• Hi Guest, want to participate in the discussions, keep track of read/unread posts access private forums and more? Create your free account and increase the benefits of your eGriz.com experience today!

3 man front vs run

grizzliesthetics

Well-known member
DONOR
Seemed like we got beat by the dive for 6 yards almost every time they ran it against our 3 man front. We switched it up ad weebs with a lot of 4 down lineman looks and effectively took away the run. Anyone have any insight into the thought process on this?
 
It seemed like we were not going to try and change anything. I have no idea why. We played very vanilla that whole game on both sides. No reason why tho.
 
I think our coaches got a bit overconfident about how good our LB's are. They are best in the league no doubt. However, when we put an extra in the box it was usually a safety. We had success all year playing our safeties close to the line of scrimmage for run support. In this case we should have just flat out played an extra LB, we were out manned along the LOS.
 
My thoughts on this....

I think the biggest thing for MSU success is that they were able to confuse the eyes of the linebackers with fly sweep action, two back sets and play action from under center. UMs LBs are very good at reading and reacting, but MSU was successfully able to create some deception and cause LBs to be second guess their reads and be a step slower reacting. I don’t think having four down linemen would have helped.
 
wbtfg said:
My thoughts on this....

I think the biggest thing for MSU success is that they were able to confuse the eyes of the linebackers with fly sweep action, two back sets and play action from under center. UMs LBs are very good at reading and reacting, but MSU was successfully able to create some deception and cause LBs to be second guess their reads and be a step slower reacting. I don’t think having four down linemen would have helped.
This.

The 3-3-5 has a track record of being incredibly good against the run. SDSU is 3rd against the run in FBS (71 ypg), and Arizona State is 21st (113 ypg). TCU (when they are actually good) often has one of the best overall defenses in college football.

Yesterday we weren't prepared for what MSU was doing, and we didn't execute.

The best scheme in the world won't help you if you do that, no matter who you're playing against.
 
If anything, the loss to the Cats showed a few things.

(1) We have to be more versatile in our schemes. The Cats absolutely dominated our 3-3-5 package. We should have tried adding a LB or DL in place of 1 safety. We really couldn't have done worse. I was and still am, frustrated by the lack of trying something different. At the very least, it could have forced the Cats to make more changes.

(2) We need more bulk and depth on the DL.
 
I have not liked running 3 safeties either. We had no one setting the edge. Maybe it was the quality of safeties we have have. You see teams pack the box, maybe with a 5 man line and 4 linebackers. Then if Rovig beat us over the top so be it. But making no changes makes zero sense.
 
The Grizzly D-line was getting blown off the ball all game. They were pulling guards and tackles around very easily because of this space. They were 5 yards down field before anyone could do anything about it on most 1st downs. To beat the Cats you have to turn them into a passing team on down and distance. I think the D-line needs to get older. They have a lot of talent out there it is just very young.
 
I don't know scheme wise what we could have done differently...however, I watched the tape again and all three safeties had terrible game of fundamentals....like tackling and angle pursuit ......it was bad...
 
The game becomes quite simple when you can dominate the line of scrimmage. Hand it to the cats, they used their strength against our weaknesses. Their running game took advantage of an undersized DL and the edges where our run support is suspect.
 
11 on 11 the Bobcats played well, and dominated the LOS and TOP, and had good bounces on the fumbles.

indian-outlaw said:
In this case we should have just flat out played an extra LB, we were out manned along the LOS.
 
They schemed well and were able to get bodies on our backers which few teams have done. We also needed to zone our run D, I know zone is generally a pass D concept but it's the only way to counter all their misdirection. It's hard to teach guys to fight their natural instinct to flow to the ball and just stay at home and defend their zone of turf. They were also able to drive our NT off the point, because you can't expect one guy, as tough as Sims is to take on a C-G combo on every play.
 
Not sure adding a linebacker would have helped. Maybe. Our line did not win yesterday and the Cats were able to run effectively. To be honest my gut feeling is Ifanse is the best back in the league. He runs hard as heck and also makes nice cuts and makes pretty good decisions as well. I have not watched him a ton but the little I have watched him I have felt he was constantly about to bust a big run and he consistently would gain 4-5 yards. The other kid is good too and they are similar but I think Ifanse is another level. I would ride him like heck in the playoffs if I was the Cats.
 
Back
Top