Mike Hankwitz Northwestern 6 man Fire Zone run blitzes

 Let's take a look at one of my favorite defensive coordinators, Coach Mike Hankwitz, now retired but still one of the greatest of all time. He led one of the most solid defenses in college football for years!

Dealing with power football teams is no easy task. Wisconsin loves to line up in 12, 22 and other personnel groupings and play power football. 

One of the ways that Northwestern slowed down Wisconsin's power running game in 2020 was to bring numerous fire zone pressures under Coach Mike Hankwitz. They did this with a great defensive plan, defeating Wisconsin 17-7. They also played some man on early downs with the LB's playing run against some of the condensed formations wisconsin likes to run. But, this article looks at the fire zone pressures. 

They held Wisconsin to 40 carries and 136 yards rushing. Under 4 yards for a team that normally averaged. That is 3.4 yards per carry. That is way off their 165 yards rushing per game and more importantly a team that averaged 4.9 yards per carry.

Wisconsin Fire zone pressures
They ran many fire zones vs Wisconsin, especially when in 12/22 personnel. They loved to bring their safeties with their pressure packages. They would often bring a safety with a linebacker in the blitz.

One of the ways they did it was with some fire zone concepts designed as run blitzes on early downs. Often they involved a safety and a LB. If it was run the DE would play run. If pass he dropped and it became a 3 under 3 deep.

1st play of the game. Send the FS and Will right up the middle. Nice design.

vs 12 personnel

1st and 10 

Run it with the will and Free coming. On run the DE won't drop, just play run. In this case they get pass so he drops. They get great pressure and a sack.

See the safety start to blitz on pass in this defense the de drops making it a 5 man pressure

nice scheme by Northwestern.

vs 12 personnel

Similar concept They send the LB and Safety right in the A and B gap. The DT plays C and the DE plays D gap.

See it start to unfold with the LB and safety.

Nice pressure and design

See the blitz develop.

Dt may have gone wring way.

Heres another variation where the safety goes B and the LB goes off A. This allows the playside Mike to fold back inside to make the play in the run game.

2 blitzers are picked up but the LB folds back unblocked. 

The design opens it up for LB.

Good scheme

and execution.

These are just 4 blitzes they ran vs Wisconsin to disrupt the power run game and 12

Here's 1 more clip and an additional pressure. Overall a great design in the run blitzes to disrupt the Ohio State run game!

Great design by Northwestern in 2020 and they did an excellent job defending the run. 

They also ran some nice run blitzes vs Michigan State in 2020.

Below they run a game from their 4-2 front.

They send the NG and DT away from the strength and bring the safety down to play the b gap to the strong side. 

They also bring the safety with the LB on the play

Again they are moving with the safety on the left coming to the b gap.

Nice job by the LB scraping over the top

They have 1 blocker for the LB and safety. 

LB forced to cut it back the other way

Lb shuffles back to make the play.

A similar scheme in the Michigan State game:

When Michigan went bunch 12, the Northwestern defense brought the safety and the lb weak. Nice scheme which was sound. 1st time, poor gap fill led to a 5 yard gain. They had the LB blitz B with the safety A gap. 

Again yo usee the 6 man pressure lb and safety

Every gap is covered

2 SERIES LATER

2ND AND 10 they run a similar concept with the safety and will blitzing both a gaps. Every gap is covered and it allows the mike to be a c gap player. Nice design for a 3 yard loss. 

similar pressure with the safety and LB

Nice movement and stunt as you see the LB and FS coming!

Safety is untouched as they get the +1 in the run game. 

Great job by the Northwestern Defense

These were just some of the run blitzes vs Wisconsin and Michigan State in 2020. There was a reason Northwestern was a top defense in 2020 under Coach Mike.

Here are some others vs Notre Dame in 2018 against a very good Notre Dame team.

Nice job by the safety timing it.

Saf

Safety is at the Line of Scrimmage.

Good scheme and again great timing on the pressure.

Another example where they bring the safety and it disrupts the pin and pull. Notre Dame loses 2 yards on the play.

Safety comes disrupts the scheme off the edge

Pin and pull is disrupted by the blitz from Hankwitz

Here is another example vs Maryland.

The Safety goes A gap and the will Lb blitzes the off side A gap. He goes to the h back side. Both DT line up in 2i but stunt to the b gap. The excellent design causes the safety to go unblocked.

Coach Mike is one of the best at using the safety in the run game to bring pressure on early downs. A great coordinator and asset to the game of football.

Again they are moving A and B with the LB and safety

Which frees up #42

#42 or the safety will be free.

They force the cut back into the A gap safety who is unblocked.

