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Week 8 Film Study: Don Brown's defense confounds Michigan State

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Here's a look at some of the more intriguing film-related developments from Week 8 of the college football season:

Don Brown mixes things up

Saturday wound up telling the tale of two Big 10 defenses. Let’s start with the good first.

Don Brown's Michigan unit dominated once again, continuing to prove that it's in a class of its own. The group ranks first overall in defensive S&P+, which is the best single measure of success.

Brown's known for playing man coverage across the board, while bringing pressure from all sorts of funky angles and utilizing a hybrid linebacker/safety who's just as likely to blitz from depth as he is to drop back from the line of scrimmage. That’s not to mention all the bluffs and trap looks. There are a lot of moving parts.

Michigan State's offense felt the full brunt of Michigan's dominant defense on Saturday in a 21-7 loss. The Spartans couldn’t move the ball on the ground and quarterback Brian Lewerke couldn’t figure out where to throw in time. Their only touchdown came after Michigan turned the ball over inside its own 10-yard line.

Brown adopted a particularly interesting approach against Lewerke and Co. on third downs throughout the contest. While those situations typically lead to an automatic blitz from the defensive warlock, he showed restraint.

Instead, Michigan lined up four defenders on the line of scrimmage - typically three down linemen paired with a roving linebacker - and dropped one into coverage:

As seen above, linebacker Devin Bush - the most important figure on Brown’s defense - makes an initial move toward the line of scrimmage before backing out and reading the quarterback's eyes. He's acting as a part spy (looking for a quarterback scramble) and a part see-ball-get-ball linebacker who's freed up to run to wherever.

It's the kind of luxury you're afforded when your three-man rush is consistently caving in an offensive line.

In the secondary, Brown employed a two-deep shell - taking away any long throws - and manned up on the outside with Bush patrolling the middle. Over and over again, Lewerke was forced to chuck the ball into a tight window or simply get rid of it.

The Spartans looked completely flustered. Lewerke simply had no idea who was dropping or blitzing.

The result was that even with protection - when Michigan rushed just three and didn't get home - Lewerke didn’t trust his instincts. He passed up open receivers. What if Don wants me to throw to that guy?

So, what was Sparty’s answer? Wackadoo play calls, like dialing up a speed option on third-and-20. That’s a thing that actually happened:

Yikes. Rarely in real time do we see such a mental mismatch between offensive and defensive units.

Chase Winovich shines in the spotlight

Brown’s creativity is made possible by his great players.

And while Michigan's defensive backs forfeited almost nothing in coverage, it was the guys up front who made the thing sing. Defensive end Chase Winovich was at his relentless best, finishing with three stops and seven pressures.

Winovich never stops chugging, but he's much more than an effort player. He’s also a speed-to-power rusher with just enough sink in his hips to run the arc:

He reminds me of a slightly smaller, lighter Preston Smith. When Winovich is humming, he’s all turbo boosters and bull rush. He can run through anyone:

Drop an anchor against Winovich's power, though, and he has enough nuance in his game to adjust.

For instance, he'll hit you with an inside jab step before swooping around the edge. Or he’ll force you into committing your hands before discarding them with the kind of disdain reserved for the best of the best: I’m better than you, and I’m going to make sure you know it.

Winovich’s sheer tenacity is a joy to watch. Plays wind up looking like something that's usually seen on the Discovery Channel.

The crazy degree of difficulty on the play above is tough to describe. Winovich made the play without making the play. He was double-teamed while being tasked with setting a hard edge and not allowing a runner beyond his outside shoulder.

Somehow, Winovich was able to continue working down the line of scrimmage. He planted one arm into the chest of a blocker and controlled him while flipping his hips so he could avoid conceding the edge.

Eventually, the runner was forced back inside, where a group of Michigan defenders corralled him. Again, Winovich is more than an energy guy, but that kind of effort is special.

