3rd down defense-load front pressures and coverages!

 

Using the Load Front in Passing Situations

The load front has many benefits. 

1. It forces matchups and you can also run some stunts off it. You can vary your pressures with 4 and 5 man concepts and also get 1x1 matchups with the center and guard of your choice. 

2. The stunt options are endless. You can incorporate the on the ball LB into your stunt game or drop him into coverage. You can run some natural picks with the walk up LB and the DE but also teams will run some 3 man games with different loopers

3. Most NFL and college teams will slide. Many teams will 4 man slide against this front, which will allow a 2x1 situation on the running back and blitz the the back. Here the Jets incorporate that against the Texans 4 man slide. If it's a center driven protection system(which means the center makes the call, not the qb, it's not easy for the QB to trump the protection call. Trump means the qb has final say. 

In this article we will look at 

A. 2 man games with DL 

B. 2 man games with  LB as pick defenders

C. 3 man games 

Load front as they are showing pressure . They force a 4 man slide.

Great pressure as the safety comes clean.

Nice scheme as they get the sack on the play!

A. 2 man games

Jets vs Jags

Jets 6 man pressure with match coverage  principle

Jets run a 6 man pressure (5man with the safety blitzing engaging the running back) but do a  a nice job forcing a bad throw. The safety up top has the RB if he releases.

Nice design out of the load front with the match principle with the lb and safety. Meaning the CB have #1 and the safety and LB have 2/3. Love the Jets match concept

Here you get a nice pressures off the edge. 

Good edge pressure with their 3 match coverage.

Good pressure as qb has little chance. 

Nice design and execution.

2 man game

Vikings vs the Seahawks

Vikings force the Center and RG into a 2x2 situation. The Center doesn't come off and pressure gets home. RW makes a great throw and keeps the chains moving on 3rd and 7.

ILB and nose runs a game, The left ILB blitz engages the RB.

nice design inside and Wilson sees it and makes a great throw.

RW takes the hit but its a great pressure from the defense.

film below

2 man games

Dolphins vs Giants Cover 3 with a 4 man rush.

Here the Dolphins run a 2man game and get pressure vs the Giants on a key 3rd and 10. They force Glennon to scramble and they get 7 yards on the completion.

Nice design and simple 4 man rush from the load front.

The Giants don[t pass it off as the looper comes free. 

QB makes quick decision to get rid of it. 

Only 7 yard gain as he gets hit.

Vikings 2 man game

The Vikings run load front with a 2 man mug look and run a game with the LB and the Nose to the slide.

Nice design and it gets home

They are really wide on that side. The LG and LT have to go to their left

The LB has to be taken by the RB so the looper comes free.

4 man game gets home with a nice load front, mug pressure

    

The Colts 2 man game

Colts run a 2 man game with the LB and DT out of the load front. They drop the Left DE and get a nice pressure with the inside game. Leonard adds in and flushes Carr out of the pocket.

Nice design and game.

they bring the mike and look the center opposite.53 adds in when the RB blocks.

man free add in pressure.

Carr gets flushed.

good pressure.

2 man game with a pick

Here they run a nice 2 man game with the load front lb and the DE. The giants do them a favor and 4 man slide and free release the back. They Dolphins get an easy 2x1 on the OT. If the rb stayed in it still would have been tough to block with the LB and DE game and pick play.

This is great because the LB picks for the DE. This is a really nice game.

Good pick by the LB and the DE comes clean.

good scheme from the Dolphins 

Excellent job.

At the College Level

Washington at USC

2019

Here's an example of where the screener gets the sack. The first rusher, who is essentially trying to attack that near shoulder, ends up getting the sack with a 4 man game. They drop the DT in the load front over the rt guard into coverage.

Nice design and game 

Nice design and simple game as the end comes clean/

#4 Games to me is like setting a pick and roll in basketball. You are trying to get some type of advantage by getting one guy home. You want the picker to be violent when he sets that screen to get the roller home.  But often when you run games, the picker is the guy that often comes free. Teach it that way. Its very similar to basketball, that when you set a screen you end up being the roller and scoring. The player that sets that violent screen can often get the sack.

