Breakdown Sports

LINK Preface I watched the first half of this game and highlights Offense Rutgers was mostly a single back, 11 personnel unit. Mixing in 12 personnel near the goal line. Run heavy for the most part, when they did throw, they typically threw deep and away from underneath coverage. Defense 3-4 base, with a designated Rush end to make it behave a bit more like an Under front than a true 3-4. Lots of twists and slants to get the DL in one-gap situations. Mostly zone behind.

Jesse Johnson - USA Today Sports Offense Pro-style pistol sets. Mostly inside zone and power O, some QB read plays. Mostly short and intermediate throws to the sideline. When attacking deep, it was off of PA. Defense Cover 1 base from an over front. Appeared to mix 4-3 personnel and nickel personnel. Switched up to Cover 3 at times, struggled a bit with coverage being a bit softer.

Below is a round-up of what has been posted here this summer. Hope you enjoy. And as always, if you ever have questions, feel free to ask, either in the comments, on twitter, or through e-mail.

Like all coverages, coaches have developed adjustments and checks to mitigate some of the weaknesses of a coverage, or to hinder some of the methods offenses use to attack the defense without switching up the coverage entirely. This is done for teams with certain strengths, against certain formations that look to exploit some aspect of coverage, or to take advantage of offensive tendencies in certain situations. These adjustments can be called in the huddle based or they can be checked based on the offensive look or motion pre-snap. In this piece, we’ll go over some of the things Cover 1 defenses do to adjust to offenses. As a primer, here's your standard Cover 1

The Cover 1 defense: probably the first defense you learned, whether you knew you learned it or not, whether it was in youth football or in your backyard. Man vs man. Mono y mono. You vs me. Let’s see who can out athlete who. And of course, then there’s the one person playing center field, looking to pick off any pass with a little too much air or smash anyone who dares come over the middle without fear. Yup, good ol’ fashioned Cover 1. It’s as simple as that, right? Well, actually, yeah, pretty much. Relative to other coverages employed in modern football, Cover 1 is about as intuitive and instinctive as it gets. But, that’s relative to other defenses. That doesn't mean that there isn't technique that is required to be successful to run this defense, there is always more to a coverage than that. The Basics [Green = Man-to-Man Match-up, Yellow = Deep zone, Purple = Short zone, Red = Defensive movement, Blue = Offensive movement] Strengths Weaknesses ...

All coaches will admit that differentiating and controlling tempo are benefits of any modern offense. But then why are not all offenses running it in this day and age? In the modern B1G, you see some teams that utlize it heavily, others marginally, and others not at all. Why such a difference if it's known as an advantage for any offense using it. In this piece, we will discuss just that. Chris Howell - Herald-Times  [Indiana is known as being one of the fastest teams  in college football and have had a very successful offense in recent years. Some would say their struggles on defense are an effect of practicing with up-tempo offense, though]

The aspect of MSU’s defense that gets the most focus is undoubtedly the CB position. Fans and media folk love to point out the fact that the CBs are often left on an island by themselves, remaining hip-to-hip with their receiver from the snap of the football to the play is dead. But it is my opinion that CB may not even be the most important position in the Spartans Cover 4 secondary. In fact, it is the safeties that are consistently taxed mentally, pulled between run support and coverage. While CBs receiver the brunt of the bait, the safeties are left with the largest quandary. It has long been my opinion that, at the heart of attacking MSU’s defense, lies attacking the safeties. Unfortunately for teams facing the Spartans, Michigan State’s safety rarely make that an easy task either.

Melanie Maxwell - MLive Limited Video I didn’t get to go to the scrimmage. Instead, I had to suffer through a weekend in Traverse City. If life is at its most miserable in that scenario, I’ll take it every time. Alas, I’m basing much of this off of the video I was actually able to watch thanks to an Instagram account (linked below, big thanks due there). I take media/fan reaction with very little seriousness. I think both tend to overreact. They react because they are paid to overreact (clicks!) or are fans. There also isn’t necessarily a consistent understanding of what’s going on. But the reaction to the scrimmage Saturday was pretty consistent. So, when presented with the opportunity to watch some video, I took it. Here is my reaction. And here's the video  link to Instagram for those wondering. For what it's worth, I did only watch each video approximately once. I didn't spend a ton of time dissecting it all, so I can't get that in-depth from an ...

Originally written over at Maize n Brew  on 8/22/13 Editors Note: The H-back has been a valuable position in modern offenses dating back to the single-wing era of the football. It returned in full force during the implementation of zone blocking offenses of the 80s, and then again fell a little bit to the way side. In the past decade or so, the reemergence of the H-back position has come on full force. Almost every modern offense utilizes an H-back to some degree, both spread and pro-style. The reason is this: it can be used as a lead blocker similar to a FB, a reach blocker in zone schemes similar to a TE (by stretching the front you are opening lanes to run), and as a vertical pass threat, aligned in the slot matched up against LBs, or closed to the LOS. The H-back position brings a lot of run blocking variety into play, adds numbers to the box, but doesn't necessarily diminish your ability to pass. That is why you'll see it's importance in almost any m...