Thorne was given a bad hand of cards on that one.
Minnesota runs a cover-two zone. I hadn't noticed them running cover-two to that point. They dropped back into cover-two like olde school Iowa. Tight, quick, heady, shortening the windows and angles, and if you complete it, they're going to tackle you.
So it's cover-two.
A popular cover-two beater is to set up a high-low smash concept along the short sideline. One receiver to the flat, one receiver 10 yards deeper along that same sideline.
The CB in the flat either has to come up and cover the flat receiver. If he does, then that CB can sink to cover the deeper receiver along the sideline. The receiver in the flat is the low. The receiver 10 yards further down the sideline is the high. Make the CB choose to cover the high or the low. Meanwhile the safety doesn't have quite enough time to get over there to his half of the field to cover the high if the high is open in the "cover two window."
Anyway, it looked like Michigan State was trying to run a high-low. Keon Coleman was the downfield "high" part of the high-low. And that's who Thorne threw the ball to.
But TE Daniel Barker looked like he was supposed to run to the flat as the "low." Instead, Barker ran a pivot route, or a return route or a whip route or whatever you want to call it, which might have been the option route if it had been man to man. But it wasn't man-to-man. It was cover-two zone.
Barker doesn't end up going to the flat. So there is no low to the high-low. The CB doesn't have to honor the low, so he can drift deeper downfield and intercept the pass to the "high" in the cover-two hole.
meanwhile, Michigan State ended up with the RB (Berger) and Jayden Reed standing stacked at the line of gain. It's never correct to have two receivers in the same area. But they ended up nose-to-tail.
Really poor quality control on this key fourth-and-three after a pair of first downs when trailing 17-0. Not that it would have made a difference in the outcome of the game, but when I said in the Pre-Snap Read that Minnesota has its crap together and Michigan State doesn't, well it's stuff like this that needs screw-tightening.
I don't blame Thorne on that INT and I doubt the coaches do either.
**
One play earlier on the controversial third-and-four run play, well, I think if Tyler Hunt blocks the MLB instead of the edge, I think the RB has a couple of yards at least to the right. Carrick did a decent job of carving out some room at the B-gap.
I'm not saying it was the right or wrong play call, but in a game against a good team like Minnesota, you have to identify things right, make the blocks, and run your routes correctly. Heck you have to do that against any Big Ten team these days.
Minnesota runs a cover-two zone. I hadn't noticed them running cover-two to that point. They dropped back into cover-two like olde school Iowa. Tight, quick, heady, shortening the windows and angles, and if you complete it, they're going to tackle you.
So it's cover-two.
A popular cover-two beater is to set up a high-low smash concept along the short sideline. One receiver to the flat, one receiver 10 yards deeper along that same sideline.
The CB in the flat either has to come up and cover the flat receiver. If he does, then that CB can sink to cover the deeper receiver along the sideline. The receiver in the flat is the low. The receiver 10 yards further down the sideline is the high. Make the CB choose to cover the high or the low. Meanwhile the safety doesn't have quite enough time to get over there to his half of the field to cover the high if the high is open in the "cover two window."
Anyway, it looked like Michigan State was trying to run a high-low. Keon Coleman was the downfield "high" part of the high-low. And that's who Thorne threw the ball to.
But TE Daniel Barker looked like he was supposed to run to the flat as the "low." Instead, Barker ran a pivot route, or a return route or a whip route or whatever you want to call it, which might have been the option route if it had been man to man. But it wasn't man-to-man. It was cover-two zone.
Barker doesn't end up going to the flat. So there is no low to the high-low. The CB doesn't have to honor the low, so he can drift deeper downfield and intercept the pass to the "high" in the cover-two hole.
meanwhile, Michigan State ended up with the RB (Berger) and Jayden Reed standing stacked at the line of gain. It's never correct to have two receivers in the same area. But they ended up nose-to-tail.
Really poor quality control on this key fourth-and-three after a pair of first downs when trailing 17-0. Not that it would have made a difference in the outcome of the game, but when I said in the Pre-Snap Read that Minnesota has its crap together and Michigan State doesn't, well it's stuff like this that needs screw-tightening.
I don't blame Thorne on that INT and I doubt the coaches do either.
**
One play earlier on the controversial third-and-four run play, well, I think if Tyler Hunt blocks the MLB instead of the edge, I think the RB has a couple of yards at least to the right. Carrick did a decent job of carving out some room at the B-gap.
I'm not saying it was the right or wrong play call, but in a game against a good team like Minnesota, you have to identify things right, make the blocks, and run your routes correctly. Heck you have to do that against any Big Ten team these days.
