protection. OL is always a weak-link unit, and with Paul Mubenga struggling (next to DJ Chester who was already struggling), Florida was able to consistently cave pockets and generate quick interior pressure.

You can see here that Nussmeier is trying to work to the backside dig and step up into space to make the throw, but can’t get through with the loss of pocket integrity to his left side.

Garrett Nussmeier making plays over and over from nothing to move the sticks on 3rd and 4th downs kept LSU in the game. Almost no offense can be sustainably propped up only by a QB squeezing blood from a stone, just ask the Chiefs who have struggled on that side of the ball for 2 years now. Nussmeier is good, even great, but he’s far from a finished product and he cannot do this on his own.