Picks on Picks on Picks: How Stanford will force Utah to turn the ball over on Saturday

Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports

Six interceptions. In one half. Not even the Jacksonville Jaguars could do that.

But Utah quarterback Travis Wilson did it just a week ago against UCLA, tossing six picks in the second half as the Utes fell to the Bruins, 34-27.

So how, exactly, does one manage to throw six picks in one half of football? Obviously it's not easy to do - but a combination of mistakes from Wilson and huge pressure from the Bruins' D-line helped the boys from Westwood walk away with the win and stay unbeaten.

If Stanford can rip a page from UCLA's defensive playbook and force Wilson to make these costly mistakes again, it'll more than likely mean very good things for the Cardinal. So let's go to the tape and see how Stanford will keep its 29-game streak with a turnover alive.

Here's Wilson's first interception of the day. Here's the pre-snap setup from above and from the quarterback's view. The two deep crossing routes the Utes run are diagrammed in red, while the guy who makes the interception, linebacker Jordan Zumwalt, is circled in yellow.


At the snap, the Utes run a quick play-action with the running back, while UCLA sends the three down linemen and the two edge rushers after the quarterback. Utah initially does a pretty good job of giving Wilson time to look downfield - except for the left guard, who lets his defender go unblocked to the running back. Then, he stands straight up. Dude, what are you doing?


Meanwhile, Zumwalt turns and runs with the wide receiver on his side of the field while the Utes' other wideout streaks across the field on his underneath crossing route.


Wilson sets and fires, thinking that Zumwalt will just keep running with his man. Instead, the linebacker pulls up and stops - he's obviously in zone coverage - and turns around. By then, the UCLA pressure is starting to get to Wilson , so he floats the pass a little bit and it becomes a jump ball between his crossing receiver and the LB. Zumwalt makes the big play and picks it off.


Altogether, it's a combination of a bad read by the QB and insufficient blocking by the O-line. Neither is a recipe for success, and they mix together as well as ice cream and ketchup.

Wilson's second and third interceptions of the day were both caused by UCLA pressure. Both times, a Bruins defender got a hand in his face and forced Wilson to make a panicked throw.

Here's his second pick:




Here, the pressure comes off the right tackle - right in Wilson's face - and he once again floats the ball a little bit. From there, the defender makes a remarkable play to catch the ball, but a fluky interception is still an interception. (Seriously, watch it. It's pretty incredible.)

Interception number three is a "same song, different verse" situation.




Once again, the right tackle gets beaten by the edge rusher and he's in Wilson's face before he even has a chance to let go of the ball. This time, though, the linebacker gets a hand on the ball - and it wobbles up in the air just waiting to be picked off (just like AJ Tarpley's interception a week ago). See it here:


Finally, let's look at the fourth interception that Wilson threw in the second half against UCLA - the kind of interception that all defenses aspire to. Wilson's going to try and throw an in route to the slot receiver.



Wilson steps up to deliver the ball to the inside receiver, but he hesitates and double-clutches the ball because the coverage is pretty tight.

WIlson then flings the football as hard as he can to try and assure that the pass beats the defender - but it's thrown so hot that the receiver can't handle it. It bounces off his hands, up into the air, and to the UCLA defenders. That extra half-second of hesitation not only gave UCLA the ball with a short field, but it proved they were firmly inside of Wilson's head last Thursday - and he fully obliged them with two more costly interceptions after this one.

The final two interceptions aren't really worth breaking down frame-by-frame, but they should be noted. On his fifth interception of the day, Wilson and his receiver are on the wrong page. Wilson throws a deep fade and the WR runs a slant, which suggests that the communication between the two wasn't good. On the sixth interception, UCLA blitzes and Wilson lobs one up for grabs again (I think you got the idea of what that looked like from interceptions two and three.)

So what's all of this mean for the Cardinal? It can probably hang back in zone coverage most of the day and rush just four or five guys - the Bruins routinely got their hands on the quarterback last Thursday with four or five rushers, and there's no reason to think that Stanford's front seven can't do the same thing on Saturday.

So what's the trick to forcing a QB to throw six picks in one half? Throw a party in the backfield, obviously.

Comments

Utah fan here

I think you’re extremely underestimating Wilson.. 4 of those 6 picks weren’t his fault. Bad hands and rainy weather were the cause of most of those. And combine that with the fact that Wilson was playing with a 100 degree fever and was sick all week. He’s most likely not even playing this weekend, so cut him some slack.. It wasn’t his greatest game ever but his health and the drops didn’t help him at all. Don’t underestimate Utah. With 6 TO we still went to the wire with the #11 team in the nation. Not too shabby.. Not saying Utah is going to win but it’s definitely not a gimme. We’re tough. Hopefully it’s a great game! Good luck to both teams. I’m looking forward to this game.

All good points...

I didn’t know about him being sick. Also, I wasn’t trying to rag on Wilson or demean his game – just trying to show how UCLA caused turnovers and how Stanford will try and do the same thing this Saturday.

For what it’s worth, Utah’s D looked pretty stout against UCLA’s offense and forced Hundley to panic a lot. If they can do the same thing to Hogan, this game will be a battle.

Utah should have won that game.

QB played well. The picks don’t tell the full story. Balls were bouncing off his receivers hands all night and usually into the hands of waiting UCLA defenders.

Utah had the superior defensive plan and Mora didn’t adjust. UCLA kept 3-4 wide-outs the entire game. The blitz was just too fast for Hundley to handle on most downs.

UCLA also got plenty of pressure with their front 7. I fully expect the Stanford offense to rebound. The Utah blitz scheme won’t work against Stanford since the Card don’t use that many wide on every down. Seemed like Utah matches up well against a spread team. The Stanford defense will probably eat up Utah though by getting pressure with 3-5 guys.

Really I was more excited for the UCLA-Stanford game after watching this one. Hundley was totally beaten most of the night by the blitz. I doubt Stanford will have to bring the numbers Utah did to get the same effect. That means Hundley should be hurried and forced to throw into better/more numerous defenders.

Back to “Utah should have won that game”. Anytime you hand the opponent 6 extra possessions and come that close to winning, you know you were doing some things very very very well.

Yeah your defense

Scares the hell out of me.. Your front 7 is probably the best front 7 we’ll play all year. And we’ve played some good front 7s.. But we’ll see how it goes. Wilson is 50/50 on playing right now from what I’ve heard. So if he doesn’t play then things won’t go well for us.

Can you explain?

If he had a fever and flu last week, wouldn’t he be better this week? Hopefully it’s nothing more serious.

It's a combination

Of strep and the flu.. Which takes a while to get over. I’ve read more articles and it looks like if he does play this weekend, he’ll be at about 70%.

Another great article

Thanks a lot, Jack. I agree that it’s unlikely Wilson will struggle as much this week, given the weather and his illness against UCLA. However, I think Stanford’s front seven is better than UCLA’s, and unless the Utah o-line steps it up big time, he might still have a long night. Definitely hoping the defense can force a couple a turnovers and bring up that season total!

Utah's proving to be a tough out

I see one of three things happening:

1) Utah hangs tough, Stanford escapes with a close win

2) Utah hangs tough, Utah escapes with a close win

3) Stanford rolls

I think the most likely is #1.

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