Jonathon Brooks and the zone running game
The Texas offense will need to evolve in the run game in 2023 after losing Bijan Robinson to the first round of the NFL Draft along with his back-up Roschon Johnson. They’ve been evolving since Steve Sarkisian first arrived though.
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The 2021 Texas offense of Sark’s first season was primarily a zone rushing attack. The offensive line was comprised of Tom Herman recruits who’d run primarily zone schemes for years. Kyle Flood shuffled them around and installed a broader playbook but the zone concepts were the most familiar and effective for a team who wanted to emphasize Bijan.
In 2022 they had to retool the line after losing three 2021 starters before the season (two graduated, Junior Angilau was injured in fall camp) and went with a youth movement starting two true freshman and a true sophomore. As the team had Bijan and Roschon, the run game remained a major focus. However, they beefed up the front by converting Andrej Karic into a tight end and were as much a gap scheme team as they were a zone team, if not moreso.
Gap schemes suited Bijan well as they tended to give him a lane to bounce runs outside to make use of his lateral cutting agility. Now the O-line is more experienced and the main back is likely to be Jonathon Brooks, so how does the run game evolve?
The best of 2022 Brooks
Jonathon Brooks ran the ball 30 times in 2022 for 197 yards at 6.6 ypc with five rushing touchdowns. It’s hard to take a ton away from those snaps since they largely came against worn down defenses waiting for the bell to ring, but obviously he was explosive.
I’ve got his five touchdown plays loaded up here for us to examine his running style.
First, his score against ULM in the season opener.
This is a counter run, a gap scheme, with one guard pulling to kick out the edge while the tight end lead blocks behind him. ULM slanted the defensive tackle wide so the guard ended up hitting him and it left the Warhawks exposed inside. Both Juan Davis and Brooks easily found the inside lane and you can see his effortless acceleration.
Next up:
This one is a little hard to identify in terms of inside vs outside zone, the line doesn’t get particularly lateral but it’s probably because their targets are all packed inside. Texas’ zone runs are cut and go plays but you’ll notice Brooks is so smooth the cut isn’t even very pronounced.
This play is really great for demonstrating the blurred lines between zone plays and Duo. I’m not even entirely sure of the scheme here but you do see Brooks aim for the backside initially (like on Duo) before bouncing it back frontside when the linebackers flow to the backside. In the Tom Herman offense we called that the “Ingram cut” to feign a cutback only to take the ball out the front door on a jump cut.
Brooks’ lateral agility is an easy fit on Duo where being able to press up to the line before cutting back outside makes the play really work.
Brooks is very effective on these outside zone plays where he’s aiming wide before the classic “plant and go” moment zone schemes are known for. The suddenness of his cut makes life hard on the inside linebackers who can’t really wait to commit and hope to meet him in a crease.
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One more:
This scheme was really effective for Texas back in 2021, running split zone with the H-back blocking outside and a backside inline Y tight end kicking out a smaller defender. Defenses can get thumped by the tight ends and be forced to overcompensate with their linebackers to plug those backside gaps, leaving the inside open. That’s more or less the case here, Brooks gets skinny and plunges ahead behind Jake Majors and Hayden Conner for the score.
So that’s two gap schemes, two outside zone runs, and a single inside zone play and Brooks looks comfortable in all of them.
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A Brooks run game in 2023
Obviously Brooks’ natural agility makes most any scheme pretty viable. He can threaten multiple points across the line of scrimmage and cut and accelerate with a suddenness that makes the plays hard to defend.
He may be a brilliant Duo player for the reasons mentioned above, but overall he’s a pretty classic zone runner who excels at “plant and go” running and beating the linebackers to the hole. On several plays you see him shrug off contact in an encouraging way for a slighter player (currently listed at 6-foot-0, 204 pounds) and on a lot of his runs you see him altogether avoid direct shots due to his speed and more narrow surface area. We’ll see how that goes over a higher volume of carries but I would imagine Sark’s preference would be for him to be in the realm of 200 carries by the end of the season and thus over 1,000 yards.
In gameplans with a heavier emphasis on 11 personnel we probably see a heavier dose of inside and particularly outside zone with the Longhorns running behind Christian Jones and Kelvin Banks. The distortion in defenses worried about hemming in perimeter runs by a back with Brooks’ speed behind those big tackles should open the cutback lanes inside for his explosive 2022 stats to scale with increased carries.
Brooks still has to win the job and fend off all the challengers at the position but with good health he could be primed for a big year.