Ohio State’s defense gets confused

Greg Schiano’s Buckeyes defense is filled with five-star recruits, yet somehow sits 49th in defensive S&P+ behind the likes of Fresno State, Wyoming, and Buffalo. More crucially, the group ranks 111th in big-play defense (gains of 20 yards or more).

It’s hard to be that bad at Ohio State, but here we are, dissecting a loss in which the Buckeyes were blown off the field at Purdue, 49-20. This defense simply has no bright spots right now.

On Saturday, Purdue coach Jeff Brohm’s style of confuse-and-clobber football gave Schiano’s unit fits. The defense made every kind of mistake you can imagine, big and small. And Brohm clearly out-schemed Schiano, particularly on third downs, as defenders alerted to the wrong plays and hit the wrong landmarks.

It didn't help that OSU lacked effort in pursuit and consistently missed tackles. This was the first play from scrimmage on Saturday, which demonstrated a range of issues:

Did you catch that? Every defender initially shot toward the line of scrimmage to play the run, but it was a play-action pass. Meanwhile, two defenders ended up covering the same zone as a receiver jaunted into open space before eluding tacklers:

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Brohm's installed a flashy play-action attack with Boilermakers. They don’t run as many basic fakes or the kind of run-pass options that are now rampant across college football. Instead, they often pull linemen and involve a lot of moving parts to sell the run fakes.

But for really, really good defenses (and coaches), those tricks are old hat. Defenses should read the remaining offensive linemen to see if they sink into a pass set. If the offense winds up running a draw play, so be it.

However, OSU’s linebackers consistently bit on play fakes with pulling lineman, as if they hadn’t seen what Brohm's been running for the last 18 months at Purdue. Linebackers constantly flew to the line of scrimmage, leaving way too much space behind them:

OSU's linebackers keyed on a run play here. One of them read the backside pulling guard and attempted to beat him to his landmark - the outside shoulder of the right tackle:

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That meant Purdue quarterback David Blough had two receivers wide open, and subsequently hit the shorter route underneath.

Brohm went out of his way to isolate and attack Ohio State’s linebackers in coverage. They couldn’t keep up. Purdue would sucker them in with some kind of action up front, before spinning the ball in behind:

That’s almost a carbon copy of the previous example. Again, an OSU linebacker - this time Tuf Borland - took the bait. He bit on all that delicious backfield window dressing, gifting Purdue's tight end a free release and all sorts of room.

It wasn’t all about fakes, though. Brohm also did an excellent job of stretching the defense laterally pre-snap, before attacking it over the middle.

Check out this beautiful, funky design. It's a double-under concept – meant to isolate a single defender in the middle of the field – with the wing running a twirl route. You never see that.

Pre-snap, Purdue’s running back flared to the flat, which cleared an extra defender out of the box in man coverage. In response, Schiano blitzed his slot cornerback, gifting the receiver he was covering a free release to work across the field.

Purdue isolated the remaining linebacker, Malik Harrison, by running two in-breaking routes. Harrison had to pick his poison - either cover the first route (allowing the second receiver to streak into space) or pass the first guy off and give up inside leverage, forcing the safety to jet laterally across the field in coverage.

Harrison opted for the later, which allowed the first receiver to use the vacated space. The safety, Isaiah Pryor, did an admirable job darting over, but it was too late:

Little mistakes lead to scores. Big mistakes, be them tactical or through personnel, snowball into blowouts. And Schiano’s unit had plenty of whoppers to go along with the more basic errors.

Take this play for example:

That right there is Day 1 of fall camp stuff. It’s a pick play with a basic slant-flat concept. The offense is looking to force the slot cornerback to fight over an in-breaking route, freeing up the out-breaking route to get to the corner and score. Every team in the nation runs it.

How, then, can Ohio State’s (Ohio State!) defensive backs make such elementary errors against grade-school plays?

It’s Pryor in the slot again. His job is to stem the play at the earliest point. How? Bench press the slot receiver back toward the line of scrimmage. It doesn’t even have to be a clean jam, but just enough to disrupt the timing of the route combination.