Thes are some of Mike Hanwitz's defense when he was a finalist for the Broyles award in 2020. 
Film to follow!

Northwestern's 2020 Blueprint for defending Ohio State's potent Offense

In 2020, Northwestern was a very good defense and finished the year #1 in DFEI rankings link and were tough all year. They were also 4th in the country in points allowed only allowing 15.9 a game. Mike Hankwitz did an outstanding job that year and after the year retired. Great coach.

Northwestern played Ohio State in 2020. Northwestern held Ohio State to 22 points in a hard fought 22-10 loss. The game was close and Northwestern's defense gave Justin Fields trouble all day.  They held him to 12/27 passing for 114 yards and 2 interceptions. It was Ohio State's lowest point total of the season, way below their point average of 41 points per game. 

In the last 3 years Ohio State's tremendous offense  has averaged:

2019 47 points per game

2020. 41 points per game

2021 45 points per game

Although they hade 513 yards of offense, the Northwestern Defense played good football and kept them out of the end zone. Their pass defense was excellent and they only allowed 2 passes of 20+ yards on the day. Well, how did they keep Ohio State off the board. Let's look at the game plan, see how they played certain situations and where they saw success.

1st, they are primarily a 4-2-5 front and do a great job playing defense with primarily this front. They don't deviated from their 4 hands too much and were very solid in 2020 playing this defense.

1st off they played zone the majority of the game. Every 1st and 2nd down they were in zone coverage.This was very effective in the passing game and helped on the mesh and shallow concepts that Ohio State likes to throw to the intermediate middle of the field.  The only time they went man was a few 3rd downs and in the red zone where they played all man to man. 

Early downs Coverages

vs 11 personnel (1 TE, 3 WR,1 RB)  they got 20 snaps of 11, they played cover 3 15/20 snaps. The other 5 were mostly cover 4 

vs 12 personnel (1RB, 2TE , 2 WR)  2x2. 6/9 snaps were cover 3 with 2 of those being a sam blitz pressure. The other 3 snaps were cover 4.

vs 12 personnel 3x1  formations, 7/10 snaps  were cover 3 weak or strong with 3/10 cover 4 defenses. 

vs trips  11 personnel     8/11 snaps were cover 3 strong and 3/11 snaps they played cover 8(roll the cb down to the 3x1 side and play 1/3 with everyone else). Every coverage check was to the trips side of the formation.

3rd down

3rd and 1-2   cover 4 , 3 weak

3rd and 3.      man free 2/2

3rd and 4-6      man free 1x1

3rd and 7+. 2 hole with a 3 man rush, 2 read. with a 4 man rush , roll (cover8) to the   3x1 ,cover 4 and man free rat with a 5 man rush

Here is a look at some of the coverage on early downs that we discussed above.

1. Cover 3 weak vs 11 personnel

vs 11 cover 3 strong. 

Ohio State comes out with twins to the field with the ball on the left hash. Northwestern goes cover 3 strong. Nice adjustment and coverage.

Vs 12 personnel 2x2 they played a ton of 3 weak to it. Here's an example of it setting the front to the boundary. 

vs 12 personnel 3x1 formations, they went either 3 weak or 3 strong and had success playing it.

vs true trips with the #3 wr split more than 5 yards 

One coverage they played 3 strong and cover 8. They did a nice job with it and it gave Ohio State trouble.

Here they roll to the 3x1 side which helps neutralize the te who Ohio State loves to hit down the middle of the field. The safety is there and the TE has to adjust his route and sits it down. They play man on the 1wr side as they roll to the trips side.

3x1 cb sits and plays flat. SS plays deep 1/3. FS plays middle 1/3

Heres another example of rolling to the 3x1 side.

The RCB squats and the LCB plays deep 1/3, fs middle 1/3 and SS deep 1/3

3rd down

Ohio State was 4/1l, 36%  on 3rd down, which by their standards isn't very good. Northwestern confused them with different looks and did a nice job on 3rd overall.  Below are 2 examples 

3rd and 3 

man to man 5 man pressure/ Blitz to the side of the back. They play man free and get good pressure, Fields just makes a play

film clip

3rd and 10 

cover 2 hole coverage, show pressure but drop 8 and play coverage. Still get great pressure and a bad throw. 

film analysis 

Red zone

They played 2 defenses in the red zone. 

They played all man to man in the red zone 8/8 snaps.  6/8 was cover 0 with three rat underneath defenders. The other 2/8 were cover 0 pressures with the LB's blitzing

cover 0 Rat(3 LBs play zone underneath)

cover o works out well as they do a great job on the blitz. Film below

Both examples discussed above