Demon Deacons Bedevil Hokies' Pass Protections Concepts

How the Wake Forest coaches schemed to free up blitzers against the Virginia Tech offense.

Quarterback Michael Brewer sacked by Wake Forest. [Michael Shroyer]

When I wrote my Wake Forest preview, I knew that Saturday's noon kickoff against the Demon Deacons would be a slog. With a mobile defensive front-seven, a solid secondary and a blitzing scheme that used movement to create numerical advantages in pass rush, Wake Forest was a textbook matchup nightmare for a Virginia Tech offense that has struggled two consecutive seasons against active blitzing fronts.

Never in my wildest imagination did I think that the Hokies would go sixty minutes without scoring a point. While turnovers (a Brenden Motley fumble and a lateral that Bucky Hodges could not reign in) killed two promising drives, breakdowns in pass protection resulted in numerous negative plays that absolutely killed any momentum that the Hokies started to build on many of their drives. Those negative plays negated another strong game by J.C. Coleman and a regulation shutout by a dominant Hokies defensive front.

As the game progressed, a familiar pattern emerged. Sure, on occasion an individual Wake pass rusher would get the best of a Virginia Tech offensive lineman. However, more often it appeared that the Virginia Tech offensive line would slide to one side, and the defensive pressure went to the other side. When you watch a game at game speed, it is difficult to determine if there is a clear pattern. Your mind will play tricks on you and make you think something happened one way and instead reality was very different, or something is merely a coincidence of one play bust, rather than a calculated strategy. I made the determination before Wake Forest's final field goal attempt sailed through the uprights that I was going to attempt to identify why it looked like Wake was getting so many unabated rushes on Michael Brewer.

Setting the Pass Protection

What do I mean when I say "setting the pass protection"? There are two common kinds of protections, cup protection and slide protection. A cup protection looks just like it sounds; the offensive line forms a cup around the quarterback. The running back checks an inside gap in case there is an unaccounted for blitzer, and then slides out to the edge to check and make sure there isn't pressure off the corner. A slide protection means the offensive line slides to the right or the left, and the running back fills in on the back side.

Each scheme has its strength. A cup protection is utilized most often when a team feels their offensive line has a good matchup against the defense or if a team likes to bring five-man pressures. A slide protection is a strong choice when one offensive lineman may be struggling. It seemed like the Hokies used a sliding protection often against Wake Forest.

One particular Wake defensive alignment seemed to trigger a slide protection by the Hokies.

Wake Forest has six defenders in the box. Three align to the left of the center (one linebacker, a defensive tackle, and a defensive end) and three align to the right of the center for a balanced front. Brewer does a hard count to get Wake to show a blitz, but the defenders stay stationary.

When Wake doesn't move, you can see Wang and Farris point directly at the inside linebacker to the top of the screen. My guess is they are identifying a particular player or calling a strength. If there are an uneven number of defenders, the offense will call the side with the most defenders the strength. If it is balanced, as it is here, the center will call the strength to the side of a player that the offensive staff has identified prior to the game, based on personnel \ film evaluation. Sometimes it will be a particularly dangerous defensive lineman, but most often it will be the location of the "mike" linebacker.

After the call, the Hokie offensive linemen then all execute a hard slide right protection, meaning every offensive lineman slides the gap to their right. Joel Caleb at running back then comes across the formation to take the edge rusher on the left hand side. This is pretty standard fare, but Wake defensive coordinator Mike Elko has a trick up his sleeve.

When Brewer gives his hard count, Wake does a good job of freezing and not showing their blitz look until after the offensive line and Brewer have committed to the protection and the play clock is closing on zero. The blitz design is the most intriguing part of the play, as it seems to be designed specifically to take advantage of the exact protection the Hokies have called. The two inside linebackers and the two defensive tackles all slant hard to the top of the screen, and the defensive end aligned over right tackle Wade Hansen loops way back over to the left side of the Tech o-line. The defense has occupied all five offensive linemen, leaving the two defensive ends against the running back, who has no help. That is the key issue. Caleb doesn't help matters by doing a terrible job of shielding the defensive end, but even if he gives an Anthony Munoz type performance on the blind side, the second defensive end will come through unblocked.

After seeing this, I asked myself if Wake have this defense called and just happened to get lucky that the Hokies slid the protection away from where they wanted to create a numerical advantage? Or did they know that the Hokies were going to adjust the same way to certain looks and used that knowledge to take advantage of their system? I went digging, and I found that this scenario repeated itself numerous times. When the Hokies slid their protection, more often than not the Deacons had a stunt or a blitz that created a mismatch on the back side of the slide protection.

On this play, Wake shows a similar balanced six-man defensive front. Again, the Hokies have a situation where they should be OK: six potential pass rushers against six potential blockers. The Deacons shift and show the pre-snap pressure through the guard-center gaps. The Hokies call a slide protection (this time to the left). At the snap, Marquel Lee (No. 8, who had a huge day with 3.0 tackles for a loss, 2.5 sacks and 12 tackles) bails on the interior blitz and loops to the outside.

