The Football Brainiacs

Image via USA Today Sports (Andrew Weber)

OU is going to face a very aggressive West Virginia defense this weekend. So let’s go through a few of the traits you can expect from the Mountainers defense.

– Most of you know that West Virginia runs a 3-3-5 defense. The 3-3-5 is known to be a defense that employs a lot of pressure. They look to force errors with blitzes coming from various angles. They also mask the lack of size in the front 6 with a lot run blitzing. West Virginia follows that formula.

– They line their NG over the C and while he’s in a two gap alignment, they don’t having him catching a lot of blocks. He’s coming off the ball and getting into the gap. When he does anchor down, for the most part he looks pretty good. Against Maryland I saw him anchor down well against a double team. But I also saw him get cleared out one on one by Maryland’s center.

– West Virginia is also very aggressive on the back end. They’ve got good corners on the edge that they trust which allows them to do a lot with their safeties. Their defensive backs aren’t the type of guys that are just going to turn and run with you. They’re going to shuffle and collision receivers to widen or disrupt their routes.

– Again, they’re very aggressive with their safeties. They trust those guys to fly down hill in the run game or play one one one in coverage. They employ of a lot of less orthodox alignments as well. In the film I saw from WVU vs. Maryland even when they’re playing a high safety. He’s going to play almost a robber technique and isn’t going to get depth unless it’s necessary.

– They use a lot of different coverages…Cover 1, Cover 2, Cover 6, Cover 3, Cover 0, etc. All of which comes mostly out of a quarters/2 high alignment. They do sometimes align in a pre-snap single high look against bigger sets.

So let’s look a little closer at some of these concepts.

Varied Pressure and Coverages

Here on 3rd 10 WVU is lined up in a 2 high safety look. But because they trust all their secondary guys this can turn into a lot of different coverages depending on how they try to attack you. Note the inside DB lined up over the #3 receiver. They can blitz him, drop him in zone or play him over #3 in man to man.

In the case above they’re just going to play straight 2 man under.

Now watch them on 2nd and 10 against a 4 WR set. Typically OU would play this with a cover 3 or some other safe pass defense that also gives them an 8 man front. Below is the pre-snap look. The body language of those linebackers says they’re coming but WVU moves so much and has so many varied alignments that at that last minute that WLB could widen and then carry the #2 receiver. In which case you’d be looking at a palms/quarters coverage where that high safety (who is aligned low, below the number 1) the LB and the outside CB will outnumber the boundary 2 speeds 3 to 2. Also pay attention to that safety I’ve circled by the number 2. This guy is aligned to either protect his side of the field or perhaps pick up the inside receiver to his side and the inside DB over that receiver could potentially blitz.

What will in fact happen is this will end up being a cover 0. Every linebacker is going to blitz and the safety I’ve circled below will begin to come down hill immediately to either pick up the back or rob a slant or spy the QB. Everyone else is going to be man to man with no help.

They get to the QB right away and this is what it’s going to look like.

The thing to really keep in mind is that WVU trusts their DBs and because they are willing to trust them it’s really difficult to predict what kind of coverage and pressure you’re going to see.

Here on 1st and 10 they’re going to show a quarters look. All three guys I’ve circled in yellow are guys who are critical in making this defense effective because they will play a key role within both run and pass reads. The linebacker I’ve circled can team up with the deep safety behind him and the other two DBs to out number the trips (3 WR) side 4 to 3. The safety on the opposite side can team up with the cornerback to his side to match-up 2 to 1. But because WVU’s safeties are so quick down hill and adept at playing the alley they really do get the best of both worlds here in that they’ll get real run support help from both safeties. Quarters coverage is great in theory but puts a lot of strain on the safeties. WVU has the safeties to play this type of coverage effectively to match-up against the run and the pass.

Earlier you saw a 2 high look turn into a cover 0 with a heavy blitz on 2nd and long. Now watch how they play a 3rd and long out of a similar pre-snap look.

Look at the guys I’ve highlighted in yellow. They’re all showing pressure. In reality WVU can get pressure from any 3 of those guys and probably even the inside DB on the near side (though he’d be coming from further away). Again, last time we saw this look it turned into a house blitz with no safety help. Quarterback has got to be thinking about that.

But what actually happens is WVU brings 4 and plays a very conservative 2 man under pass defense.

