Missouri-Wyoming snap counts: All About Dimes

If you followed along with my work in this space last year, you know that I endeavored to provide snap counts for every Missouri player for every offensive and defensive snap that counted during the season.

If you were not...well, I just explained what this is in the last graf. You should have paid attention.

Anyway, I pored over the film of the Tigers’ 40-13 win over Wyoming to see who Missouri used on offense and defense, how often and in what ways. Then I tried to gather it in a way that wouldn’t bore you too terribly.

Did I fail? Did I succeed? I suppose that’s up for history to decide.

On we go with Year 3 of ... Snap Chats...

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Observations

• OK, first let’s talk about Drew Lock’s crazy efficient day. As in the past, Lock did most of his damage outside the hashes. When throwing to the left and right, Lock completed 31-of-39 passes for 360 yards and three touchdowns. He was only 2-of-6 for 38 yards and a touchdown in the middle of the field.
• Lock also did a great job dinking and dunking the Wyoming defense underneath to set up his shots. Lock completed 24-of-34 passes for 205 yards when throwing 9 yards or fewer. He was devastating on the mid-range throws (10 to 19 yards), completing 5-of-6 for 77 yards and three touchdowns: the ones to Kendall Blanton, Albert Okwuegbunam and Johnathon Johnson.
• When he went deep, Lock was 4-of-5 for 116 yards and that bomb touchdown pass to Emanuel Hall.
• So, on throws of 10 yards or more, Lock was 9-of-11 for 193 yards and four scores.
• A QB rating of 349.20. So...yeah...
• Now let’s talk about dropping Dimes on the defensive side. Ryan Walters trotted out two different versions of the Dime for a total of 10 plays against the Cowboys, all but one of them coming on third down. The other was the last play before the end of the first half.
• The most-used version (six times) was a four-front/one-linebacker look with Nate Anderson playing inside and Terez Hall being the backer. The other one (four times) was a three-front/two-linebacker look with Tre Williams and Chris Turner sandwiching Terry Beckner on the front, and Hall and Garrett at linebacker. The back six was the same in both sets: Adam Sparks and Terry Petry at nickel corner, DeMarkus Acy and Christian Holmes at regular corner, and Cam Hilton and Ronnell Perkins at safety.
• And let me tell you...both were devastating. The four-front gave up 6 yards on six plays. The three-front gave up minus-6 yards on four plays. That’s a total of ZEE-RO yards on 10 plays: 1-of-8 for 17 yards passing and two sacks for a loss of 17 total.
• Missouri liked blitzing out of those sets as well, sending extra blitzers on four of six plays in the four-front Dime and two of four in the three-front Dime.
• In all, the Tigers sent extra rushers on 10 of 30 Wyoming pass plays, or 33.3%. That’s a stark difference from the UT-Martin game, in which Missouri only blitzed once or twice.
• On those 10 blitz plays, Missouri sent Hall six times, Sparks three times, Garrett twice and Perkins and Hilton once each. The Tigers got their two sacks on a play in which they blitzed Hall and one in which they just rushed three out of the three-front Dime.
• So, basically, Missouri kept Wyoming guessing as to whether it was bringing heat out of its Dime sets and the Cowboys were very uneasy with it all game.
