The Football Brainiacs

Image of A.J. Johnson via timesfreepress.com

After watching a little Tennessee film, I wanted to offer y’all a few brief thoughts on the Vol’s defense that OU will face this weekend.

– Tennessee runs an even and an odd front. They’ll sometimes have Corey Vereen’s hand in the dirt, and other times they’ll stand him up and rush or even drop him. It looks like they’re primarily in a ‘four man front over’, meaning their 3-technique is aligned to the ‘closed’ or strong side (though I do recall seeing an under look when they stood Vereen up). You might expect to see a lot of weakside runs from OU as a result, but to be honest I’m not overly concerned about their 3-technique against the run. He’s quick but doesn’t appear to be the strongest defender, and it looks like he plays a little high.

– Tennessee does have a backup DLineman, Owen Williams, who can move around the interior part of the line and to me, he looks like a tough customer. I think their run defense is better when they’ve got their two NTs, Williams (the back-up) and Danny O’Brien lined up next to each other. I can’t wait to see the interior line match-up.

– More on their front – You’re looking at a one gap scheme where they primarily rush with four guys. They don’t do a ton of blitzing, or at least they haven’t shown much blitzing this season so far.

– Two of their LBs I like are Jalen Reeves-Maybin and A.J. Johnson. Both of them (especially Johnson) look very comfortable at the position. They play like guys who are very comfortable with what they’re seeing, but OU is certainly going to try to confuse their reads.

– A lot of man or match-man coverage on the back end, and I suspect you’ll see them try to play a lot of bump-and-run this weekend. Like most SEC teams, they tend to keep their back end pretty simple, rely on their athletes to match up, and their front six and/or seven to play the run and rush the passer.

– I like Cameron Sutton at corner. In fact, I think both of their outside corners do a nice job. They have plenty of cover guys in the back end.

– They rally to the ball well and they tackle well in space, so in theory they wouldn’t necessarily need to rally to the ball. But you always see a ton of Vols around the ball carrier.

– Their linebackers and secondary players seem to read screens well, but their defensive line…not as much. If I’m OU, I am probably hitting them with more middle screens so that my linemen have a chance to make easy blocks as opposed to those tunnel screens that OU was using against Tulsa. Because there is no way Adam Shead is blocking these Tennessee LBs out in space.

– They play a lot of guys, but they are extremely young in the two-deep. Multiple freshman playing in the front seven.

– In general, they are an athletic defense that runs well. They’re also a pretty disciplined defense.

– They don’t like to commit a ton of guys to the run. Unlike OU, who will regularly play with a single high safety, Tennessee’s defensive coordinator looks like a guy who wants to protect his secondary. They’ll regularly try to redirect the inside WRs from the LB position and, as much as they can, try to have two safeties over the top. You’re rarely here me say this, but I’d show Tennessee some early 10 personnel/4 WRs or split Blake out because they want to rely on one LB in the box  to help themselves in coverage. I think OU could have a lot of success running out of that formation (4-wides), which will eventually open up more one-on-one opportunities on the outside.

– OVERALL: Despite their considerable youth, there isn’t a “bad” group on the Vol’s defense. Their LB corp, in my opinion, is clearly the best of the bunch and that was corroborated by our friend Dan Harralson (https://twitter.com/danharralson) who covers SEC and Tennessee football. Their defense isn’t going to jump out at you, but they run well in space and do their job. You’re not going to see a ton of blitzes and you won’t see them overly committed to the run (occasionally they’ll roll a safety down). If OU can get them out of their comfort zone by protecting Trevor against four man rushes, forcing them to pressure with more than just four and forcing the safeties to get involved in the run game, they’ll have a rough day.