B. 3 man games

Cincinatti vs SMU (college)

The nice thing about the load front is you set it away from the rb, most teams will slide to it. In college you will see 4 man slides.

SMU is no different.

3rd and  12 below.

They get the slide and run a 3 man game with the walked up LB, the DE and the off the ball LB.

The pressure gets home. 

Here for the 3rd time in the game, they go load but they run it to the Giant left. They run a good 3man game with nose , right ILB and Rush DE on the right side

Titans vs Jaguars

Titans run a 4 man game with their whole d line from the load front.

Gets home as they run the 3 man game.

As you can see on the film, the rdt and rde run a late game as well. All 4 guys are involved in the game.

Good design and pressure.

Bengals 3 man games:

The Bengals run a nice 5 man game with a 3 man game on one side with a game with the mike lb and de on the other.  They run it from a load front. The End and load lb do an excellent job with their game.

Bengals vs Ravens

The Ravens don't slide as the Bengals walk 2 LB's in the gap. Surprising because Hendricksen is to the defensive right so figure the O Line would slide left. The QB just barely gets it off with this nice 3 man game. 

Titans

Titans run a 3 man pressure from their load look and run cover 2 hole. 

The players on the left side both drop, one playing curl, the other playing the middle hole.

Steelers run load against the Titans.

Send the rb as the Titans 4 man slide to help on TJ Watt

Steelers get great pressure and play 2 man. LB Blitz  

3 man rush cover 2 holet

Titans only send 3 out of the load front.

Titans Load Front does a nice job against the Steelers

Titans Playoffs 2021 vs the Bengals. 

Next example

3  man game out of the load front

Iowa goes Load front vs Michigan, runs a 3 man game to the side of the load front and brings a linebacker. They run 3 under 3 deep coverage.

Michigan doesn't pass it off 

nose- A gap to the right

RDT work upfield

RDE Loop inside

 

More load front posts to come!

Developing a Defensive Philosophy

What is your defensive philosophy?

I've covered so many of the great coaches out there that I decided to write an article on my beliefs as a defensive coach. I hope you find it interesting and take something away from it.

Background

I've been fortunate to coach this game for over 30 years and have been the Nassau CC defensive coordinator for the past 3 years. Through those years, the game has changed.  Football has evolved and as a defensive coach you have to evolve. We live in an 11 world with a heavy emphasis on rpo's and zone read systems. We see QB designed runs more and more as well as zone slice, tight zone, wide zone and more over the last five years. 

 I went from being a true cover 4 team to a press quarters team that plays quite a bit of man free and cover 2 as part of the package. We will also incorporate some 4 man sim pressures and some 5 man cover 2 and 3 pressures. Three years ago we played quarters 40% of the time on 1st and 2nd down. Now we play zero % on early downs. That's a huge change as we try to keep up with the changing offensive systems. 

 On 3rd down, I will get into our mug pressures and odd dime package which has been very successful for us. We show many different fronts and mug looks but from a coaching perspective it is easy for our kids as the coverages are all the same except for the joker who subs into the game.

We have several goals which are predicated on the following:

1. Stop the run

2. No easy completions in the pass game. Take away the quick and rpo game on early downs. We will challenge on the outside. 

3. Play great situational football

This past year:

We held 6 opponents to under 10 points

Top 5 in 3rd down efficiency holding teams to 23% efficiency

Allowed 12.7 points per game

Held teams to a 43% pass completion rate

Allowed 2.71 yards per carry

Philosophy

Overall, we are an aggressive defense, playing a tremendous amount of press coverage in early downs. We will play some press quarters, cover 2 and man free. We have the ability to go from a press team to off coverage with simple calls. But the basis premise is to play press and really teach our kids an understanding of what routes will beat them vs press coverage. Our foundation starts there. Understand routes vs the coverage but also what to expect with bunch, trips, condensed and stacked formations. 

