Quarterbacking 101: Maty Mauk vs. Minnesota's man coverage

Maty Mauk and the Missouri Tigers got off to a slow start. Shocker.

Then the Tigers took care of business and beat the Minnesota Golden Gophers, 33-17. Mauk was 12 of 19 for only 97 yards in that game, with two touchdown passes and two picks. He also added a touchdown on the ground.

I’m going to take a look at the 25-yard touchdown strike from Mauk to his main target, Bud Sasser.

Missouri is in a 2 by 2 shotgun formation, with the running back lined up to the field. Minnesota is showing a two-high safety defense, almost daring Mauk to throw it deep as the safeties are lined up only seven yards off the ball.

As a quarterback, I absolutely loved seeing the defense lined up like this, as you’ll see why.

From this picture, you can see that the defenders lined up slightly inside of all four receivers. That’s typically an indication of a cover 0 (no help deep; corners are taught to not get beat inside). Minnesota pressed both outside receivers and didn’t disguise the coverage at all.

In this picture, you can see that the slot defensive back to the field blitzed, along with the linebacker that was covering the running back. Missouri could have picked up this blitz, but Mauk was able to recognize the coverage and beat it.

In this picture you can that that Sasser beat his defender inside and had a step on him. Once Mauk saw the coverage, he took a quick drop and floated one the end zone for Sasser.

It wasn’t a great throw (outside and to the opposite shoulder), but Sasser bailed him out and made a very difficult catch. I was impressed with the quick read and release by Mauk, however, even though Minnesota didn’t try to disguise the coverage.