• Speaking of the Dime...where was Joshuah Bledsoe? He didn’t play in any of the specialty sets this week and, according to the participation report, he didn’t even get in on special teams.
• Another game, another whole heap of tight ends. In the opener, Missouri used 1.49 tight ends per snap. Against Wyoming, the Tigers used 1.34 per snap. A bit of a step down, yes, but still looking pretty niccccccccce.
• Okwuegbunam and Blanton were used pretty interchangeably attached to the line and split wide against Wyoming, but Okwuegbunam was used far more often as an H-back. Blanton’s 48 snaps were split 56 percent attached/40 wide/4 in the backfield. Okwuegbunam’s 64 were 48/31/20.
• On Lock snaps, Crockett played 48 percent of the time, Rountree 34 percent and Badie 19 percent. That looks like a pretty good distribution going forward.
• Crockett and Rountree both played two snaps out wide in a five-wide set as well. The Tigers completed 2-of-4 passes for 36 yards (all of them coming on that third-down bomb to Emanuel Hall) out of that set.
• Case Cook and Samson Bailey both got a series with the rest of the first-team offense at right and left guard (respectively), then went back out for a series before they went in with the rest of the second-teamers for the Taylor Powell snaps.
• After seeing only one standing end against UT-Martin, we got to see it 10 times against Wyoming: Anderson four times, and Williams, Turner and Akial Byers twice each. That 3-4 set worked very well for the Tigers as well: four rushes for 1 yard and 2-of-6 passing for 20 yards.
• Anderson looks to be a bit of a Swiss Army Knife for the Tigers’ line this year: 20 snaps as a regular end against Wyoming, six on the interior of the Dime and four standing.
• Jordan Elliott and Walter Palmore both look like pretty clear 1a and 1bs next to Beckner. Both of them logged 22 snaps against Wyoming, and no other tackle had more than 11.
• Hall, Garrett and Brandon Lee hogged all the linebacker snaps until Missouri called off the dogs. Well, except for three snaps for Perkins at linebacker after Lee’s targeting penalty. Perkins looks like first up to replace Lee in the first half against Purdue next week, but it’ll be interesting to see if Walters just rolls with Perkins as he would Lee or tries switching things up a little.
• The back four pretty much stayed the same for the whole night as well, even though Tyree Gillespie and Terry Petry each got a series with the first-team offense before the rest of the second-teamers came in.
• Missouri’s offense ran mostly out of a three-wide/tight-end attached/one-back set (30 times) and four-wide/one-back set (26 times). The Tigers used those two sets on 62 percent of their snaps, and they gained a total of 410 yards on those plays, or 7.32 per. Not bad at all for your main offensive sets.
• The 3-1-1 was a pretty even set as far as play distribution (57/43 pass), and the 4-0-1 was very pass-heavy (69/31 pass).
• The Tigers also went out of the 2-2-1 (two receivers, two tight ends, one back) and the 2-1-2 a total of 23 times, and all but four were runs. So it was an 83/17 run set as far as distribution goes.
• But, much like the opener, Missouri made the most out of those infrequent passes: the Tigers completed 4-of-4 passes for 55 yards and two scores out of the 2-2-1.