The reasoning is we will not give easy completions on early downs. It's an easy 6 yards when you play true quarters or soft cover 3 and qb's have been trained too well to take it in the rpo game. I played true quarters for a number of years and decided that press quarters is the way to go. Our pass defense has greatly improved as a result.  Now, understand the routes you are going to get, fade, comeback, slant are a few and drill it everyday. The bigger issue is working with safeties and linebackers on those #2 wheel, deeper outs and routes in pass defense drills.  The system has worked well for us the past few years.  

Disguise

We disguise things from a 2 deep look. Everything starts 2 high and we teach our kids to disguise as long as possible. I also give the cb the ability to work in and out pre snap to create a cloudy picture on the outside. You will often see them moving around before the snap but primarily you will see a 2 deep look presnap. Disguise, disguise disguise.

Personnel Groupings

Defensive game Planning starts with being able to handle different personnel groupings and being able to get aligned and in the best defense vs these groupings.

See my article on game planning 

https://coachkoufootball.blogspot.com/2021/04/game-planning.html

We live in an 11 world and then teams will either go 12 or 10  as their secondary formational group for the most part with a little 20 mixed in their. We game plan a tremendous amount based on what they are in and what they run for each group. What are their bae runs based on down and distance on the early downs. 

I believe in not having a ton of checks and lining up and playing football. I am more about not worrying so much about our adjustments, but under the philosophy that teams need to adjust to you. We will bring some zone pressures and man pressures but are very aggressive. We do have our 3x1 checks and will use them as necessary but don't go into a game with more than 2.  

We have a choice system on early downs, meaning we will usually package 2 coverages, and based on what they come out in our safety can call the appropriate coverage. I give our safety the ability to make the check and we live with it.  This is very effective when seeing 12 and 11 as teams will run certain plays based on their formations from these sets and back alignment. 

Fronts

Early downs

On early downs my scheme  a traditional 4-2-5, some shade and bear looks with the ability to go to some under fronts vs 12 and 21 with the tight end on the line of scrimmage. We have some rules involving the safety in corner back in run support

3rd down

On 3rd down, we will get into our mug looks and play our 3-2 dime  and 4-2 package. The great thing about what we do on 3rd down is we can play any of our base coverages in the dime package. We sub a DT out for our joker(3rd CB) and can play any coverage out of it.  It has worked great for us. 

Some of those coverages includes cover 2, press quarters, man free, 2 man and our fire zones. We also play some hole coverages where we play a 3rd safety in the hole. We have a few variations that I like to play. 

The simpler you keep it for your players the more effective they will be. 

This is my defensive philosophy in a nut shell. If you would like to discuss it with me, reach out on twitter and would be more than happy to share my thoughts.

All the best,

Coach Kou

Utah Morgan Scalley Base Defense Part 1-1st and 2nd down

 Morgan Scalley runs a very effective scheme at Utah.

In his 15th year overall as a Utah assistant coach, Morgan Scalley is in his seventh season as the defensive coordinator in 2022. His best year was in 2019 as the defense was tremendous. This year they are #1 again. They are #1 in the pac 10 this year in points allowed. They have allowed 20 points per game. They won the pac 12 championship in 2021 and 2022, and his defense had a ton to do with it.

Here's some stats about his defense:

• Utah has led the Pac-12 five times in his six seasons as defensive coordinator in rushing defense (2016, '18, '19, ’20 and ‘21) —ranking third in the nation in 2019 after ranking fifth in in 2018.

• The Utes have finished in the top-three in the conference in sacks and tackles for loss three times under Scalley, leading the league in both in 2021 and 2016, while finishing the 2018 season ranked 11^th nationally and first in the Pac-12 in sacks.

• Utah has finished in the top-half of the Pac-12 in total defense five times in the past six seasons, ranking second nationally and first in the league in 2019.

• Over the past four seasons, Scalley's defense has held opponents to 15 points or fewer 20 times, third most in all of FBS.

I took a close look at his 2019 defense, breaking down a few games. Some of the schemes include some fire zone pressures and normal cover 2 as well as man free at time..

