Not matching personnel on defense

[SevenNSeven]

As we all wait for the other shoe to drop on this football season, I'd like to talk about our 3-4 base defense, or, at least, our unwillingness to match personnel.


First, as a primer, if you're one of those 'eyes on the ball' people who just refuses to watch match-ups and scheme during a game, instead concentrating on the QB and whatever pretty graphics the broadcast is showing you, I give you Vish, who, in his weekly grade section for PageQ, has highlighted a few of these troubling matchups:


http://www.pageqsports.com/2014/10/miami-hurricanes-unit-grades-vs-cincinnati/


This is the fourth year of our (maddeningly ineffective) defense being 'multiple', in the sense that they occasionally switch to the 4-3, but being relatively inflexible as far as switching out of a base defense. I'm not talking about short yardage, where it can make sense even against spread teams, but on long yardage situations, as we still usually remain in our base defense. Can anyone else bring up to me examples of this being common practice?


I am more familiar with teams remaining in base defense against spread teams or in long yardage in 4-2-5 alignments (see Charlie Strong's Louisville defense, or Patterson's TCU defense) below, mostly because they believe a 4-2-5, if ran correctly with the correct personnel, can stop a mix of anything:


http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2014/6/30/5818160/tcu-football-defense-strategy-formations-xs-os-gary-patterson (As an aside, I think a 4-2-5, competently run with South Florida athletes would absolutely kill it here)


However, in both my experience, teams that stay base out of the 3-4 (not switching out a LB or the DT for an extra DB) or 4-3 ( not swapping a LB for an extra corner) in long yardage against multiple (3-4) WR sets are relatively rare.


We have defensive breakdowns seemingly week to week, rather it is failing to adjust to unbalanced lines (Louisville), inability to set an edge defensively (Nebraska), or the perplexing idea to intentionally allow the dive play to an option offense (Georgia Tech), but I'm looking big picture here, since I'm viewing this as more of a Golden thing than a D'Onofrio thing, mostly because of the following:


Here's the rub, which I view as an intentional disconnect between personnel and scheme. If our intention is to stay base and play our LBs on more athletic players in open space in almost every situation, then WHY THE **** are we recruiting 'big' linebackers, and working to put more weight on the ones we have?

 

[Rd745]

Let's forget about the fact that we couldn't stop the dive against Georgia Tech for a second.

I know one play doesn't win or lose a game but if we go Nickel on that 3rd and 17, even if we play zone, I highly doubt they complete that pass for the first down.

Did they donut think they were gonna run the triple option on 3rd and 17? Why the **** would you play base defense on 3rd and 17 and rush three with 4 line backers in coverage instead of 5 DBs.

This is why I don't care as much about which scheme we run because whether it's 3-4 or 4-3 these guys have no idea how the **** to use it.

They never look at individual match ups and they never try to expose weaknesses in other teams which is a fundamental belief issue rather than a schematic issue.

 

[tsimonitis]

We were in base personal for every play of the 4th qtr against Cincy. They were 4 or 5 wide and we had 3 man front with OLB outside the hash marks covering WRs.

 

[FullyERicht]

Bc dumb and dumber think they are "tricking" coaches into thinking they are playing man 2 man when they align our OLBs on a flexed WR. These guys run a hodge podge of stuff that probably would work really well against gym teachers coaching high school ball.

MSU also plays base most of the game, but their staff has huge balls and essentially has the four DBs handle four WRs going vertical (aka any WR routes beyond 10 yards the safeties and CBs lock on man to man). It's aggressive and risky and fun as **** to watch.

 

[supacane]

That is the main problem. These plays are defeated before they start. Big lumbering LBs trying to cover WR

 

[gfer1988]

philosophy wise, a jack OLB should rarely to never be lined up outside the hash on wide receivers. that's like sticking your DE on a WR. in special packages it's appopriate, but it should never be a staple of your base 3-4 defense.

 

[RattlerCane]

Our Defense does not have the personnel for what it designed for. Lets just say our defense is designed for a Temple/Rutgers type school that may not have the talent to match up against a lot of schools but have to out smart them. The reason why that doesn't work here is because we have the talent and not saying we don't have smart players but we are more of aggressors than thinkers. This defense that we run is based on a lot of thinking and out smarting your opponent which is what was needed when you don't have the talent. Here we have the talent to get out and get after guys and make plays. They aren't trying to solve problems on how to react or not react to plays. Even when you look at a Princeton basketball team clearly they don't have the most athletic or talented guys on the court when they play a lot of these major school but they have to out coach or out smart their opponent and that wouldn't work for a major school bc their players only know how to play the game and get out there and be more physical and athletic than their opponent. Basically we need a coach that understands the talent that we have here in south Florida and coach towards that style.

