Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

Coaching

The Arizona offense has connections to what the Texas Tech Red Raiders run, as well as the Oklahoma Sooners - both teams are run by a Stoops brother, who both went out and hired someone from the Hal Mumme coaching tree to run the offense. Not a whole lot recognizable names on that list outside of coaching circles, but there were some great offensive minds on that staff. Oklahoma had Leach in there, followed by Mangino, both who left to head their own programs, but the Sooners still have some residue from those two guys. Sonny Dykes spent a year at UK before leaving to Texas Tech with Mike Leach and ultimately ending up in Arizona. I was only able to get a copy of the game against Washington so all of this data comes from that contest (play-by-play down, distance, run/pass, and gain info copied from ESPN.com).

Splits

Their one difference is that Arizona uses wider line splits than normal, like other Air Raid and spread teams. This forces the defense to align wider than normal as well, opening up gaps on the inside. It can be easy to bust a long gain up the middle if you are able to hit a few blocks, as the edge players often are too far to make an impact. This also gives the defensive ends a longer distance to travel to reach the quarterback and wider throwing lanes when you do pass. The drawbacks are that it is tough to perform some of the combo blocks required in the zone running game, and your linemen are often asked to block man to man in pass protection without any additional help. Here's a comparison of Washington and Arizona's line splits from that game.

Trends

Arizona didn't really run the ball well against Washington. The bulk of their runs came on 1st and 2nd down, but even so they were about 65% pass and 35% run. However they use a lot of screens to their wideouts to get the ball outside quickly. Only time they really started to run the ball was inside the red zone and on the goalline. I could crank out some charts but there isn't really anything interesting there, their passing game is picking up more yardage per play than the run game, and they pass almost twice as much as they run.

Run Game

The Arizona Wildcats don't do much different than many other teams in the Pac-10. They have their base of inside and outside zone just like everyone else. They also ran some power and counter out of their 2-back set from under center a couple times in this game. Here is something that is a little unique to them, their "base" run play,  just simple man blocking, get the guy across from you, and have the guard fold down behind the center and pull through (although they ran it with the back on the other side). Nothing fancy or complicated but with wide splits it can work for a good gain. Their running game was not a huge part of their offense vs. Washington, but they looked capable of moving the ball on the ground. 

Passing Game

Arizona's passing game was about 30% short game, 30% medium and deep passes, 30% screen game, and about 10% playaction, although they favored the short and screen game a big more than the rest. I couldn't really see the routes develop downfield because of the close camera angle but  here are some diagrams of some of their main concepts - this is stuff that is fairly common, and a lot of it has roots in the original Norm Chow offense he ran at BYU. Off the top of my head, I saw them run "mesh" a few times, a lot of double slant stuff (or slant with a whip route on the outside, couldn't see on TV), a lot of "drive" (which falls under the shallow cross family). When they went downfield they ran "smash" and what looked like deep cross (a Norm Chow staple). Don't really have any good looks at that stuff because of the camera angles on FSN.

Screen Game

Arizona's screen game is pretty simple as well - they have two basic screens to their receivers, a bubble where a slot receiver takes a flat angle towards the sideline and catches the ball over his inside shoulder, and another one where the receiver takes a step off the line to face the QB and wait for the ball - this one is a little slower but the linemen often get into the action. I think Arizona treats these as their run game, as even if you are aligned properly they are often still good for several yards. These screens can usually be shut down if you have enough defenders out there - if they have 2 WRs, you need 2 defenders or else you will be in trouble.

On this play Arizona runs a bubble off zone read action. The defense does have 2 guys out there to defend it, but the linebacker is a little slow to react and isn't able to make a tackle on what could have been a 2 or 3 yard gain (#40 does redeem himself later on in the game on an amazing play, though...see below). The Wildcats run this off zone read action, although they don't run a lot of zone read. Some teams like Michigan actually have their QB read the backside guy, decide between handing off, pulling the ball out, and then throwing the bubble screen or running - but I think Arizona is predetermining where the ball will go at this point. It does force that linebacker to hesitate a bit before running after the bubble, though, as he has to respect the chance that the QB will pull the ball and run to his side off the zone read action. Diagram doesn't show it but they ran it to the wide side of the field to give that guy a bit more distance to run and the WR more room to work with.

Arizona runs their hurry-up offense immediately after that gain of 21 and comes back with another screen to the wide side of the field, this time they line up 4 WRs out there and Washington only really has 2 guys out there...if not for a missed block on the "S" backer it may have been a big gain as well. Below is the video clip.

Tempo

The two plays above are run back-to-back, in the Wildcats' up-tempo speed. this is at the start of the 3rd quarter as they try to get something going. They will switch up their tempo throughout the game like several other spread teams. Against Stanford, they stayed in their up-tempo offense for the entire second half, and had a slightly ridiculous offensive performance.

The Wildcats' coach hinted Saturday that the team may rely more on the no-huddle Saturday against UCLA, and in future games. Stoops said: "It looks like we're moving more into a spread offense."

For the extreme example, watch Auburn or Oklahoma play, as they will sometimes take the tempo to ridiculous speeds. At the root of it, Arizona doesn't do anything too complex, but I think that tempo is a little thing that can make a huge difference. Going into a quicker tempo prevents other teams from subbing players and may cause them to align out of position - you see defenders still moving around at the snap, Arizona caught Washington in a bad look on the second play, and it could have been a big gainer. Even if guys are out of position a few feet, that can be the difference between a 3-yard gain and a 20-yarder - see the almost tackle about 4 or 5 yards downfield on the first screen. The quicker pace may also hurt some teams that are not in as great shape - you tend to make a lot more mistakes when you're tired. Arizona ended up running about 85 plays against Washington, well above the average of about 60 or 65 for most teams - 20 extra snaps = a lot of extra chances and opportunities to gain yards/score.

Thoughts

I think that this week will be especially important to make tackles and smart decisions on defense - Arizona tries to get its receivers in space with the screen game, which is about a third of their offense - guys on the perimeter need to be able to get off blocks and make solid tackles. I didn't pay attention to individual players but Arizona receivers have always been able to run. Our guys need to make sure that they are aligned properly and aware of what is going on, or else it could be a tough day on defense. Bottom line is that Arizona does not run anything far out there, nothing crazy - they have their handful of simple base plays, they rep the hell out of them, they will tag a play when they see an adjustment to be made...the Air Raid is basically just the option game through the air. You just have play smart defense, have your head in the game and know what your assignment is.

Here's a bonus video clip of the end of that game - lucky play, tough loss for the Wildcats, although I'm not so sure the ball didn't touch the turf.