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:
- 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.
- 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.)
- 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.
Comments
Great write up French. Ekanem played his nuts off Saturday.
Fantastic write-up! I feel like I learn something new every time I read your work.
Great stuff, as always, French!
Not to nitpick, but it was Trubisky that threw the pick-six, not Williams. I bring this up for a reason though, not just to make a correction - how much do you think the QB rotation plays into the fact that this happened? Kendall mentioned the pick was pretty much going to happen because from film study they knew what the UNC offense was going to do. Trubisky playing into Kendall's hands (pun intended) seems to arise from (1) inexperience and having not been on the field already, since I don't know that Williams makes the same mistake after seeing what the Hokies D has been doing, especially the play by Clark, and (2) basically UNC has predetermined action that is easy to read, so Trubisky comes on and basically follows a recipe. Thoughts?
It must be hard with your qbs getting shuffled like that. Williams might see something on the field, but then when he gets switched out for the new qb, they have to relearn the same lesson. I mean, they might try to communicate it on the sideline, but I'm sure that once the bullets start flying, having not seen something before makes it tough to know what to do.
By rotating qbs like that, you're preventing your offense from gaining that experience and adapting as the game goes on. Is that what you're trying to say, because if so, I think I totally agree.
He makes that mistake on the series following the pick 6, so he must not have been paying a whole lot attention.
Also, I can't remember, but did Trubisky even go back in after the pck 6? I looked at the stat line and I rewatched some of the game and I don't remember him going back in. I wonder if Fedora is done with the rotation or if he just didn't trust Trubisky against our D.
On the last clip if Dadi is a split second later on the recovery that could have been a scoop and go for Chuck Clark.
The D could've scored there but they wanted the offense to score to get their confidence up.
these are my favorite VT features on the interweb and you do a fantastic job with them
on the Ekanem "bull rush" video (the one you say to look at again where Fuller is cutting across the middle with deep help behind him) Williams looks to his right first. To my novice eyes, it looks like he has a two man route against man coverage (C. Clark and Riley) with D. Clarke in some kind of underneath zone. I think Williams looks right at Clarke and then starts looking around...as if plan A was the out route to the slot receiver. Is that what I'm seeing?
Bud Foster to Fedora: Tip your cap to me, b1t*h!
Outstanding analysis, French!
Spectacular performance by the defense, easily the best since Ohio State.
Coming into this game. I was very worried about Marquise Williams hurting us like Russell Wilson against the skins, but our defensive speed helped out quite a bit. Forcing a sack-fumble on the first play and routinely hitting their QBs was a huge boost. If we can do this consistently, we'll have a good rest of the year.
Our whole D is coming together really nicely, even with the injuries. What Foster did against UNC was nothing short of nightmare-inducing for future opponents. His "weakness" was against mobile QBs in a spread offense. There was no luck involved with what happened last week -- that was just an outstanding adjustment. I would say UNC was lucky not to have more thrown more INTs, and credit Williams for generally making good decisions. Although there were two plays where I feel he should have been called in the dirt for sacks where he managed to throw the ball, and somehow got a completion once, and didn't get called for grounding the other, by virtue of a receiver being in the area. Either of those could have easily been an INT for UNC.
Very impressed with Ekanem. He was a big recruiting get at the time, but then was invisible for a while, and you wondered if/when he'd break into the 2-deep. Now he's starting to look like a monster DE for us. He looks to be almost as quick as Dadi, and seems to break down for the tackle a bit better at this stage than Dadi was last year -- Dadi's big weakness from last year was running himself past the play. Every week they both seem to be getting better, which has to have Foster feeling pretty great, considering the trouble we've had the past couple seasons generating a pass rush with 4 men.
Then to see Nigel Williams come in and play at the level he is playing. It's very reassuring, and makes me just salivate for the day Maddy is back and we can start subbing a very effective 2 deep at DT.
If we can close on the defensive recruits we seem to be sitting well with, the future is very bleak for our opponents over the next few years.
Every week the guy I'm quietly impressed with is Chuck Clark. Dude seems to rarely be out of position, and knows how to tackle with. Often arrives with a big impact. Only a matter of time before he causes some fumbles.
Using him at whip this past week I think showed how much the coaches trust those traits.
Call me crazy, but he's starting to look to me like one of those late bloomers that just blows up and ends up with a crazy good career at the next level.
Chuck is an underclassman I think. Are you referencing Deon Clarke in your last paragraph?
worst article EVER - fedora made it VERY clear that the VT D didn't do anything ... /s
chess playing with checkers - let's leave it that way
I've gone back and watched this game, and a few others lately. The biggest thing that stands out to me is Kendall Fuller. I don't have any problem saying that he is without a doubt the best 19 yr kid I've ever watched play corner in my life.
And he keeps improving.
He's better than he was last year, he has the physical gifts. Please see the horizontal DENY from a few weeks back. He just seems to be getting smarter too.
Ohh babyyy the zoomed in version of Ekanem and Dadi's rush is like a mirror image. Absolute perfection!! You can actually see Dadi rip with his right hand up and through the defender, its unreal how something as simple as an arm rip can give you sooo much leverage when getting to the QB. Bane Ekanem plays rock paper scissors with his DE and HULK SMASHES him and it onto the QB who as we saw had 0 chance.
IMO it is awesome to see weekly changes to Bud's D. Chuck Clark is such a under-rated played for our Defense and maybe RVD's injury was a blessing in disguise for Bud and the group. Our young defense is starting to gell well our front 4 is creating pass rush and fuller is doing fuller things!!
Everyone have a cookie!!!
