The Virginia football team enters this week’s contest with Louisiana Tech with a 2-2 record. The Cavaliers would like to end their two-game skid with a win, but that won’t be an easy task. The Bulldogs have one of the nation’s highest-scoring offenses. Of course with Tech’s shaky defense on the other side of the ball, the media has been forecasting a potential shootout this week at Scott Stadium. Take a look at the “Watch List” to prepare for some wrinkles to monitor during the game.

Angle or Texas Routes

In a scheduling quirk of sorts, Virginia faces three straight teams that use a 4-2-5 scheme as a base defense. With only two linebackers to cover the middle of the field, UVa found some success last week against TCU with angle and Texas routes. I mistakenly called the “angle” route an “arrow” route in The Sunday Sampler, but as mentioned in that article, the Cavaliers had success with the angle patterns out of the backfield in the game.

On this pattern, the running back fakes an outside pattern, plants his outside foot, and cuts across the face of the defender on a slant back to the middle of the field. It works well against the 4-2-5 because the linebackers often have man-to-man responsibility on the running backs or they have to drop backwards to cover the intermediate area of the field. UVa running back Khalek Shepherd said the angle route can be used against aggressive linebackers.

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