Film Room: Indiana

Felton Davis Run

This was the play right after Rison converted on fourth down to keep the drive alive and really sets up the go-ahead touchdown. It is a good call in the scenario because Indiana is figuring a run is coming with a fresh set of downs.

This is as the ball is snapped, but you get a good picture of what the play looks like. Indiana is playing everyone pretty tight here. The deepest safety is eight yards behind the line and creeping up.

White has taken the first toss from Lewerke and you can see that basically every Indiana defender is within this circle in the middle of the field. Most of them are not in very good position either, with several flat footed or stopped or backpedaling.

Here is maybe the most important block of the entire play. This is right after White pitched it do Davis. Luke Campbell is going to get enough of his man to force him to the outside of Davis as he comes back across the field. If he doesn’t make this block, the play is blown up for a big loss.

But Campbell does get the block, and Davis gets cleanly to this point, where he has three blockers (well two blockers and Lewerke) out in front of him. You can also see how much open space there is to the outside with all the Hoosier defenders bunched in the middle of the field.

Here is my favorite part of this play though, and its one that was pointed out on twitter earlier today. Lewerke pushes L.J. Scott into the block rather than throwing one himself. Not necessarily a bad move considering how important he is, but still pretty funny. This from Lewerke on twitter about his block:

Here is the full video of the play.

Cody White Catch and Run

This was the play that more or less put the game away. This conversion set up the final L.J. Scott TD that Indiana basically let him have.

We start off bringing Rison down closer to the formation just as the ball is about to be snapped. He is going to be the initial option on the quick out.

As we just mentioned, Rison is going to run an out route, while White is going to go and basically just sit down near the 45 yard line. Lewerke and Scott are going to roll right.

Lewerke rolls out, and looks initially at Rison. What he sees is the two outside Indiana defenders come down on him, that leaves White open on the second read in the middle. You can see the inside of the two defenders bite on Rison just enough to open up White and Lewerke delivers the ball.

Here’s the same look from behind the play. The red circle is Rison and the two Hoosiers and you can see White (yellow circle) open. Lewerke does a good job delivering the ball on time before the defender in the middle has a chance to come down and cut off the passing lane or get to White before he turns up field.

You see the aforementioned defender go to the ground as White makes the catch here and turns to run. After that it is just White making another Hoosier defender look silly and then he’s off to the races.

That’s all we’ve got this week as there just wasn’t a whole lot going on for either side. The longest play the defense allowed was a 29 yard gain on a play that started at Indiana’s own one yard line.

On offense, the Spartans really need to take a step forward next week against Northwestern. With the two games coming up against Penn State and Ohio State, they can’t be relying on completely shutting down a team’s offense in order to win.