Fall camp, impressions 1 week in

[Skookum-Jim]

Will try to explain this without charts and graphs.

The core belief that I believe was issued on high from the lord and savior Knute Rockne some 100 years ago, and has become almost cult like in obsession in and out of coaching circles is that 'thou shalt not defeateth the power horde offense with an oddeth fronteth." When I started coaching football in the early 2000's, I heard it over and over again. So much so that I drank the proverbial kool-aid in that regard.

I've learned a LOT more over the years that defensive orthodoxy leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to what actually works versus doesn't. Part of the reason is that if you rigidly apply scheme, then yes it doesn't necessarily work against power schemes to allow them to simply ORO you and down block your NT w/ leverage all day long. The belief was that you couldn't leave a guards uncovered, because they could reach your LB's too easily. Again if you are reading and reacting from depth as LB's were taught to for decades, to slow play, read the guards, and flow, your LB's will be on the underside of blocks all game long. Tough to play that way.

The 4-2 and the 3-3 both unhinge a lot of the traditional rules about interior LB play and how you use your DL to play on the LOS. I coached in a league where we saw wing-t, veer iso and classic lead/power zone 90% of our season and when we were moving from the stack 4-4 to the 3-5-3, I thought it was absurd we'd make that decision. We took the GMC 3-5-3 which is all line movement and paired it with tons of combo pressure from our interior 3 LB's and teams we couldn't stop playing 4-4 and 4-6 looks in the wing-t for four years, and they absolutely couldn't handle the DL movement and how quickly our LB's were at the LOS. Our NT was a 6-1 kid who was maybe 190 pounds, and he ended up as a first team all league DL because sort of like Gubner, they didn't have an answer for his first step. You can absolutely flubber power teams if you compress their decision making and speed them up.

I just think you can look at what offensive teams want to do, and you can take your personnel and your scheme and you can absolutely manipulate it to get the best type of scheme. The next year we recognized we couldn't play the same way with just a 30 and found an answer a few games in by playing a hybrid over/under front with a stand up LB on the weakside in a quasi-40. The 3-3 allows for that in multiple variations and you can play it just about any way you want. Just so long that your willing to understand what you get/lose with those subtle adjustments and as long as you aren't static in your play calling, what you lose (gap integrity/gap control w/ bodies) you can make up in variance and speed.

Hopefully that makes some sense. There is a reason why I am just a pedestrian blogger.

Great post, and obviously you know more than most of the rest of us about defensive scheming. I am certainly only a pedestrian fan and probably all wet like everyone here tells me every post, but I have thoughts on this as well.
I think that a bigger contributor to the changing of LB play, and the downfall of the wing-t was the elimination of the chop block and the introduction of the hybrid DE/LB and LB/S. That led to the 4-2 or 3-3 defensive schemes rather than the other way around, IMHO. The wing-t, the lead power zone and the 4-4 stack front do not apply to Div I football anymore because of the above-mentioned. I certainly agree that power run teams can absolutely be stopped by speeding them up. The Miami Hurricanes showed this all throughout the 90s.
Many Div I offenses that the griz face largely run the zone read, plus one run game. If you’re going to run a 3-3 stack front like Baer favors, then you absolutely need a great NT. If your NT is not stellar, your LB’s must cheat to the interior side of the DE’s and your front will resemble a 4-2 or 4-3 with your DE’s playing 9 tech on the SS and 5 tech on the WS for edge security with your rover playing in the box. If they are down blocking your NT then he has done his job.
I think the question this year for the griz will be how well they shut down the first read on the inside or outside zone. If the first read in a zone read is open consistently, things will snowball, and you are not going to win against a good team.
Great interior linemen are not generally available in the portal. They are developed and built in the weight room in the off season. It does sound like the griz have some good guys up front. I do believe strongly that Jake Mason will be a very solid guy in a short time that will allow the griz defense to do a lot of things.

 

[granitegriz]

Game management type QB is the safe and conservative way...that is not the way of a finding a Griz NC...have to have someone who can sling it (short and long pass) and pick up a first day by foot or by arm. Dickenson, Brian Ah Yat, Miller, Ochs, Sneed, etc. were not game management type QBs. While the line may be improved, need some flash at QB and is a great playmaker!

 

[SoCal Surfer]

Game management type QB is the safe and conservative way...that is not the way of a finding a Griz NC...have to have someone who can sling it (short and long pass) and pick up a first day by foot or by arm. Dickenson, Brian Ah Yat, Miller, Ochs, Sneed, etc. were not game management type QBs. While the line may be improved, need some flash at QB and is a great playmaker!

I disagree with you somewhat. By that I mean our team needs 1st downs. Getting them can be by any offensive means possible. Always - 3rd and short and less 3rd and long. A good QB IMO who manages the flow of the game can do this. A great QB can also run with the ball, avoid hits, throw an over-the top long ball, fake the run & pass off to a RB or WR and avoid turnovers (like interceptions, sacks & fumbles).

