What Is Jim Knowles’ Favorite Blitz Call?

I would not consider Jim Knowles to be someone who dials up a bunch of “exotic” blitzes. However, while I would like to see a little more creativity in this area, some of Knowles’ relatively basic blitz calls have worked quite well.

After watching Knowles call the Ohio State defense for two years, his favorite blitz call is very obvious to me – it’s a simple A-gap blitz from the linebacker to the nose tackle’s side (this could be either the Mike or the Will depending on how the front is set) with Cover 1 behind the blitz. Knowles generally calls for this blitz on run downs. See the following diagram to get an idea of what this blitz looks like:

Note how, based on alignment, it looks like the linebacker to the nose tackle’s side (the Mike in the above diagram) should be the B-gap defender to his side. However, because of the blitz, the Will linebacker actually becomes the man responsible for that B-gap instead. See an example of this below, as the Will linebacker (in this case, Cody Simon) gets around to fill the B-gap vacated by the blitzing Mike linebacker (Tommy Eichenberg):

While this is a very simple blitz call, Ohio State’s success rate with it has been quite high over the past couple seasons. See a few more examples of it below:

To recap:

• Knowles’ favorite blitz sends the linebacker to the nose tackle’s side to that A-gap and stunts the nose tackle to the opposite A-gap.
• The B-gap vacated by the blitzing linebacker will be filled by the non-blitzing linebacker.
• The defense plays Cover 1 behind the blitz.
• Knowles primarily calls for this blitz on run downs.