Just to show you how much variation they have within their coverage calls. Here’s another 2 high safety/quarters look but the CB I’ve circled is actually going to sit down in a curl/flat zone and the coverage is going to end up being cover 6. Why I point this out is because all the variations in coverage will challenge Baker to make good post snap decisions. They are going to show him pre-snap looks that they feel will dictate a certain call and hope that the fear of pressure forces him into a hasty decision. They’ll try to steal a turnover by ending up in a coverage he didn’t anticipate and rely on him trying to get the ball out of his hands quickly. On the other hand, if they can get him second guessing himself and holding on to the ball then they probably feel like they can sack him.

Something I really like about WVU’s defense is they don’t allow teams to spread them out and negate the use of their safety. Look at this pre-snap look (below).

The middle safety is playing down so low that it’s really hard to anticipate what he’s going to do. He could sit in a robber position on slants. He’s fast enough to bail out and cover deep. They’ve also got an LB to the trips side that is close enough the inside receiver that they could feasibly play this as a quarters call and have that LB carry the inside WR and have both safeties widen and deepen at the slant. They could even blitz him.

Spread offenses like to force safeties to declare before the snap. WVU’s defensive coordinator breaks the mold with his safety alignments and tries to keep the offense guessing. So what defense does this actually end up being? Once again, they bring the house with an all out blitz playing cover 0 (no safety help) on the back end.

Let’s look at one more. Below you get another pre-snap look on a 3rd down play. The DB I circled is doing a good job of looking like he’s going to be playing coverage. But let’s say you’re not fooled by him and you guess he’s going to blitz. You might be thinking the WR can have an option route and break that off and sit down. The problem is there is a linebacker lined up outside the tackle that can drop into a zone and match the route or carry anything deep to the safety. Once again, this ends up being a heavy blitz with cover 0 behind it. WVU likes their cover 0 on third down.

A Few Keys to Success Against WVU’s Defense

– Show a play action off of everything. Notice in that last picture that Maryland has some numbers to the offenses left. If they had been running PA off everything they could either run those corners off or block them and get a run to the outside. Bottom line is you want to keep forcing those DBs to look in the backfield and the LBs guessing. Having said that, WVU teaches their man technique in a way that allows them to keep their eyes towards the QB as long as possible. As I mentioned above, they aren’t going to just turn and run. They’ll stay square as long as possible, shuffle and collision.

– Widen the WR splits. WVU likes to disguise edge pressure. That’s a lot harder when you get those WRs split out further. You force those defenders to declare early and if they don’t and decide to blitz then they’re doing so from much further away.

– Mayfield using his legs. With as much as WVU likes to pressure and play cover 0, if Baker can find a lane to run into, he will have a lot of green grass in front of him. If he does it early, it’ll slow WVU’s rush. If WVU plays OU like they did Maryland, I expect to see Mayfield break off some nice runs

– Go fast. As I noted above, WVU loves to disguise pre-snap and then run a lot of different coverages. When it’s loud and the offense is going fast, it makes it harder for the defense to communicate the calls quickly. The hurry up also makes it harder for them to get aligned. If OU can go fast but still be efficient it’ll likely force WVU to simplify their defensive calls and make it easier for Baker.

– Run the ball out of multiple sets and run it in different directions. If a team loves to run blitz (and WVU does) you can slow their downhill attack with screens and mis-direction. JY and I were talking about this last night and he said, “Run the option. If you force them to make reads and the QB is a real threat, you can bust big plays. When they slow down and start reading then hit them with inside and outside zone. Then get them flowing and run counter plays.” The point here is to find ways to make their LBs hesitant. Run blitzing teams tend to be feast or famine. Don’t be surprised to see the OL struggle early in trying to adjust to the run blitzes.

Also running the ball out of multiple sets will pose different problems for WVU and OU will want to figure out which works best. The 3-3-5 is an undersized defense. WVU makes up for that with speed and chaos. Run at them out of 10 personnel to empty the box and simplify the run game and see if Perine and Mixon can’t put themselves in 1 on 1 positions with Karl Joseph (cause we all wanna see that collision!). Against bigger sets WVU likes to play 1 high so OU running out of that set can clear some space in the passing game. Also since WVU loves to blitz, it can put the bigger Mark Andrews in some 1 on 1 situations with WVU’s safeties.