FRONTS

They bounce between their 4-2-5 and bear/odd front. They utilize both dependant on who they played and the situation they were int. 

Here they are in man coverage in the 4-2 front so you see the safeties down and alignment. But again they set the front to the side of the rb.  

The 3 technique is to the side of the back. Everyone has a primary gap based on the alignment. 

In odd, they played it 2 ways.  At times a 4i and others a 3. The LB will be to the side of the back if it's man coverage but opposite if it's zone. 

Here they are in man coverage vs Arizona, as the LB is to the side of the back and the stacked safety has #9 the h back.

zone again with the lb opposite the rb. The nose will play half man behind weakside A gap with the Mike #30 responsible for the playside a gap. 

Coverage schemes

Base Downs (1st and 2nd down)

Man Free

They are. my type of defense as they love to play press man free coverage and challenge offenses. They have had great success being a man free team on early downs. 

You will see Utah play man free  coverage vs various formations on early downs.

In the diagram below Arizona comes out in 12 personnel. They play man free with the LB's combo on the rb.(03)

They at times sprinkle in some man and bring the free safety into the box. He will play the rb man for man or get into the run fit. In the example below, they play it with their bear front.

vs Arizona 

Another example of bear cover 1 vs 11 personnel. The Safety comes down to play the h back with the Mike Lb responsible for the RB. Easy for him as he goes where the rb goes. They play press to the single side and on the #2 wr to the passing strength.

The one thing you will notice is the alignment of their db as they like to press the man on the line of scrimmage regardless of if he is the #1 or #2 wr. (see below)

Fire Zone pressures

Bear Strike Cover 3 , They send the sam to the field in the bear look and drop the olb to the boundary. They play cover 3 and slant the whole defensive front. 

Odd Pressure vs BYU

Similar concept 3 under 3 deep with a defensive lineman playing the hook. They will often have the de drop to the hook as opposed to the flat like several 3 under 3 deep teams when they blitz off the edge.

Another pressure from the bear front. They bring the cb to the bottom of the screen and the mike to the boundary vs the closed set. They get a 2x1 on the tackle as the tackle blocks the LB. In the rpo game that leaves the cb unblocked, qb does a nice job getting the throw off. 

You can  see here as the guard takes the blitzing inside linebacker the cb has a nice free run at the qb. Qb does a great job reading it and is well. coached to get the ball out. The safety does a nice job tackling the wr at 5 yards. 

Clip with it.

America's blitz

Here they run America's blitz to the field and get home except the qb Zach  Wilson avoids the rush. He does a nice job escaping a well designed pressure.

CHANGEUP

They did do some unique things when playing against Wash St who was air raid. They got away from their 4-2-5 and played a ton of odd. 

Utah run fits vs the Air Raid

In the run game, you can do a couple things. Utah liked to use the Safety as  a c gap player which makes things difficult. How do you account for him in the run game.

There are certain fits in the run game. It often depends on whether your ends are 4i  b gap players. In the example below, it looks like Utah has the de in 4i and the middle safety is responsible for c gap.

Utah run fit film

Utah

Utah runs it vs cover 2 with a 3 man rush on 1st down. Wash State is 2x2 and the back is strong. The mike opens to the side of the rb. Since it's 2x2 their is no carry so the 3rd safety just plays the deep middle hook.

The cb does a nice job getting under the post corner route so the qb checks it down to the spot route.

Here is the film with the clip

Cover 2 hole

Utah will run some cover 2 hole which is a cover 2 with a low hole and middle hole defender. It is very effective in taking away the middle of the field, dig and deep post routes. 

Utah version:

On 3rd and 15 Utah plays a soft cover 2 hole look. They use the safety in the middle of the field and take away all vertical routes and windows. They dare Washington state to check it down.

The left cb does an excellent job sinking and knowing where the sticks are. 

Here are the clips that go with it:

This is part 1 of his defensive scheme. Next up is his defense on 3rd down. Stay tuned for more!

Here's some additional clips of the game vs use last night.