KAY for Griz and Flowers can be both be good/great QBs with reps and game experience. KAY can right now manage our offense. He can become great like the names you mentioned with experience and staying healthy. This is his year to prove it. He has a chance to make his own legacy. Flowers is a QB who has the traits of most former Griz great QBs. He is just young. IMO, he will leave his mark on Griz lore. Flowers will also be a great backup QB this season and a future QB #1 if he stays around and healthy.

The Griz OL is good & jelling together right now. We have fantastic depth. It will IMO only get better as the season progresses. This line will allow our QBs to be good or great.

 

[GriznMN]

Will try to explain this without charts and graphs.

The core belief that I believe was issued on high from the lord and savior Knute Rockne some 100 years ago, and has become almost cult like in obsession in and out of coaching circles is that 'thou shalt not defeateth the power horde offense with an oddeth fronteth." When I started coaching football in the early 2000's, I heard it over and over again. So much so that I drank the proverbial kool-aid in that regard.

I've learned a LOT more over the years that defensive orthodoxy leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to what actually works versus doesn't. Part of the reason is that if you rigidly apply scheme, then yes it doesn't necessarily work against power schemes to allow them to simply ORO you and down block your NT w/ leverage all day long. The belief was that you couldn't leave a guards uncovered, because they could reach your LB's too easily. Again if you are reading and reacting from depth as LB's were taught to for decades, to slow play, read the guards, and flow, your LB's will be on the underside of blocks all game long. Tough to play that way.

The 4-2 and the 3-3 both unhinge a lot of the traditional rules about interior LB play and how you use your DL to play on the LOS. I coached in a league where we saw wing-t, veer iso and classic lead/power zone 90% of our season and when we were moving from the stack 4-4 to the 3-5-3, I thought it was absurd we'd make that decision. We took the GMC 3-5-3 which is all line movement and paired it with tons of combo pressure from our interior 3 LB's and teams we couldn't stop playing 4-4 and 4-6 looks in the wing-t for four years, and they absolutely couldn't handle the DL movement and how quickly our LB's were at the LOS. Our NT was a 6-1 kid who was maybe 190 pounds, and he ended up as a first team all league DL because sort of like Gubner, they didn't have an answer for his first step. You can absolutely flubber power teams if you compress their decision making and speed them up.

I just think you can look at what offensive teams want to do, and you can take your personnel and your scheme and you can absolutely manipulate it to get the best type of scheme. The next year we recognized we couldn't play the same way with just a 30 and found an answer a few games in by playing a hybrid over/under front with a stand up LB on the weakside in a quasi-40. The 3-3 allows for that in multiple variations and you can play it just about any way you want. Just so long that your willing to understand what you get/lose with those subtle adjustments and as long as you aren't static in your play calling, what you lose (gap integrity/gap control w/ bodies) you can make up in variance and speed.

Hopefully that makes some sense. There is a reason why I am just a pedestrian blogger.

Love it and makes perfect sense. You have obviously forgotten more about football than the rest of us will ever know. Thanks for sharing your real-world knowledge and experience.

If my reading comprehension and knowledge of football is up to speed, what you are describing is the choice between controlling the LOS versus "penetration and aggressive downhill/attack the LOS and beat the OL to the point of attack/disrupt the play in the backfield before it gets started".

By chance, was your 6-1 190 NT a wrestler?

 

[GriznMN]

That seems to be the mantra every year... QB

for about 95% of college teams

 

[GriznMN]

I think the question this year for the griz will be how well they shut down the first read on the inside or outside zone. If the first read in a zone read is open consistently, things will snowball, and you are not going to win against a good team.

Can't that be said for any offense? If you are running between the tackles successfully, why throw the ball.

"If your NT is not stellar, your LB’s must cheat to the interior side of the DE’s and your front will resemble a 4-2 or 4-3 with your DE’s playing 9 tech on the SS and 5 tech on the WS for edge security with your rover playing in the box"

Why can't you slant or stunt your DL and then do backside scrapes with your LBs?

 

[Skookum-Jim]

Can't that be said for any offense? If you are running between the tackles successfully, why throw the ball.

"If your NT is not stellar, your LB’s must cheat to the interior side of the DE’s and your front will resemble a 4-2 or 4-3 with your DE’s playing 9 tech on the SS and 5 tech on the WS for edge security with your rover playing in the box"

Why can't you slant or stunt your DL and then do backside scrapes with your LBs?

The point I was trying to make is that most teams do not run a 3-3 front like the griz. Teams will attack us between the tackles because traditionally that can be a vulnerability for that style of defense. If they are successful, it's going to be trouble. Most offenses will attack a traditional 4-3 differently.

Of course, you can always roll the dice and slant stunt your DL. The other point I was trying to make is that if your DE's are playing 9 tech and 5 tech the LB's will probably be lined up inside them, making their scrape to the edge a step behind. Does that make sense?

 

[alabamagrizzly]

I think I could sit and listen to GF24 in the film room for days.

Dont stop at just football. Dudes a sports junkie.

