Extended Example: Rudolph Misreading Concepts

So here’s the example I was referring to. I decided to repurpose an old article so it wouldn’t add unnecessary length to the original Chalk Talk.

Rudolph said something following the Bedlam loss that made me question his understanding of coverages.

“I thought give Tyron a chance there in the hole [versus] cover 2 double cloud, I think it was,” Rudolph told the press following the game. “Just a play you draw up there in a situation like that.”

This is an incorrect statement. Rudolph is referring to where he went with the ball against the Sooners’ coverage. Cloud means a corner helps the safeties in coverage, e.g. cover 3 cloud (two safeties and a corner cover deep thirds). Regardless, his statements referring to cover 2 is what concerned me.

In football, there are these two terms — MOFC and MOFO — the former standing for middle of field closed and the latter for middle of field open. MOFC are coverages with a deep defender in the middle third of the field, like cover 1 or cover 3. MOFO are coverages with no deep defender in the middle of the field, like cover 2. Every quarterback is taught that for deep routes, you attack the sidelines against MOFC and the middle of the field against MOFO because you want to throw away from the safeties. The whole idea is to throw away from defenders and not to them.

Because of this, Rudolph’s statement doesn’t make any sense. The Cowboys ran four verticals against Oklahoma. He should have known that you’re supposed to attack the middle of the field against two high safeties. If he did that, he would have seen Dillon Stoner completely uncovered 15 yards in front of him.

This was just an extended example of Rudolph not going through his proper progression, but I didn’t want to take away from the actual article. This was just here for the readers who can’t get enough of this kind of stuff. OK, back to your regular reading.