Let's Talk Ball!: College Defensive Trends with Tyler Manes

(upbeat music) One of the problems with defensive football in general is the fact that we have a lot of coach-beak and a lot of coaching terms that are not consistent throughout the football universe. So there's different ways that people call things. What one term means for me could be something completely different. So we're at one of the exciting things that we're doing this in this month of basically trends. We're gonna be talking defensive trends today with my good friend Tyler Manis. And one of the things that you consistently find is defensive football just in general is really hard to understand, which is why more people tend to go to offense that tends to be the sexier side of football just because you do get the points. But there's also a lot of gatekeeping on defense and there's a lot of just convoluted, just words and terms and things that go. So what we're gonna try to do today is do our best to make sure that everybody knows what things are. If you have a question, please ask, like I always would tell my kids in the classroom. If you have a question, I guarantee you there's somebody else in this classroom that has that exact same question. So I'm excited to get into defensive trends. People have been begging me to get into it. We've been two weeks of offense. I'm tired of it. Let's get into defense Felix. - You're tired of offense. I thought we just got started. I thought we were ready to go. We have Bobby on and Dan on the line. We'll talk some defense. That's the block guy. I guess you're the defense guy. So we can get into it. But first and foremost, when we do have some offensive news to get to Aaron Rogers finally signs with the Steelers. I guess it's not really news because we all knew it's gonna happen. At some point, it was just a matter of when Aaron Rogers stopped being stubborn or whatever the case may have been. But what kind of impact does Aaron Rogers going to the Steelers in particular, especially just because it's the AFC North and things just kind of go weird in that division every year, what kind of impact you think Aaron Rogers has specifically on that polarizing division? - They're in the same, I mean, he is going to be in the same situation as he was with the Jets. Is that you have these two other teams of bills and the dolphins when Tuha can play that are probably better prepared to be more playoff teams. You know, the thing that everybody kind of makes fun of the Steelers for is just Mike Tomlin will will the Steelers to a nine win season 10 if they get a little bit of lucky, they get some turnover luck or something where they're going to be in that NFL purgatory, which is you are going to be a barely playoff team every year and you're gonna win 10, nine games every year, you're gonna have, you're gonna pick around 20 and you're never gonna have the opportunity to get a franchise quarterback. I think that's where they're at. And I don't think Rogers looking at this division just in general, like Joe Burrow and essentially what they're trying to do with Cincinnati and then you look at the Ravens who have Ramar and are consistently trying to build that restaurant. I just don't see how this Steelers team is going to win out against those two. - Yeah, and even when the Steelers had an opportunity this year at 21 to draft a quarterback and I know Shadour Sanders however you want to feel about him but he was there, they could have taken him, they drafted Kenny Pickett with the 20th overall pick so maybe there was some lingering feelings there so it's just kind of the Steelers being the Steelers and like, like you were saying, they were probably going to 8, 9 or 9 and 8 no matter what, whether it was Mason Rudolph was gonna be their quarterback that was talk of Kurt Cousins maybe getting traded there and with Aaron Rogers are probably going to 8 and 9 because he's the, at best, he's the third best quarterback in this division and we'll see if Joe Flacco or Kenny Pickett or whomever else from the Browns might step up and have a better year than Aaron Rogers but Aaron Rogers isn't Aaron Rogers anymore. So it's kind of hard to say like, oh yeah, the Steelers with Aaron Rogers great defense, great quarterback in name only. So that is kind of interesting when you talk about that. It is the best quarterback play that Pittsburgh has had in years but - Yeah. - Low bar. - Yeah, to me, I think you're spot on. I mean, I think that they go with Rogers or Cousins you probably are sitting here saying the same thing is that we still are going to have them behind the bingles and the Ravens. I don't think it changes much. I don't think anybody's really excited about what Rogers did with the Jets just because of the team aspect part of it. Though maybe Tomlin is the guy that can kind of get in. - Don't want Antonio Brown for a decade. - Right, can get him on board. But again, like you're gonna have a situation where you're, you know, they're just not meeting in OTA's. I know that there was a shot somewhere on social media that Rogers is at least with