 

[Grizfan-24]

Great post, and obviously you know more than most of the rest of us about defensive scheming. I am certainly only a pedestrian fan and probably all wet like everyone here tells me every post, but I have thoughts on this as well.
I think that a bigger contributor to the changing of LB play, and the downfall of the wing-t was the elimination of the chop block and the introduction of the hybrid DE/LB and LB/S. That led to the 4-2 or 3-3 defensive schemes rather than the other way around, IMHO. The wing-t, the lead power zone and the 4-4 stack front do not apply to Div I football anymore because of the above-mentioned. I certainly agree that power run teams can absolutely be stopped by speeding them up. The Miami Hurricanes showed this all throughout the 90s.
Many Div I offenses that the griz face largely run the zone read, plus one run game. If you’re going to run a 3-3 stack front like Baer favors, then you absolutely need a great NT. If your NT is not stellar, your LB’s must cheat to the interior side of the DE’s and your front will resemble a 4-2 or 4-3 with your DE’s playing 9 tech on the SS and 5 tech on the WS for edge security with your rover playing in the box. If they are down blocking your NT then he has done his job.
I think the question this year for the griz will be how well they shut down the first read on the inside or outside zone. If the first read in a zone read is open consistently, things will snowball, and you are not going to win against a good team.
Great interior linemen are not generally available in the portal. They are developed and built in the weight room in the off season. It does sound like the griz have some good guys up front. I do believe strongly that Jake Mason will be a very solid guy in a short time that will allow the griz defense to do a lot of things.

Don't sell yourself short. That is some pretty damn good analysis. Definitely not pedestrian.

We rehash on this board just about every year as to whether the 3-3 has run its course and it is the typical street fight over odd/even fronts. There are probably no less than 500 threads over the past 8 years or so lamenting the existence of the defense here. The poster name may change, but the message is the same.

For me it is less about personnel economics but more about game theory and analytics as to why a lot of DC's struggle w/ multiple defenses and more specifically the 3-3. The 3-3 and the 4-2-5 are logical outcomes of a football obsession w/ spread and attacking horizontally to work vertically. They aren't perfect, but the 3-3 and 4-2 are night and day better from a foundational schematic perspective and what DC's have at their disposal when it comes to game management using the older schemes. The problem functionally is that I think a lot of coaches (particularly with the 3-3) go full Norman Dale rigid and lose a lot of the flexibility the scheme can have.

Without spending too much time discussing the esoteria of what and how the defenses are meant to work, the front/stunt deployment on the DL is vastly better in those schemes and have fewer personnel requirements than one might think. Yet I'll see FBS/FCS programs consistently put their NT and SE's on an island in the run game because they are so damn obsessed with pressure. It isn't plug and play, but the philosophies on how it handles zone scheme and quick set passing is stuff that was born out of necessity but was and still is better than how traditional schemes dealt with offensive blocking schemes. Like everything, it is all best done with intentionality and moderation. My defensive playbook was/is vastly larger with the 4-2 and the 3-3 than it was with the rule bound 4-3 and 4-4 that I used when I started coaching. Spend a lot less time making full field adjustments on a weekly basis to just defend teams in the 3-3/4-2.

 

[SoCal Surfer]

Don't sell yourself short. That is some pretty damn good analysis. Definitely not pedestrian.

We rehash on this board just about every year as to whether the 3-3 has run its course and it is the typical street fight over odd/even fronts. There are probably no less than 500 threads over the past 8 years or so lamenting the existence of the defense here. The poster name may change, but the message is the same.

For me it is less about personnel economics but more about game theory and analytics as to why a lot of DC's struggle w/ multiple defenses and more specifically the 3-3. The 3-3 and the 4-2-5 are logical outcomes of a football obsession w/ spread and attacking horizontally to work vertically. They aren't perfect, but the 3-3 and 4-2 are night and day better from a foundational schematic perspective and what DC's have at their disposal when it comes to game management using the older schemes. The problem functionally is that I think a lot of coaches (particularly with the 3-3) go full Norman Dale rigid and lose a lot of the flexibility the scheme can have.

Without spending too much time discussing the esoteria of what and how the defenses are meant to work, the front/stunt deployment on the DL is vastly better in those schemes and have fewer personnel requirements than one might think. Yet I'll see FBS/FCS programs consistently put their NT and SE's on an island in the run game because they are so damn obsessed with pressure. It isn't plug and play, but the philosophies on how it handles zone scheme and quick set passing is stuff that was born out of necessity but was and still is better than how traditional schemes dealt with offensive blocking schemes. Like everything, it is all best done with intentionality and moderation. My defensive playbook was/is vastly larger with the 4-2 and the 3-3 than it was with the rule bound 4-3 and 4-4 that I used when I started coaching. Spend a lot less time making full field adjustments on a weekly basis to just defend teams in the 3-3/4-2.

Thank you for posting. The few that I've read are really informative to me. I am an old couch potato; but, avid FB fan. Please continue to post your thoughts. Your posts are appreciated.