Breakdown Sports

In the first half of the Michigan-Northwestern game, the Wildcats repeatedly dialed up crucial  gains on simple slant plays. From Michigan's Base Cover 1, this caused coverage problems, especially in the slot where a safety matched up on a WR. In this post, we're going to look at why the early problems existed and what Don Brown did to stop the success of slants while staying within his scheme. Maize and Blue News

Cover 2 is often one of the first zone defenses taught in football. This is because it requires minimal movement, allowing defenders to focus on the “zone” aspect of the coverage. Just as important, because of the minimal movement and design of the coverage, it lends naturally to being a great run defense as all eyes are often focused on the backfield. Once seen as the go-to defense in football, it has fallen out of favor in the past few decades with the development of more advanced and complicated vertical passing attacks. However, recently it has seen somewhat of a resurgence with the “trap” concept, and it remains a favorite near the goal line. For completeness, man under will be treated in a different article.

At its most basic, Cover 4 plays as a four deep, three under defense; and at its most aggressive, it plays almost identically to a tight Cover 0. To the average fan, Cover 4 may sound like a passive, prevent-type defense, while to the more nuanced fan, it may seem like an aggressive coverage that can bring 9 defenders into the box. The truth is that it is all those things and more. One of the greatest powers of the Cover 4 is its ability to adjust, the intricacies, and tweaks that can be made to the same look to both confuse the offense, and remain fundamentally sound. In this article, we’re going to look at the basic elements of coverage in a Cover 4 defense.

PREVIEW FROM ORIGINAL POST AT THE CHAMPAIGN ROOM Wes Lunt transferred to Illinois from Oklahoma State. (USATSI) Early in the first quarter, Illinois had success running crossing routes against Washington's man-to-man cover 1. They ran routes concepts like the drag and follow (drive and chase), mesh concept, and a Cadillac (levels) concept. These are concepts that are all-coverage beaters, but when Washington switched from a Cover one/Man Under to Cover two/four, Lunt struggled to read the underneath coverage quick enough. *     *     *     *     *     *     * How To Make Life Easier for Lunt So, first of all, Lunt needs pass protection. The example above wasn't the only time Heitz got whooped. In fact, several of the other concepts I got to diagram weren't allowed to develop before the pressure got in off the right side of the line. What that means is that the RT needs some help. You can give him help in several ways...

Ohio State has been a solid defense this year, but not without its flaws. In this post we are going to point out some of those flaws and look at them in the context of MSU, and how MSU can run certain plays within their playbook to take advantage of these weaknesses. Power O to the Nub First, let’s define what the nnub is to get that out of the way. The nub is a side of a formation without a WR. A nub side can have a TE or a TE and wing, just as long as there is no one split out wide it is considered a nub. Generally, teams that run cover 4 will convert the nub side of their defense to a cover 2 while maintaining a cover 4 look to the other side. This is typically known as a cover 6 or a quarter-quarter-half coverage (this because of the deep defenders). OSU runs quite a bit of cover 4, but they don’t adjust their front a whole lot and instead just check into their cover 6 defense. This tends to put a DB, particularly a CB, as the outside leverage defender. As far a...