Nice. Sounds as destructive as blowing up the mesh point on the zone-read. I wonder if our D-Line is going to slant more this game to allow our LBs to play in their back field.
EDIT: Navy does a lot of cut blocking and that could hurt a slanting D-Line; the irony of this situation is now we have a new rule (the Ed Oliver effect) that limits to those type of blocks. Hard to cut a slanting line when it’s illegal to go at the side of the legs now.
I think with all the use of the RPOs in college football it has expedited the preparation against triple-option teams. I’m not saying an offense heavy with RPOs is the equivalent, but it is similar in that everyone has to play assignment football and not lock your eyes on the QB or misdirection. The rest is just being physical for 60 minutes.
What about using Grant Stuard as the heat-seeking missile tasked with blowing up in the pitch man? He’s strong, fast and a good tackler. That makes Oliver and Carter responsible for the dive man and the defensive ends responsible for containing the QB if he keeps and funneling him back to the LBs. I’m not an Xs and Os guys, but let me know if I’m missing anything obvious here.
Sounds like a win. The only issue is eye-discipline. At some point Navy is going to go play action and our nickles and safeties need to be ready or someone will be wide open for a huge gain. I think we stay 3-4, single-high safety. majority of the the game. If the D-Line can hold the line of scrimmage even with someone being doubled, we’ll have a lot of flexibility to be aggressive because Navy isn’t going to throw it 40 times a game.
Prime example, right out of the gate last year Carter took advantage of them doubling Ed. The LBs played contain and didn’t over run anything on this play. They didn’t flinch and abandon their gaps when lineman got to their level either. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that CMD is better at defending the triple-option than Orlando. Maybe due to his teams facing Georgia Tech.
The play you showed was with Ed on nose…0 technique. CMD played that some but mostly 2 DTs. He slanted a lot. He also had Ed using a swim move on OG. Ed would line up shaded outside say RG. Navy would see A gap open and go to dive there. Ed would swim around RG thru B Gap and tackle FB in A gap for no gain or TFL.
What I think CMD did well was to get Navy to run majority to boundary.
They use NAG system to determine where to run.
N is numbers…they count players to each side of Center. So if Ed straight up on Center he counts as 0.5 to each side. A stands for Angles…if no numbers advantage they look at alignment of our DTs and will run to side that gives play side OT the best chance to block our Mike LB.
Say Ed is lined up in 2 technique or head up on OG and Carter is lined up on other side shaded inside OG or 1i, they will run to Carter side because he is further toward OC and thus less likely get in OT way on that side in effort to wall off Mike LB. CMD had his DEs push down on the OTs to slow them on way to level 2.
If CMD aligns in a perfectly symmetrical alignment and no numbers or angles advantage…Navy will go to wide side of field. Just more room to operate.
So…what CMD did was to just shade the Mike LB, Adams last year…a foot or so inside the hash to wide side(when ball was on hash only). This would tell Navy that they had an advantage to boundary by only 5 defenders on that side and 6 to wide side. They would either dive to wide side or run their option to boundary. Very few pitches to wide side. CMD would often slant DL into boundary.
CTO played a lot 5 guys on Los. All inside OTs. So Navy ran very few dives and went wide a lot and had a lot big gains.
Most say you take the dive away because that’s what they love to do. But your a lot less likely to get hurt really bad there with long gains.
CMD did play Ga Tech 5 times and also Army a few while at Temple. So he’s seen it a bunch.
I’ve noticed this as well. The pitch doesn’t go too far outside of hash to hash in length, so essentially the DC has the responsibility of estimating what side the backers need to shade-over on. They just need to cover from inside the alley, down. As you pointed out, given their habits, if it is a pitch then we should know where it’s going.
Agreed. CTO tried to do too much and gave up too many big plays to Navy. No disrespect to the Naval Academy, but we can match them athletically across the board. The rest is just man on man assignment football and not letting up. Coogs SHOULD be well prepared for this game.
The other thing I just remembered was that CTO played his Corners in press man a lot …which made it easy for Navy WRs…they didn’t have to block them. They just run a pass route and CB had to turn and run with it. CMD played his Corners outside they WR and angled in looking at the ball. Myers and Winchester both did a good job shedding blocks and keeping everything inside.
We held WJIII out of the Navy game when we beat them in 2015. And he could have played. We also didn’t use B Wilson on defense in that same game, he was our starting RB. We make interesting secondary moves for Navy, these “injuries” seemed to come out of nowhere.
