Defensively Speaking: Tennessee

Ohio State’s first playoff game against Tennessee provided another example of how much the defense has evolved since the first Oregon game. Jim Knowles called as close to a perfect game as we could have asked for, and the players consistently did their jobs and made plays. Let’s take a look at Ohio State’s defensive scheme against the Vols.

One coverage Ohio State ran pretty frequently throughout the night was Cover 4 MEG (MEG = Man Everywhere he Goes). This is essentially just a Cover 4/Quarters coverage call except the two outside corners are in pure man coverage. See an example below:

Note how the two outside corners are in man coverage while the other five back-7 defenders are playing more of typical Cover 4 scheme.

Ohio State also sporadically played Cover 1 throughout the night. Below, they are in what’s known as Cover 1 “Hole” which is a Cover 1 scheme where the safety to the passing strength drops down as the robber player in the low hole with eyes on the quarterback (in this case, Caleb Downs is the safety to the passing strength). Everyone else is in man coverage expect for the other safety (Lathan Ransom) who becomes the deep defender:

Ohio State also used their 3-high safety look quite a bit. Naturally, they played plenty of Tampa-2 coverage out of this look:

However, Knowles also used the time off to do something I’ve been wanting to see for a few weeks – installing Cover 3 out of the 3-high look. Below, you’ll see Ohio State run Cover 3 Buzz out of 3-high. Note how Ransom is in the hook zone to the boundary and Jordan Hancock is dropping down to the curl zone to the field:

As for pressure calls, Knowles wasn’t very aggressive and preferred to play more of a base defense that didn’t send extra rushers. However, for this game, I think that was the right approach because the wide splits Tennessee uses with their receivers means you’re generally going to be blitzing from depth. Additionally, Tennessee’s O-line never proved that they could consistently handle a base 4-man rush.

However, Knowles did add one new blitz call on Saturday: the “saw dog” blitz paired with Cover 0. A saw dog blitz pinches the entire defensive line inside and sends a back-7 player off both edges.

When Knowles called the saw dog blitz, it nearly got home, and it led to an interception. Unfortunately, the interception was erased by possibly the worst “roughing the passer” call I’ve ever seen. However, take a look at the clip and diagram below – it is a 6-man rush by design and Arvell Reese is “green dogging” (meaning he becomes a 7^th rusher because the running back stays in to block). Everyone else is in man coverage:

Ohio State also did a phenomenal job shutting down Tennessee’s run game throughout the night. I was worried the Buckeyes might have some problems defending Tennessee’s inside zone concepts because they’ve struggled at times defending inside zone when teams spread them out. However, some adjustments were made that helped tremendously. Namely, they consistently had the defensive line pinching inside, and they even had the defensive ends use “heavy” techniques at times.

In a heavy technique, when an offensive tackle is zone blocking a defensive end, the defensive end will shoot inside to close down the B-gap rather than holding the edge (C-gap). This forces inside runs to bounce outside to unblocked defenders. It also makes it much easier for back-7 defenders to play both the run and the pass against RPO’s.

See an example of this in the following clips. Jack Sawyer lines up in essentially a 4-technique (head up on the offensive tackle) rather than a typical 5-technique (outside shoulder of the offensive tackle). Once that offensive tackle steps towards Sawyer, he shoots inside to close that B-gap and forces the running back to bounce outside to an unblocked Cody Simon (who is able to initially play the pass against this RPO before coming up and making a stop for a short gain):

I believe this was a phenomenal gameplan, and the gameplan for Oregon should be largely the same. Oregon also runs a lot of RPO’s. The difference with Oregon is they are more talented than Tennessee at every position on the field. I do think some more blitzing will be necessary, but aside from that I think this gameplan is very well-suited for Oregon.