How Dave Aranda's Baylor Defense stifled Oklahoma's Offense-Part 1

 Part 1-run defense 

This article focuses on how Baylor defended Oklahoma on early downs and effectively defended the run. Part 2 will look at passing downs and how they handled 3rd down. 

In 2021 Baylor played Oklahoma and defeated them 27-14. Dave Aranda and Ron Roberts put together a great game plan to stifle Oklahoma and really slow down it's high octane offense. They really mixed up their defenses nicely, played more 4-2 fronts and made some nice adjustments with their tite front. 
Baylor held Oklahoma to 14 points, with 7 of those coming late in the game with the game considerably out of reach. 

A couple key points in the game:

Scoring Offense: Oklahoma averaged 36 points per game on the year. Holding them to 14 was quite a feat. A credit to the coaching staff for taking away what Oklahoma does best. 

Rushing Defense: Baylor held Oklahoma to 82 yards rushing on 29 carries. That's less than 3 yards per carry. They held top back Kennedy Brooks to 14 carries for 55 yards, less than 4 yards per carry! That from a player that averaged 6.9 yards per carry and close to 100 yards per game. 

Pass Defense: Oklahoma was 13/22 on offense for a very low 178 yards. They also allowed no passes for TD's and had 2 interceptions. 

3rd down: Oklahoma was 2/9 on 3rd down. That's 22%. Oklahoma averaged 41% on the year. 

Total Yards: Baylor's Defense held Oklahoma to 260 total yards. That is impressive.

FRONTS

Let's look at some of the schemes Baylor used vs. Oklahoma. Baylor and Aranda are well know for their tite front but they used it very sparingly in this game.

On 1st and 2nd down, they ran the following fronts:

4-2 front 37 times. That's 37/47 times for 78%. That isn't including goal line. 

They were in an odd look for 10 snaps. 

They ran their traditional tite front 3 times and a tite front with a 5 technique opposite the back, 7 times.  They put the 5 technique opposite the back to help them with Oklahoma's run game.  They also moved at time with this front.

4-2 front vs 11 personnel (te flexed)

4-2 vs 11 TE to the boundary. They set the 3 technique to the field

They emphasized spilling everything which you can see below in the videos.

Tite front adjustment (5 technique opposite the running back). They would often move or slant away fro the back. This disrupted the Oklahoma run game(counter, wrap). In the situation below, they move the defensive tackle Nose Guard, defensive left tackle and left defensive end. 

Run game:

One thing they did was take on pullers and really bring the De down and spill everything. This was very successful in disrupting the counter  run scheme Oklahoma loves to run. In the next 2 examples, Oklahoma comes out in 12 personnel and you can see the spill technique.

Example #1 

Oklahoma tight wing and runs counter to the wing side.

Example #2

Oklahoma in 12 with the other TE split to the field with the on the line TE to the boundary. 

They bring the field TE in motion and try to run counter to the boundary. Baylor spills it and does a great job keeping it to a 2 yard gain. 

Here a few clips of Baylor doing a great job spilling the ball and playing it well on the outside and the secondary.

Here they play the same concept under the tite front. They still get it bounced and hold the Sooners to no gain.  Nice job by #52 spilling it.

The other thing that was effective was their run blitzing on 1st down. They brought the sam linebacker and played man coverage behind it. This helped take away some easy access, rpo, quick game type throws.

They start the game with a run blitz with the sam. 

Next time, Oklahoma goes play action but the sam pressure gets the qb to pull it down.  

After the first 2, they bring the corner to the boundary the next time. Oklahoma tries to take a shot but the safety recovers and makes a great play.

On the next first down, Oklahoma goes flea flicker and Baylor doesn't bring pressure. Nice coaching by Aranda taking off the pressure and mixing it up on 1st down. He guesses right and Oklahoma has no place to go with the ball.

On early downs later they bring pressure again. On the play below they bring the sam and get the pressure home as the RB misses the block off play action. 

The early down perimeter blitzes of either the Sam or the CB was a very effective part of the game and highly effective.

Here are the concepts discussed above on film.

Coverages vs 12 

Short motion Adjustments

When they got short motion or jet they would pass it off and the LB away from the jet motion would filter back into the box. It gave them a +1 advantage. You can see it in the example below. 

Pass coverages

Early downs:

They played a ton of man free and 2 man this game. These were two of their mostly used coverages. They matched up well and the man scheme was very effective throughout the game. 

But overall the key came down to 3 things:

1. spilling the ball in the run game.

2. Playing a ton of man coverages

3. Early blitz and pressures that disrupted their offense.

 

3rd down

Oklahoma was 2/9 on the day vs Baylor.

As discussed, saw a ton of man coverages:cover 2 man and man free.

Here they play 2 man on a key 3rd and 8 in the 1st half.

They get double coverage on the 1 wr and do a nice job downfield. They get off the field on a key 3rd down.

A nice job overall and a great job by Aranda and staff.