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Drew Lock Passes

Left
9 yards and fewer: 11-of-17, 102 yards, fumble lost
10-19 yards: 1-of-2, 14 yards, TD
20+ yards: 2-of-2, 61 yards
Total: 14-of-21, 177 yards, TD, fumble lost

Middle
9 yards and fewer: 0-of-3
10-19 yards: 2-of-2, 38 yards, TD
20+ yards: 0-of-1
Total: 2-of-6, 38 yards (6.33 avg.), TD

Right
9 yards and fewer: 13-of-14, 103 yards
10-19 yards: 2-of-2, 25 yards, TD
20+ yards: 2-of-2, 55 yards, TD
Total: 17-of-18, 183 yards, 2 TD
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Total
9 yards and fewer: 24-of-34, 205 yards, fumble lost
10-19 yards: 5-of-6, 77 yards, 3 TD
20+ yards: 4-of-5, 116 yards, TD

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Missouri When Blitzing
(Terez Hall 6; Adam Sparks 3; Cale Garrett 2; Cam Hilton 1; Ronnell Perkins 1)
Pass: 2-of-9, 22 yards (2.44 avg.)
Sack: 1 for -11
Total: 10 plays (30 pass attempts/33.3%), 11 yards (1.10 avg.)

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Offense
Quarterbacks
Drew Lock — 86
Taylor Powell — 5

Running Backs
Damarea Keener-Crockett — 39
Larry Rountree — 27
Tyler Badie — 21
Dawson Downing — 1

H-Backs
Albert Okwuegbunam — 13
Kendall Blanton — 2
Brendan Scales — 2

Receivers
Emanuel Hall — 60
Nate Brown — 59
Johnathon Johnson — 57
Jalen Knox — 27
Kam Scott — 26
Albert Okwuegbunam — 20
Kendall Blanton — 19
Khmari Thompson — 5
Alex Ofodile — 4
Dominic Gicinto — 3
Damarea Keener-Crockett — 2
Larry Rountree — 2

Tight Ends
Albert Okwuegbunam — 31
Kendall Blanton — 27
Daniel Parker — 5
Brendan Scales — 3

Line
Paul Adams — 86
Trystan Colon-Castillo — 86
Yasir Durant — 86
Kevin Pendleton — 74
Tre’Vour Wallace-Simms — 74
Samson Bailey — 17
Case Cook — 17
Larry Borom — 5
Jonah Dubinski — 5
Hyrin White — 5

Defense
Ends
Chris Turner — 34
Tre Williams — 30
Nate Anderson — 20
Akial Byers — 8
Franklin Agbasimere — 6
Jatorian Hansford — 4
Trajan Jeffcoat — 4

Tackles
Terry Beckner — 34
Jordan Elliott — 22
Walter Palmore — 22
Kobie Whiteside — 11
Rashad Brandon — 9
Nate Anderson — 6
Tyrell Jacobs — 4
Antar Thompson — 4

Rush Ends
Nate Anderson — 4
Akial Byers — 2
Chris Turner — 2
Tre Williams — 2

Linebackers
Terez Hall — 50
Cale Garrett — 48
Brandon Lee — 37
Nick Bolton — 8
Ronnell Perkins — 7
Jacob Trump — 4
Tavon Ross — 4

Nickelbacks
Terry Petry — 10
Adam Sparks — 10

Cornerbacks
DeMarkus Acy — 50
Adam Sparks — 40
Christian Holmes — 18
Terry Petry — 8

Safeties
Cam Hilton — 54
Khalil Oliver — 40
Ronnell Perkins — 10
Tyree Gillespie — 8
Jordan Ulmer — 4

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Offensive Set Success

3-WR/1-TE/1-RB
Run: 13 for 67 (5.15 avg.)
Pass: 11-of-17, 139 yards (8.18 avg.), TD, fumble lost
Total: 30 plays, 206 yards (6.87 avg.), TD, fumble lost

4-WR/1-RB
Run: 8 for 47 (5.88 avg.), TD
Pass: 14-of-18, 157 yards (8.72 avg.), TD
Total: 26 plays, 204 yards (7.85 avg.), 2 TD

2-WR/2-TE/1-RB
Run: 9 for 29 (3.22 avg.)
Pass: 4-of-4, 55 yards (13.8 avg.), 2 TD
Total: 13 plays, 84 yards (6.46 avg.), 2 TD

2-WR/1-TE/2-RB
Run: 10 for 40 (4.00 avg.)

3-WR/2-RB
Run: 5 for 21 (4.20 avg.)
Pass: 2-of-2, 11 yards (5.50 avg.)
Total: 7 plays, 32 yards (4.57 avg.)

5-WR
Pass: 2-of-4, 36 yards (9.00 avg.)

Victory
Kneel: 1 for -1

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Defensive Set Success

4-3
Run: 24 for 104 (4.33 avg.), TD, fumble lost
Pass: 10-of-14, 123 yards (8.79 avg.)
Total: 38 plays, 227 yards (5.97 avg.), TD, fumble lost

3-4
Run: 4 for 1
Pass: 2-of-6, 20 yards
Total: 10 plays, 21 yards (2.10 avg.)

Dime (4-1-6)
Pass: 1-of-5, 17 yards (3.40 avg.)
Sack: 1 for -11
Total: 6 plays, 6 yards (1.00 avg.)

Dime (3-2-6)
Pass: 0-of-3
Sack: 1 for -6
Total: 4 plays, -6 yards (-1.50 avg.)