2012 Watch List: TCU

The Virginia football team travels to Fort Worth on Saturday to face a fast and tough Texas Christian squad. Throughout the week, much of the discussion has focused on TCU’s strong defense that shuts down the run and makes it hard to score. But the Horned Frogs offers some other challenges too and this week’s Watch List article takes a closer look.

Motion & Option

After facing Georgia Tech’s spread option last week to disastrous results, the Cavaliers seemed happy earlier this week to be preparing for a more ‘traditional’ offense. TCU’s scheme after all uses multiple pro-style looks such as off-set I-formation, 3-receiver shotgun, empty backfield shotgun, and a whole variety of others. In many ways, the general alignments will remind Virginia fans of what Penn State used at Scott Stadium two weeks ago, though the Horned Frogs don’t use as many bunch sets as discussed in that Watch List article.

Texas Christian also incorporates more motion than the Nittany Lions. In fact, TCU includes motion on a high percentage of its plays. The player in motion varies substantially as running backs, receivers, and tight ends all took on that role at different times against Kansas last week. The formation didn’t reveal any tendencies either as motion was used from both shotgun and under-center sets.

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