DK Metcalf. So I mean, we'll see. We'll see. To me, this is a big, we'll see. This is probably the biggest we'll see in the off season. We've been waiting for Rogers to kind of turn into Tom Brady and he just is not Tom Brady. - Right. Going from one old man to a slightly younger, but old man in his own right. Nick Chubb, 29 year old running back, going from the Cleveland Browns to the Houston Texans. Now, this is, I'm kind of interested to see where this goes because Houston, they get rid of Bobby Slowick. You have CJ going into his third year. Can you get some of that same stuff from his rookie season? And so what do you think that Nick Chubb can add to this particular offense, especially being that they're incredibly young in some spots including quarterback? - Yeah, I think that this is really more a less a short yarded back. Somebody that can eat some carries for Mixin. We know Mixin is one of the better really pass catching running back. She's a good every down back. I think you add a guy like Chubb, what you're saying is he's had pretty much almost what? Like a year and a half, they're almost two years to heal on this. Didn't run the ball very much last year. Now you bring him in. I think this is more an indictment on Damien Pierce. Then it is of anybody else. I think if you listen to people that understand kind of what the Texans are trying to do, that this is a big kind of flashing red sign for that Damien Pierce is out. They drafted Mark Woody. I think it's going to be, if you look at the contract, it's probably a very highly incentivized contract, which means that they're really probably going to get him on a vet minimum is probably what it is and then go from there. So I think that this is you're getting a guy who, if he can maybe one of those, I know last week we kind of talked about Bosa and kind of a pitch count with the bills. This to me is very much a pitch count. If you can get some highly high quality reps in some maybe some situations where you, hey, we got to have four yards right here. Maybe this is what it works. But to me, this is, Damien Pierce is probably not going to be on that roster for very long. - Right, right. And this is kind of from a bird's eye view. I still like Houston because of the division, like just because it's the AFC South and I think Jacksonville will be better, but Anthony Richardson, he's hurt again. And whenever he plays, he's not consistent and accurate. So he is what he is. And so I still have trust in Houston and CJ throughout is still probably the best quarterback in that division and that's saying a lot because he's only in there in his third year and last year wasn't great. But it is kind of interesting just to see what Houston's trying to do because they have the culture in place. Dmitco is the guy that defences good, CJ's the quarterback, but they're still, they have some offensive line issues to figure out. They traded Laramie Tonsel. They have some things to figure out as a team. And I don't know if Nick Chubb was, will answer any of those questions just because he's a 29 year old running bag. Yeah, and you know, if you look at what they did, they rebuilt that left side of the line. They got Cam Robinson who I think is coming off of an ACL tear as well. Lake and Tom Linson coming from Seattle, which you know, it's one of those. If you've ever, you've always joke, if I wanted clinic looks, it blitzes against it and offensive line, always go watch the the Seahawks. So we'll see what that does. You know, they drafted the two, Jayden and Jaylen from Iowa State. Nico Collins is one of the best receivers in the NFL, but you really look in and well, Christian Kirk, who's kind of like the slot god, right? So we'll see, we'll see what this looks like. They, you know, Nick Calle is coming from the rim. So essentially what we got was a pivot from the Shea and Han system to the McVeigh system. We'll see if that has, any effect, but I agree with you. This is the, it doesn't really affect. I do think that with like what you mentioned, Houston with that defense, having a defensive head coach, he's trying to get the offensive coordinator, right? Hopefully, Calle can be that because Stroud is an amazing talent when he's playing really well. So to me, I think that yeah, they're by far probably the front runner. So absolutely. And now we can, we can stay here or go to your preferred side of the ball, go to Jacksonville, I guess. Jalen Ramsey still discussing a trade with Miami. And also Jeyra Alexander just got announced as a recording this morning that the Packers will be releasing him destinations. Do they have like a similar candidate list or whatever the case may be? Or is it two very different guys going into two, two very different systems? And obviously Jeyra Alexander can be a help to a contender this year. Jalen Ramsey obviously is that dude still too. Yeah, so this is going to come down to money. Because if you trade for Ramsey, you're going to have to pick up a big chunk of that contract. I think most people are reporting. It's going to be around $24 million for that