Once again, Elko has called a blitz where the Hokies slide protection to one side, leaving the running back alone with two pass rushers while the five Hokie offensive linemen are occupied by four defenders. It doesn't help matters that Rogers, much like Caleb, gets demolished by the defensive end. Elko has hit the jackpot twice. This can't be a coincidence. Elko clearly has discovered some tendency in how the Hokies set pass protection based on defensive alignment, and then exploits it by blitzing the extra defender away from the slide protection. Credit goes to Elko for sharp film review, and jeers to the Hokies offensive staff incredibly daft failure to not identify that the tendency is being exploited and make an adjustment.

Wake didn't just blitz to exploit that tendency. The Deacons also used defensive line stunts that went back against the grain of the slide protection. It seems like they knew how to dictate the protection and then attacked the weakness.

Here, the Deacons only bring four on third-and-long. The Hokies slide their protection to the left slide, with Rogers covering the right edge.

Wake's defensive line slants hard right along with the Hokie slide protection. The defensive end aligned over Wade Hansen drives through his inside shoulder (poor job by Hansen here; he cannot get beaten inside on a slide protection even if there isn't a stunt). The defensive tackle aligned over Caleb Farris sells the slant, waits for Rogers to clear, and then loops back around against the grain to the outside. Farris has to protect the inside gap, so he expects Rogers to be there to chip the tackle, but Rogers has already gone out on his route. Even if Hansen doesn't get beat, the defensive tackle is essentially rushing Brewer unblocked. No individual player is at fault. Wake is using the Hokies scheme against them, knowing that Caleb will be wrong footed, Hansen will be occupied by the end, and Rogers will have cleared out because of the delay in the stunt. Wake can afford the delay because the down and distance (third-and-20) allows them to play a deep soft zone. Any throw underneath won't get the first. Even if Rogers had delayed longer, he finds himself matched up with a defensive tackle, which is a matchup Wake Forest would take every time.

At the most critical juncture of the game, Wake again used their alignment to dictate the Hokie protection and then bring pressure away from the protection. In the second overtime, the Hokies were in reasonable field goal range and faced a third-and-nine.

Like clockwork, there is that familiar six-man balanced defensive front, and again the Hokies slide their protection to the left side. Sam Rogers finds himself alone against two rushers. He takes the inside man, and the outside rusher is unblocked to the quarterback. Unlike the other plays, the Deacons didn't even bother to disguise the front. They aligned the linebacker on the edge. But nobody, not the offensive line or Michael Brewer, made an adjustment in the protection or had the wherewithal to have a checkdown or something. At the very least, if Brewer doesn't change the play, he has to recognize the blitz and sail the ball out of bounds. Instead, the sack turns a makeable 42 yard field goal into a tough 53 yarder, and the Hokies end up losing the football game.

Again, it is beholden on the offensive football staff to do two things here. First of all, they need to identify how Wake Forest is having success in that front and make the appropriate adjustment on the sidelines. In this day and age, it is disgraceful that an offensive staff, with multiple camera angles, video support and photographers handy, can't identify the same pattern that a busted up old scrub offensive lineman can get a feel for watching a distant TV in a sports bar. The staff has to make the adjustment, either to go against tendency and surprise Wake by sliding the other way, or by using a cup protection. Second, the offensive staff has to empower the players. Michael Brewer, David Wang, and all of those offensive linemen and running backs have to feel empowered to make adjustments on the fly when they recognize a problem, and it sure didn't look like players had the leeway to make that adjustment on Saturday. If they could and didn't, then the lack of recognition implies poor film study.

The film as a whole has countless opportunities for pointing out other busts. An ongoing theme this week will be Loeffler's decision to stick with Brewer when Motley was having success. I am on the record saying that I would have stayed with Motley, if for no other reason, to tie up the back side pursuit that kept J.C. Coleman from having an even better performance. Other issues, like Wade Hansen and David Wang struggling in other pass protection situations where they were isolated in a one-on-one battle, or poor blocking by skill position players, can be found throughout the film. Sam Rogers blocking continues to be a huge issue, especially when the coaching staff (perhaps unfairly) puts him in a situation where he is expected to block a defensive lineman head-to-head without the benefit of surprise. The defense had a terrific game, but couldn't force any game-changing turnovers after Donovan Riley's interception in the first half to bail out the offense. It was an offensive performance that was as bad as I can recall.

A singular coaching matchup, where a relatively unheralded Wake Forest staff seems to be completely taking advantage of a Virginia Tech coaching tendency, really does not cast Tech's offensive staff in a good light. This wasn't a situation where the Hokie personnel was being overwhelmed. It appeared to be that the players were doing what they were supposed to do, and Wake's staff took advantage. If I am wrong, and the players were not making the proper adjustment, then mea culpa. Unfortunately, this sure looks like the Hokies' offensive staff got bamboozled by Wake's defensive coaches.

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