Anatomy Maze

This is an example of the work required to be a great coach. Every L is not a loss but it is a lesson. Great coaches figure out were they are struggling and they go back and comeback after reloading to win it all. This is an article that everyone should read multiple times. This along with all the other Mazes we have had from blitziscomin have been gold and this might be platinum. As the newest member of the Maze crew he is definitely bringing some credibility to the operation.

Anatomy of a Great Loss

(name shout out to Nitros and his great series that have better results...lol)

The weekend is here and my Wilkinson season is a failure. This is nothing new - it keeps me coming back for more. The only new twist is the great coach that ended my championship dreams is not bkdries for once. Hypnotoad bounced back from our previous meeting, a 58-3 blowout, to show every non-elite BCS program how to slaughter a perceived giant. He made it look easy.

I love rooting for non-elite BCS teams. I think it is the hardest job out there. You are a long shot to win the conference championship every season. You are at a disadvantage in recruiting for all of the blue chips. Your job is never safe. Elites in BCS conferences need their conference mates to be strong. The difference between 30-40k and 70-80k bowl money is usually found in non-elite programs being led by excellent coaches.

My Oklahoma program has benefited greatly from having top coaches like arcadecowboy, lyonzfan37, hypnotoad, leinbacker, huskerfan26, chainsaw4, cjsweat, and BTINLA do some heavy lifting at Big 12 programs feeding me bowl money to build national championship contenders. (Apologies to coaches I forgot). I think some of the best coaching jobs in the past 10 seasons have come from naskin at Indiana, treyomo at South Carolina, lyonzfan37 during his Colorado reign, and jasonfreeman while he was at California. There is a new coach to add to this list and it is hypnotoad at Missouri.

I'd like to walk you through my thoughts as I analyze his amazing win. Before I do that I'd like to make a confession: my Wilkinson seasons end in one of three ways (1) I win the NC (happened once so I don't experience this often (2) I lose a late-season game putting me on tilt so I don't care about my bowl game / I don't game plan for my bowl game / I just move on and pay attention to one of my other four teams / I don't want to think about Wilkinson for a week (3) I lose a late-season game that causes me to dig into the expanded play-by-play to look for ways to improve my formations, playbooks, game plans, recruiting for better players, change practice plans for higher formation IQ, etc. These deep dives after losses have helped me become a better coach.

I lost the conference championship game badly. I lost the score each half. I lost Time of Possession. I lost completion percentage. Not much to feel good about at first glance - especially after our first meeting:

Time to work through the Expanded Play-by-Play to see what I need to improve on to become a better coach.

The very first play of the game causes me some heartburn.... right out of the gates. My QB misses a TD on the first play of the game. My uber stud WR is wide open deep and my QB doesn't see him. I don't score on that drive so this error costs me 7 points. My QB's formation IQ is 82 and my WRs formation IQ is 95 so I don't think I can blame low formation IQ.

Later in the 1st Quarter I find another offensive play that gives raises my blood pressure just a bit:

My 3rd and 5 play was one play away from having his other 3 DBs subbed out because of fatigue. Mills, Nelson, and Dean would have been subbed out for Jackson, Parker, and Bowers. Green had already been subbed out for Jackson. This costs me 4 points. I get a FG on the drive rather than a TD.

I'm not going to lie.... these reviews are painful sometimes. I have put a lot of effort into designing my offense to get match-ups I really like. Oftentimes these match-ups are my #1 GUESS rated WR against subbed in FR DBs with low formation IQ. To see me come so close to having it work --- but coming up short (in this case 3 DBs at 85%) makes me furious.

Now for some defense in the first quarter. What I like to see when I read my defensive play-by-plays is that the receivers are always covered and in some cases well-covered. This Missouri drive starts in the 1st quarter and he scores a TD on it in the 2nd quarter.

This was a great drive by hypnotoad. He had a long drive against my defense and made plays when he needed to. I am pleased with my coverage on this drive. The last two running plays bother me a bit. The 2nd & 10 I am playing the run, not blitzing, and have some big boys stacking the line. I give up 13 yards. The 1st & 1 is a fun defense I have called. It has all LBs on the line and I am blitzing the SS to try and cause havoc and force a turnover. He punches it in on an 11-play drive. As I review this the only thing that I am going to look at further is better substitutions on defense. I thought I was substituting my DLs out every other play, as well as making sure my LBs and DBs are getting rest 1 out of 3 plays. After looking at it closely I was only using that substitution pattern on passing plays and not running plays. I will change that in my defensive game plan. My #1 GUESS ranked LB Daniel Gordon was at 85% on that 2nd & 10 and he was subbed out on the first and goal. That is not acceptable to me. I'm also a bit angry at myself for blitzing the SS and not the CB on the 1st and Goal. I'm changing that formation as well for future use.

After the Missouri TD, I go 3 and out and Missouri gets the ball on their own 24-yard line and my defense is gassed. He goes on a 12-play drive that results in a TD.

This is where this in-depth analysis helps me I guess. I stockpiled DBs this season and I had a major failure in a big game.

I had plenty of DBs to substitute with. I wasted this roster depth at a key position. My mistake of only substituting on passing plays and keeping my best run defenders in on running plays is a big mistake. Not only that, I am starting to see that hypnotoad consistently alternated between Trips and Notre Dame box every play to magnify this problem. Damn him. He is exposing a fatal flaw in my defense. Damn him!

This problem could have been a lot worse. After that big TD drive my RB puts it on the ground on the second play of the drive (awags and ebel are laughing).

My defense only allows 3 points and I dodged a bullet. That could have been a bigger disaster.

I go into halftime down 17-13. I saw the score in the morning and was a bit disappointed but I wasn't worried. I figured my depth would get him in the second half so I didn't change anything. I had no idea about my defensive issues --- I didn't even look that closely. Now that I am doing this analysis I should have known something was wrong to lose the Time of Possession battle like I did. I figured the sim just gave me a close first half to make up for our first game and left it at that.

I'm not going to post screenshots from the 2nd half. I gave up a couple long pass plays on 3rd and long that led to points. I gave up a 9-play drive for a TD followed up by a 11 play drive resulting in a FG. My defense was gassed. I couldn't get my offense to create the big plays how I have all season. Overall it was another great half for hypnotoad and another poor half from me. Great game by hypnotoad and congratulations on Missouri's first Conference Title since season 83! That is the first CC in 52 seasons if my math is correct.

Conclusion

Hypnotoad kindly pointed out a fatal flaw in my defense that I am now correcting. If I hadn't done this in-depth analysis I wouldn't have noticed it.

I am also a bit sad to be retiring this offensive game plan after this game. I built several formations/plays for

I have had some fun experimenting with him. I used to primarily run route progressions where Medium/Short was always first and then look to Long/Deep next. He was a pretty good first read Long/Deep option so it was a nice change to tweak some stuff for him. I think I underutilized him. He could have been a monster if I fed him a lot of Short and Medium stuff but sometimes my experiments get the best of me.... lol

I'm building a fresh game plan around him for my bowl game for another good science project.

Good luck to all of you in your postseason play!