Subtle Defensive Changes Baffle the Tar Heels

After three straight weeks of uninspiring play, the Virginia Tech defense, aided significantly by the Hokie offense holding the football for over 40 minutes, had their best performance since the Ohio State game against a very talented North Carolina offense. After weeks of featuring coverage packages almost exclusively predicated on man coverage (with the exception of Georgia Tech) and blitzing to generate pass rush, defensive coordinator Bud Foster made some subtle adjustments in alignment and approach that clearly confused talented UNC quarterbacks Marquise Williams and Mitch Trubisky.

Three key themes emerged:

1. Foster used more zone coverage than I have seen all season. He designed those zone looks to give his defense an opportunity to funnel receivers into spots where his defensive backs could jump routes without worrying about being beaten deep. The defense forced turnovers, and both UNC quarterbacks seemed confused and hesitant against the different looks. Chuck Clark's ability to play the whip in base and Bear defenses while still being able to cover in nickel allows Foster to run every defensive alignment except for the 30 without needing to change personnel.
2. Foster flipped Kendall Fuller and Donovan Riley, with Riley playing the boundary and Kendall throwing to the field. UNC must have demonstrated a tendency to throw more to the field. Kendall was challenged repeatedly and won often (an interception returned for a touchdown and several passed defended). Riley led the team in tackles from his boundary spot, and by my count only gave up one completion (the Quinshad Davis touchdown catch.)
3. Foster trusted his front-four to generate pass rush. Ken Ekanem responded with a 3 sack day, all on plays where Foster did not blitz. Mixing up coverages caused the UNC quarterbacks to be hesitant, which presented an even greater advantage to Nicolas and Ekanem.

These changes seemed driven to use North Carolina's tendencies against them. It seemed pretty obvious to me that UNC's tall receivers would be a matchup nightmare if they aligned in the slot and ran fades against press coverage. Foster has traditionally pressed slot receivers on spread teams, but he threw a curveball in Chapel Hill by playing more off coverage, usually with outside leverage technique. I am sure many of you (me included) gasped when looking at the Hokie defensive alignment and yelled, "The quick slant is open! Why aren't they covering him?"

Well, perhaps Foster was crazy like a fox. Rather than attack vertically, Foster anticipated that Williams and the Tar Heel receivers would recognize those coverages and then throw into those vacated areas. Much like the trench warfare tactic of leaving an opening in barbwire only to have a machine gun trained on the gap, Foster used UNC's tendency to throw to certain spots against certain coverages to drive UNC to throw the ball to spots where the Heels were the least dangerous. Playing cover 2 added the machine gun component. The defensive back who has flat responsibility in a cover 2 does not have to worry about the defender beating them deep because they have deep help. That meant they could read the quarterback and jump routes, all while being aided by the knowledge that the UNC quarterbacks were going to almost automatically throw to certain spots against those looks.

Let's take a look at this Chuck Clark pass break up from the second quarter.

The Hokies use a cover 2 look, but against trips receivers, Clark plays the short flat to the inside, while Kendall Fuller (again, playing to the field side) takes a slightly deeper short zone and Bonner is deep. Immediately, patrons at the First Down in Arlington, VA yelled about how the inside receiver in the trips formation was wide open for a slant. Williams saw the same thing, and that was exactly what Foster wanted. Clark played outside leverage and gave the slot receiver a free release. Williams stared down the receiver and Clark jumped the route. Williams threw a bad ball (even with the jump by Clark, if the throw is aimed at the receiver's left shoulder instead of right shoulder, UNC may still get a nice chunk of yardage) and Clark nearly picks it off.

Interestingly, Williams got baited after Mitch Trubisky had just been burned on almost an identical play by Kendall Fuller.

The Hokies are in a cover 2. Just like Clark did on the last clip, Fuller voluntarily gives up outside leverage, baiting the QB to throw the quick curl. Fuller knows he has deep help and he can be aggressive. By lining up on the outside, it means he can look in and read the quarterback. WilliamsTrubisky stares down the receiver and throws the curl against what he thinks is a soft spot in the zone to the inside. Fuller jumps it and is off to the races.