 

[clap bomb 16]

Golden still thinks he's facing schools like Ohio on Saturdays.

 

[rok]

When Howard and Carter are too frozen to intercept the football when it's thrown right at them, that's when you know they're out there thinking instead of playing football.

 

[MiamiVice7]

There are six games left for him to prove he is the man. The only way for the change to happen with this staff is for the defeatism to stop.

“Duke was 0-2 in the league I believe last year and they ended up winning it,” Golden said after last Saturday’s loss.

Why does he even know that? Did he look up that stat so that he could use it if the Canes were to lose? Who cares what Duke was last year? All of this has to end. Stop trying to win the press conference, and win the next six games.

I hadn't seen this. Great stuff from Vish.

 

[Rd745]

Golden still thinks he's facing schools like Ohio on Saturdays.

He never beat Ohio bruh

 

[DiegoCane]

Let's forget about the fact that we couldn't stop the dive against Georgia Tech for a second.

I know one play doesn't win or lose a game but if we go Nickel on that 3rd and 17, even if we play zone, I highly doubt they complete that pass for the first down.

Did they donut think they were gonna run the triple option on 3rd and 17? Why the **** would you play base defense on 3rd and 17 and rush three with 4 line backers in coverage instead of 5 DBs.

This is why I don't care as much about which scheme we run because whether it's 3-4 or 4-3 these guys have no idea how the **** to use it.

They never look at individual match ups and they never try to expose weaknesses in other teams which is a fundamental belief issue rather than a schematic issue.

So frustrating to watch.

We also never stopped the dive because we never covered up their C, who got a free shot on our LBs on every play.

 

[MiamiVice7]

Let's forget about the fact that we couldn't stop the dive against Georgia Tech for a second.

I know one play doesn't win or lose a game but if we go Nickel on that 3rd and 17, even if we play zone, I highly doubt they complete that pass for the first down.

Did they donut think they were gonna run the triple option on 3rd and 17? Why the **** would you play base defense on 3rd and 17 and rush three with 4 line backers in coverage instead of 5 DBs.

This is why I don't care as much about which scheme we run because whether it's 3-4 or 4-3 these guys have no idea how the **** to use it.

They never look at individual match ups and they never try to expose weaknesses in other teams which is a fundamental belief issue rather than a schematic issue.

So frustrating to watch.

We also never stopped the dive because we never covered up their C, who got a free shot on our LBs on every play.

Not that it matters, but does anyone know if we used this approach against GT in the past few years? I realize we weren't "shutting them down" despite the 5-game win streak, but I'm curious if we changed things up this year or what.

 

[killacane]

FML

Why can these coaches not see the most basic things. I am far from an expert but I see some very basic things during the game and it seems like our coaches do not recognize them. It seems that we hope for mistakes to stop other teams. :qR12ZEhp37hu.jpg:

 

[Dynasty]

Bc dumb and dumber think they are "tricking" coaches into thinking they are playing man 2 man when they align our OLBs on a flexed WR. These guys run a hodge podge of stuff that probably would work really well against gym teachers coaching high school ball.

MSU also plays base most of the game, but their staff has huge balls and essentially has the four DBs handle four WRs going vertical (aka any WR routes beyond 10 yards the safeties and CBs lock on man to man). It's aggressive and risky and fun as **** to watch.

Dude, your posts lately have been like vintage Jordan in the post-murder. From a personnel standpoint, if I said the best alignment would be a 2-3-6, most people would laugh. Yet, it is essentially the defense built by JJ which MSU copied. The 43 only has one true linebacker.

I remember a time when the Hurricanes base D shut down the high flying run and shoot in '91. Nothing fancy or earth shattering, just typical seek and destroy defense. A defense predicated on getting penetration from the down four while playing a simple two deep shell behind it, cover-2 and 4. And I'm talking about completely suffocating Houston's ***, too.

Lubick used a blitz that year which Msu still employs today. A pressure consisting of six while covering with five out of quarters. Lubick just ran it from a cover-2 look.

During the early Shannon DC days, Miami played a lot of base man-2, although the nickle (Fitzgerald slot) blitz was very effective.

In order to be an effective, productive base defense you need linebackers that can absolutely get it done in both phases of the game. That's one common link to the defenses mentioned above.