After the scrimmage I realized why they were so 'good' off tackle, though good is a bit of a stretch.
They were lined up illegally in a sense. With the tight end over on the split end's side, our linebacker would try to line up over their 150 lb tackle. That's an illegal formation, as the tackle would be eligible.
I knew something was off. We were having problems covering everyone.
Essentially the offense looked like this:
Nothing we all haven't seen in a game of NCAA football, but with their illegal tackle at tight end, we had problems lining up correctly. Nathaniel and Connor looked at the ends as an eligible receivers, when that wasn't the case.
Based on this formation, we'd line up a corner wide, a linebacker on the slot, a linebacker over the left end, and shift the defensive line over as well.
The first time they ran this, they got the big gain and I was instantly confused as to what happened. The slot motioned without anyone covering him, Nathaniel was over the ineligible tight end. Connor was blocked out by their 150 tackle, the fullback took out our B gap tackle, the slot picked off the corner, and the tailback ran for 15 yards before Ray caught up to him.
I instantly wondered why the slot motioned over without anyone covering, but didn't have a solution based on one play.
Bryce, the defensive end, was smart enough to see it the second time. Instead of boxing, he sprinted over with the motion and made the stop. Not the plan, but at least he knew something had to happen.
That's when it hit me that they were in the over set.
When we started ignoring the end, we did a better, but not great, job of stopping the play.
It didn't dawn on me until later that they were using an ineligible player as a tight end.