Again, Fuller is playing to the field side, while Donovan Riley is playing the boundary corner. I am not sure if this is because UNC had a tendency to throw more to the field (which is plausible because Fuller seemed to be targeted much more frequently than Riley). Fuller had two pass breakups to go with his interception and forced several incompletions. Without watching the film and keeping count (even I have to sleep), UNC did manage a couple of completions but no game breaking plays on Fuller. Riley, playing a bunch of cover 2 looks on the boundary, was strong again in run support. He led the team with 8 tackles and contributed a sack on a corner blitz. It was probably his best game of the season.

Foster also leveraged Chuck Clark as a weapon to stay one step ahead of Fedora and Williams. Clark's ability to play as a whip linebacker or play as a nickel corner in the slot empowers Foster to show nickel, base 4-3, base 4-4, the Bear / Double Eagle or the 46 alignment without needing the change personnel.

Foster could put six in the box with two deep safeties and dare Fedora to run the football. Before the snap he could invert those safeties and create an 8-man box in the rare instance Fedora obliged him and showed run.

Foster also featured nickel personnel, but with a nine-man front with no deep safeties. Deon Clarke and Chuck Clark would align almost like stand up defensive ends containing the edge, with Williams flanked by Bonner and Jarrett in normal linebacker alignments. If needed, Clark could blitz, play contain, or drop into coverage. It looked odd, but the oddity and Clark's ability to execute gave Foster the ability to dominate the front with numbers or play safe coverage from any defensive formation. On this play, Clark's alignment is enough to generate a negative play. The Hokies flash the nine-man front on a second-and-three. UNC responds with what looks to be inverted veer out of the wishbone.

With Clarke and Clark on the edge, the ends don't have contain responsibility. Corey Marshall, who has been more disruptive than his low tackle totals indicate, draws a double team. With nine potential rushers, the UNC offensive line looks confused and both Dadi and Ekanem beat the offensive tackles to the inside. Please note both Fuller and Riley are both isolated on an island with no safety help. You would expect Williams to have the option of checking out of the run, but Foster must have realized that Fedora doesn't let Williams check plays. When UNC showed a run tendency, Foster loaded up the box with no fear of an audible.

With these alignment changes, and the utilization of cover 2 (and quarters) to go with man coverage, Foster seemed to make both UNC quarterbacks hesitant to pull the trigger. For the first time this season, I saw Foster really seem to put trust in his front-four to generate pass rush, and both Ken Ekanem and Dadi Nicolas responded with stalwart performances.

Ekanem had a huge day individually as he dominated UNC's two young right tackles. He showed speed off the edge and terrific leverage pass rush moves. Here are his last two sacks. First, Ekanem slaps the hands of the offensive tackle, and then dips his inside shoulder underneath to "rip" under the tackle's outside hand.

Downfield the Hokies are in an inverted cover 2 look, with the slot defenders playing in short zones. Williams again doesn't get rid of the ball quickly, and he never feels Ekanem coming from his blind side.

Next, Ekanem used a pure bull rush move. The right tackle (after being beaten twice on the outside rip move) over sets to the outside. Ekanem extends and bull rushes through the right tackle's right shoulder.

Again, Ekanem doesn't get there before Williams looks down field. Watch again, but focus down field. At the snap, Kendall Fuller's receiver (at the bottom of the screen) runs a quick drag route. Fuller releases him to Kyshoen Jarrett and takes the slot receiver running deep. When the receiver cuts to the post, note how Fuller has Detrick Bonner behind him. Fuller undercuts the route in anticipation of a throw to the post by Williams. This looks risky, but Fuller knows he has deep help from Bonner. By undercutting the route, he knows that if Williams throws, he has another pick. Williams (to his credit) tries to check down, and when he does, Ekanem arrives with bad intentions. This is great individual technique by Ekanem, beautiful coverage design and an aggressive but safe play by Fuller. This is great defense in a snapshot.

Foster also showed that he had learned some lessons after being torched by running quarterbacks last year. Williams was able to get some yardage on designed running plays (probably to the detriment of his running backs), but Williams didn't generate many broken plays. The opening play of the game demonstrates Foster's strategy for keeping Williams in the pocket.

