Defensively Speaking: Purdue

There’s never much to take away from a blowout victory against an overmatched opponent. However, I would like to discuss a concept that Jim Knowles has found a lot of success with over the past couple weeks: the 2-steal blitz.

A 2-steal blitz is a 5-man zone blitz paired with 2-steal coverage (a type of 2-deep / 4-underneath coverage). This type of blitz is a good changeup from typical 5-man pressure schemes that are often paired with either Cover 1 or Fire Zone (3-deep / 3-underneath) coverage. Let’s take a look at an example from the Penn State game that resulted in a sack:

This blitz comes from the field – the Nickel and the Mike Linebacker are coming as extra rushers. The Cornerback to the field is the flat defender, the Will Linebacker becomes the seam defender to the field, and the Field Safety is responsible for the deep half to the field. Meanwhile, the defensive end opposite the rush (to the boundary) will drop into the flat, the Boundary Safety will come down as the seam defender to the boundary, and the Boundary Cornerback becomes the deep half defender to the boundary.

We saw this same concept called a couple times against Purdue as well. See an example below, where Ohio State once again got home for a sack on this call:

Later in the game, Knowles called for this concept again and it almost resulted in an interception:

I really like the 2-steal blitz concept because it makes for another creative way to generate pressure. Again, most blitzes are either paired with Cover 1 or some sort of 3-deep coverage, whether it be Fire Zone coverage or “Hot” (3-deep / 2-underneath) coverage. It will be interesting to see if and how Knowles looks to build on this over the next couple weeks.