Last year's run defense was very bad! We allowed 5.9 yards per carry, almost the worst in the FBS. Then we lost our best defensive lineman.
It's entirely possible that, in terms of raw talent, we're going to be /worse/ than we were last year at stopping the run. So the question that will define... prrreeeeetty much our entire season, right?... is: what will we do defensively to stanch the bleeding?
I would guess some combination of the following, but would welcome input from the many, many guys on the board who are smarter than I am:
1) lots of 1-high-safety looks. If you load up the box, they're just not gonna run... hopefully.
2) Run WAY more slants and stunts than we typically see. Most defenses are judicious about using these tactics because when things go wrong, they go VERY wrong and you give up a ton of yards. But our run D will routinely give up tons of yards no matter how conservative the play-calling is. So rolling the dice is less costly.
3) Be a weird little chaos gremlin. Do unconventional stuff. So what if it fails? You're gonna suck anyway. Have fun with it.
In concrete terms, that means stuff like:
* Run fronts that take advantage of your otherwise bleak personnel situation (off the top of my head: you know how we have a bunch of undersized DL? Have a package where we send in two of the 260-lb'ers and just park one on each shoulder of the center, threatening to shoot /both/ A gaps -- most teams do this in passing situations using LB'ers, but y'know what? Just try it whenever! See what happens. Run stunts and blitzes off it too -- go wild!).
* Shift the whole DL a few times per game -- do it enough and at some point an OL will flub his assignment and you'll get a free TFL out of it. Great! Over the course of the year, you'll pick up several false starts, too.
* Show blitz almost /all/ the damn time. Why not?
Lots of these ideas are probably dumb. That's WHY I wanna hear from smarter guys about what they would do. But it /is/ an interesting question, so let's talk some football!
It's entirely possible that, in terms of raw talent, we're going to be /worse/ than we were last year at stopping the run. So the question that will define... prrreeeeetty much our entire season, right?... is: what will we do defensively to stanch the bleeding?
I would guess some combination of the following, but would welcome input from the many, many guys on the board who are smarter than I am:
1) lots of 1-high-safety looks. If you load up the box, they're just not gonna run... hopefully.
2) Run WAY more slants and stunts than we typically see. Most defenses are judicious about using these tactics because when things go wrong, they go VERY wrong and you give up a ton of yards. But our run D will routinely give up tons of yards no matter how conservative the play-calling is. So rolling the dice is less costly.
3) Be a weird little chaos gremlin. Do unconventional stuff. So what if it fails? You're gonna suck anyway. Have fun with it.
In concrete terms, that means stuff like:
* Run fronts that take advantage of your otherwise bleak personnel situation (off the top of my head: you know how we have a bunch of undersized DL? Have a package where we send in two of the 260-lb'ers and just park one on each shoulder of the center, threatening to shoot /both/ A gaps -- most teams do this in passing situations using LB'ers, but y'know what? Just try it whenever! See what happens. Run stunts and blitzes off it too -- go wild!).
* Shift the whole DL a few times per game -- do it enough and at some point an OL will flub his assignment and you'll get a free TFL out of it. Great! Over the course of the year, you'll pick up several false starts, too.
* Show blitz almost /all/ the damn time. Why not?
Lots of these ideas are probably dumb. That's WHY I wanna hear from smarter guys about what they would do. But it /is/ an interesting question, so let's talk some football!
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