Wyoming defense-The Art of Disguise

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Wyoming defense

I had a great q and a with jay Serval, the Wyoming Defensive Coordinator.  He is a tremndous football mind with a great coaching background.  I love some of his concepts defensively.

Background

Jay Sawvel joined the Wyoming coaching staff in February 2020 as defensive coordinator and safeties coach.  Sawvel previously served as the defensive coordinator at the University of Minnesota and Wake Forest University.   Over his career, he has been part of 19 teams who advanced to postseason play, including 12 bowl appearances and seven NCAA Playoff appearances

The Cowboy defense in 2021 was one of the top pass defenses in the nation.  Wyoming allowed opponents only 189.8 passing yards per game to rank No. 1 in the Mountain West and No. 12 in the nation.  The Cowboy defense was also No. 13 in the nation in defensive touchdowns scored, with three.  Wyoming held opponents to 23.7 points per game in the 2021 season to rank No. 5 in the MW and No. 43 in the country out of 130 FBS programs.  

Before coming to Wyoming, Sawvel served as the defensive coordinator at  Wake Forest University in 2017 and ‘18.    Prior to coaching at Wake Forest, Sawvel served as the defensive coordinator at the University of Minnesota where he constructed a Top 25 ranked defense and helped the Gophers to their best record in 13 seasons in 2016.  Minnesota posted a 9-4 record in 2016 and defeated Washington State, 17-12, in the Holiday Bowl. He was also an assistant at Minnesota from 2011-2015.

The defense

They are primarily a 4-2-5 defense with a traditional nickel. They play him to the formation and he aligns over #2. That's there plan and it has had success for them. 

Front wise:

They can set the front either direction but will also run two head up defensive tackles and play out of it and will often move. They can move in either direction. They also set the front to or away from the rb like any other team. 

The beauty of what they do comes in there coverage system.

It's all about disguise!

 Disguise

There defensive system and calls is  predicated on disguise. They do a tremendous job presnap presenting a cloudy picture for offenses. This is because they use their SS(deep safety) in a unique way. They switch the traditional cover system and have the t Nickel  as a deep quarter guy in their 4-2 coverage. This is tremendous because it gives you more of ability to disguise coverages from the look, especially when you play a ton of man free.They use him as a curl flat defender in cover 4 and their quarter quarter half system. They  tie together their coverage concepts in a way that causes a cloudy picture presnap for quarterbacks. 

They disguise as good as any team and the reason they do that is it ties in with all their coverages.  they play a ton of cover 1, cover 42(1/4, 1/4 half)  some cover 3 carry, some cover 2 and some stubbie vs trips(man on the outside wr in trips and combo on the 2 and 3 with the safety and nickel. You can't tell presnap whether they are single high or middle of the field open. 

Here's 3 examples of the disguising of coverages. 

Cover 42(quarter, quarter, half)  with the nickel and deep safety exchanging responsibilities from traditional cover 4

Another clip of    cover 42(quarters to the field, cover 2 to the boundary.

In the next picture, They bring the anchor (SS) to the field. The thing I love is that they bring the safeties to the side of the h back, they will have him attack the inside half of the h back. The LB to that side knows to expect the ball bounced on any of their safety edge blitzes. 

The last example is man free and blitzing the other way. Man free with the free safety blitzing

Pre snap, looks the same as above but the free safety creeps up and blitzes.

The free safety attacks the inside half of the h back while the LB is scraping outside to play the qb or rb if it's spilled to him.

The blitzing free safety makes a great play. But, the LB is scraping outside to play the spill, zone read on the perimeter. 

Cover 3

In the last example, they play cover 3. Again, it all looks the same presnap, which is integral to the success of the defense.

3 weak-

 presnap-safety could be coming, playing quarters or 3 weak. They disguise well as usual. 

On the snap the SS drops to the middle of the field. 

They are in 3 weak. 

The curl defenders carry 2 vertically as what they do in their match concepts.

As you can see above through the analysis , Wyoming does a tremendous job  showing the same pre snap look often and creating a tough presnap process for qb's. 

These are just a few of the schemes that really make their defense successful. I hope you enjoyed my coverage of the aggressive, well coached Wyoming defense.