Instead, Pryor allows the receiver to get off the line cleanly. He doesn’t even flash a hand toward the receiver:

Somehow, the worst was still to come. Schiano eventually picked up on the issues with his linebackers and opted to go with a smaller personnel grouping on third downs, getting more defensive backs on the field who can cover in space.

How did Brohm respond? By running the ball up the gut. Talk about setting the terms:

Schiano's become fond of overloading one side of the defensive formation. It worked wonders against Penn State on third downs, but it can only be successful if the defense is working as one collective organism. Everyone must be sound in terms of positional and physical leverage. Rotating safeties must take good angles to the ball, filling in any weak spots.

Against Purdue, no mas. The Boilermakers ran simple trap plays, distorting the levels of the line of scrimmage and catching multiple defenders in the wrong gaps as they attempted exchanges.

You won’t see many bigger coaching beatdowns this season.

Kyler Murray keeps developing

Kyler Murray is already a two-sport star. It would be easy for him to rest on his laurels.

And yet, he continues getting better at everything.

Murray has the Sooners back on track after a disappointing loss to Texas. Oklahoma ranks No. 1 in offensive S&P+ this season, even ahead of Alabama. And the 6-1 Sooners still dropped 45 points on the Longhorns in the lone losing effort.

Head coach Lincoln Riley gets a bunch of the credit, and he deserves it. He’s fashioned an innovative offense that doesn’t just repackage spread-to-run concepts, but enhances them. His passing system features quirky route combinations that are designed to attack specific coverage tendencies by opponents from week to week.

Murray marshals the entire thing. He processes a ton of information at warp speed and orchestrates his system as well as any quarterback around.

But what’s been most impressive about his development is his growth within the pocket.

Early in the season, Murray was fidgety. He’s an excellent off-platform thrower who can get rid of the football from awkward body positions - even with both feet in the air. But too often, he was happy to rely on that ability when he could have simply reset his feet and thrown a more accurate ball.

Now, Murray's adapted - he's more adept at scanning, shuffling, and resetting:

On slower-developing plays like the one above, Murray has plenty of time to contort his body and tie his eyes to his feet.

Where he had the most trouble in the past was under pressure. He'd look to get rid of the ball as quickly as possible without resetting, and it would often flutter on him. But now ...

Progress! You can’t do it any better than that. Above, the ball comes out in one seamless motion, right in the rhythm of Murray’s distinctive pocket bounce. Hit freeze on that sucker, and you’ll see a perfect pocket play, with his eyes, feet and aiming shoulder all directed at his target:

Murray’s quick-trigger release makes all of this easier. He can take the extra beat necessary to get his lower-body mechanics in order because he gets rid of the ball so damn fast!

Murray’s throwing motion is inspired by his baseball batting stance. Take another look at the picture above and see how he cocks his front foot to gain extra torque. Very little of Murray’s velocity is generated with his arm, but instead by snapping his hips, driving that foot, and slingshotting his arm:

It's a beautiful, canny use of his skills. Murray is blessed with rare hip flexion. It’s why his drive step is small - he doesn’t take an elongated stride in order to gain more power.

And it’s the reason he’s able to make special throws while on the move. He doesn’t need to be planted to get serious rotation on the ball. As long as Murray has his hips, he’s good:

Meanwhile, Murray’s mere presence on the field makes those around him better. The lifeblood of Riley’s program is attacking the A-gap in the run game, and because Murray’s speed on the edge is so feared, defenders are forced to account for his legs on every running play.

That means edge defenders set wider and linebackers cheat over a little. If the Sooners can get even one or two defenders to hesitate - vacating their leverage - it’s game over after the handoff:

Either the A-gaps are already open through play design, or offensive linemen can climb up to the second level unblocked with perfect positional leverage.

So, what's a defense to do? There’s not much you can do. Schematic tweaks here and there may help on a given down, but the only real way to slow down this Sooners offense is to simply have better players up front who own the line of scrimmage and command double-teams.

Good luck with that.

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