Did I miss something or are you referring to last year?
Last year... it gave Clark more opportunity to play and earn the trust from Bud.
Gotcha. I thought you were saying it as this year since Clark has played a little bit of a Whip/Nickel hybrid role at times and with RVD moving to Backer this year as well
I recognize Alton Brown's handwriting....
Good Eats just went up on NetFlix. Needless to say my homework has gone bye bye for the past week or so while I binge watch.
Yeah, but apparently it is not all of Good Eats. I want the entire run on Netflix.
NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! D: I just hit the end of it today and I was sad. So I spent the rest of the day curled up with his cookbooks. And bourbon.
Alton Brown is my spirit animal.
I learn by understanding the "why" of something. I can then synthesize how the knowledge applies to other things.
Alton Brown is great at applying the why of knowledge of food science.
I could not figure out how to cook steak. Then AB did his pantomime cow episode on steak.
I watched it then went across the street to the market and spent waaaaaaay more on a steak than I could afford and confidently cooked it into a perfect meal.
Since then I stopped buying steaks at restaurants because I can do better than all bit a few.
The knowledge learned regarding proteins in that episode carried over into brewing.
Best of all, he's won his own " Beard " award. The James Beard award.
Yes, exactly! I couldn't cook to save my life in college, but then I started watching Alton Brown in grad school. When I started realizing the parallels between cooking and chemistry, it all clicked (also because he often talks chemistry, so he's speaking my language). Most cooking shows are like "do this, then do this, and wow doesn't that look good?" Alton tells me why he's doing things. I love it.
And he loves corgis. Gotta love a guy that loves corgis.
French,
"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."
Agreed, and Deon does a good job to plug up his gap, but it looked like there was a huge lane for Williams in the gap between where Dadi was and (i'm assuming) Nigel. You could see the two DT's get a big tangled at the end of the play such that there wasn't gap integrity between Dadi and Williams, correct?
In the zoomed out version you can see Chuck Clark standing right in that gap, which I'm guessing was by design.
One other note, while Ricky Walker didn't get credited with any tackles, he had a strong game in spot duty. In the off season I will feature a story on Walker's play in short yardage situations. On the second and goal from UNC's first drive. Walker ate up three blockers, freeing up second level Hokie defenders to tackle Romar "Atomatic" (because that is what spellcheck changes Romar to) Morris for a loss. That stemmed several nice runs in a row. Bonner broke up a pass on 3rd and goal, and the defense got a nice hold that ended up setting the tone for the rest of the day.
Bonner and Walker are the two guys I noticed as well. Bonner has been so criticized, but he was in the right spot all day and really cleaned up a lot of messes. He came in quick on some runs to the outside as well.
Walker wasn't in there much but he looked like a man when he was in there. I hope to see him some against Pitt.
I was disappointed with Bonner a lot last year, but I agree: this year he has played at a very high level.
Bonner should be in the running for most improved something so far this year. I feel he's a big reason that Coach Bud is still comfortable in Cover 0. Bonner has been quietly blanketing wideouts in coverage all year.
Eh, Bonner has been great in coverage. But he has had some moments in run support where I just ache for a Kam Chancellor-destroyer type safety to play the alley in the running game. He is by far the least physical of all the secondary players in run support.
Most free safeties aren't that great against the run.
Yeah, we had Kam, but he was a SS playing FS and everyone knew it.
I just really like his lateral speed, and at least he does wrap up and tackle. Overall, this isn't a very physical secondary. KJ will lay his shoulder into somebody every now and then, but that's about it.
Slightly off topic, my favorite thing about that 2007 season was the secondary. Macho, Brandon, Kam, and Davon. Those dudes did not mind a little contact.
Jimmy Williams and Aaron Rouse were of that mold as well, for better or for worse...
DJ Parker was a little underrated as a head-knocker too. Loved those 2005-2007 defenses.
all those clips remind me of this again....foster to fedora and williams
Been very impressed with Clark so far this year (obviously). I feel like your formation descriptions are on point with this one. I can see how having a versitile player like Clark helps confuse the offense. With most video clips above it looks like a 4-3 defense but either with the 3rd LB lined up in the slot or with Nickel coverage instead, but either way it's Clark in that position. He has 18lbs on Fuller (hokiesports.com), so I can see that he's definitely a bigger CB. But he must have a good understanding of the game if he can fill that role and have Bud be completely comfortable with it, and a Sophomore too!
Does anyone know if there any notable teams in the NFL that run with this setup?
Oh and I laughed at myself for googling "bear defense" to see what French was talking about. In case you're interested:
Larry Fedora remains unimpressed
Larry Fedora is all sorts of "un".
Unimpressed.
Unaware.
Uninspiring.
And Coming soon: Unemployed.
I've been holding off opening up this "present" until I've found enough time to devote to fully digesting it. I may spend as much time going over these breakdowns as you do making them : ) Much appreciation here.
The machine gun/hole in the barb wire reference ( just deliciously perfect for a history major like me) was exactly what was going on in video #1. I didn't see mention of Ekanem's actions, so I will throw this out there: It looks like he abandoned his rush, did a 180, and also made a beeline for that vacant area just prior to the throw. He appears to be part of the deception/trap, as well.
Total set up, executed flawlessly. Thinking of the film study, the planning, to the execution, is just a work of art to be admired, in my opinion.
Thanks so much for finding it and putting it all together for us. Great stuff.
*Edit: Wow...after watching video #1 yet again, I see Dadi also abandon his rush and head for the same spot. There is some serious Bud mind power going on there. That is starting to look like we knew exactly what play was coming.