UNC has a pretty good play called here. The offense is aligned with two running backs, a tight end and a receiver to the bottom of the screen with a split end to the top of the screen. The tight end runs a shallow cross, while the receiver at the bottom of the screen runs a go route to drive off the corner. The left running back delays and releases to the bottom of the screen on a wheel route into the space vacated by the corner. Because of the TV angle, I am not sure if the corner hands off his man to the free safety and takes the running back (I can't see them), but it sure looks like the back is wide open. Williams looks to his right, and then comes back to his left and it appears he is targeting the running back. Why the hesitation? Perhaps it was because he was expecting a blitz, and instead saw 6 defenders in coverage (man, with Chase Williams as short zone help and Bonner deep.) Either way, he doesn't get through his progression quick enough.

One of the biggest criticisms of Bud Foster's defense last season was the big yardage generated by quarterbacks breaking containment against the pass rush. While Justin Thomas, J.T. Barrett, and Williams all put up good rushing yardage, not much of it came on broken passing plays. The biggest reason is the combination of improved speed in the Hokie front-seven coupled with much better pass rush fundamentals. Ekanem (or sometimes Deon Clarke) and Nicolas have been outstanding in rushing the quarterback while maintaining contain, and not creating too much of a gap between them and the defensive tackles. Corey Marshall and Nigel Williams were excellent and caving in the pocket, and both Clarke and Chase Williams have been really strong at identifying the gaps where bubbles are starting to form and filling them to prevent any kind of escape.

The forced fumble is a great example. At the snap, Ekanem and Nicolas both get off the football with great speed. This forces both of the offensive tackles to turn their shoulders perpendicular to the line of scrimmage. Both Nicolas and Ekanem then execute a subtle leverage pass rush move. Watch closely as we zoom in on Ekanem's pass rush.

Both Ekanem and Nicolas use their outside hand to slap the hands of the offensive tackle to the inside. Then both drop their inside shoulders, and rip up and under the outside hand of the tackle. Once they get an angle on the tackle, note how both ends bend their body to turn into the quarterback. Last season, James Gayle frequently beat his man to the corner, but (most likely because of the shoulder injury he played through all season) struggled to turn the corner and get to the quarterback.

At the split second before Ekanem and Nicolas make contact, note that Williams does not have an escape path in the space between the defensive tackle and end. That gap often got too large against Maryland last season. Now, Deon Clarke steps into the gap formed between Ekanem and Corey Marshall. Even if Williams had the savvy to step up into the pocket and try to run, he has nowhere to go. This is a terrific adjustment by Foster to address the weakness in the scheme from last season. He understood that as North Carolina got further behind with less time on the clock, he could afford to drop Williams and Clarke back into coverage. If Williams got out of the pocket then, preventing him from gaining more than 10 yards would milk precious seconds off the clock when trailing big.

It was clear based on the film that Foster has closely studied Larry Fedora's offensive tendencies and designed a game plan perfectly suited to maximize the skillset of his defense while forcing the Tar Heel's out of their comfort zone. UNC was not able to put together drives, generate any tempo (until the end of the game) or establish any semblance of the running game. The pass rush coupled with mixing up coverages seemed to dissuade Fedora from taking any shots down field to his big receivers, which looked even more strange given how Quinshad Davis scored a touchdown by winning a physical battle with Riley and beat Fuller by pushing off on a couple of completions. By virtue of developing a great game plan, Foster reinvigorated the confidence of a defense that had looked bad in big spots against ECU and Georgia Tech. The defensive backs were taking chances and winning battles. The tackling was solid. And we saw a glimpse of how Ken Ekanem and Dadi Nicolas can get pressure even when Foster doesn't want to blitz. That variety will come in handy.

Every offense the Hokies have played has been a night and day difference from the previous week. Pitt is no exception. Where UNC wanted to spread the defense out and run up tempo offense, Pitt will line up in power sets and run down hill with huge tailback James Conner. Once the run is established, Pitt has an elite receiving threat in Tyler Boyd to find in play action. Pitt presents a whole new set of challenges for Foster. After debuting the "Dadi-Whip" package last season, it will be fascinating to see what Foster does to contain Conner and the Pitt running game this year.