contract. Now, the one thing about him is that he can be bumped inside and play some nickel. I could see him potentially doing what we saw with a lot of real like Charles Woodson later in his career ended up being more of a free safety. you're kind of a down safety in terms like a coverage safety. I, you know, to me, I think the teams that really make the most sense, I think the Rams have been getting a lot of love from this. The Rams need corners. Bad, bad, bad. I think what Wither Spoon is the one guy and not the Wither Spoon that plays in Seahawks is a really different guy. But I think that they're looking at it probably. They could do that. So they're one of those teams that's kind of like the Eagles that are willing to do some funny money stuff with contracts. They don't really care. They're doing it for the Eagles. Right. Yes, exactly. And they're willing to do some things with draft capital that I think other people are not. If it means that they can do that, that's a defense that was sneaky good last year. But the secondary really is kind of like that anchor. Like if they, you know, if I'm a Rams fan and I'm sitting here and I'm like, how can we get to maybe that fringe top 10 essentially be the chiefs with an elite offense and a good enough defense? How can we be the NFC chiefs? Like how can we get to that? This to me would be where you do it. Other ones is Cardinals and Seahawks would be the other in that division. I really think it's the West is going to it's funny because we talked about this a couple weeks ago where aFC West, aFC best now. The NFC West on the other side is probably loading up to be kind of one of those where everybody's trying to jockey for position. They're really interesting. And then obviously the Panthers are always going to be in the conversation just because they need to cope. They need as much defense as they can get and they've got the cap space. I think with Jair, it's kind of the same thing. You're looking at an older player at least Ramsey has been playing in games. Jair has not been playing in games. I think he's had less than 600 snaps in the last four years. That's not good. When he is playing, he's one of the best, but he's got to be able to play. So I think that's where people are not willing to pay him the $20 million. That's kind of the holy grail for corners. If you can get that $20 million plus contract, that means you're one of the, you're considered one of the best. People don't want to pay him $20 million because you may, you know, why would I pay you that for an eight game season? Now that he's, so what I'm seeing now is Packard's going to cut him. Ravens, Panthers, Vikings, Cardinals, Chargers are all teams that are linked to him. I think all of those are probably good and would be willing to do that without giving some draft capital. Going back to the Rams and Jalen Rams, the nice name working out for it. He played there before, so it works out. But I think what you were saying, hey, you're spot on with it. And they're kind of the NFC version of the chiefs where they drafted most of their defense in the last year or two. And it's been their chiefs are more secondary focus with Trent McDuffy and then their safety is it and Jaden Hicks that it's going to, he's going to be starting this year. And so the, the Rams they have fish and verse guys up front who are taking care of things. Whereas the chiefs, they have their playmaker up front in Chris Jones. Maybe the Rams can add their playmaker in the back with Jalen Ramsey, just to kind of flip it on its head and keep going with your analogy there. But I think it could be really interesting to see. I mean, the Rams have been doing crazy stuff like this their first first round pick was Jared verse in the last decade. So I mean, that's what the Rams do. They might go ahead and just trade for Jalen Ramsey. Send another first round pick for him because it's the Rams. Yeah. And again, you look at this roster and the front I'm fine with and two, the Rams are notorious for they don't believe in, they don't believe in lie backers. We saw that like they let Ernest, there's something weird that went on with that, but let him walk, but you have Cam Curle and Cameron Kitchens who I think they're pretty solid on at safety. Akella with their spoon would arguably be maybe their corner that Rams he would replace. Darius Williams is another 30 plus corner who's familiar with the Rams. So this is not a situation that the Rams have not shown like, hey, let's just bring somebody in that notes of defense. It's over 30. But maybe we can have a veteran secondary that feeds into our kind of younger front. And I think also getting Ramsey allows you to kind of use Quentin Lake a little bit less than you normally would want to. At slot, you can bump him into slot. I think it gives you matchup flexibility. And if this is one of those where they're like, look, we got Matthew Stafford for maybe one year. Yeah. If we want to go all in in 2025, which why would you not? And it worked for the first time. Exactly. But you go in all in. To me, Von Miller with Aaron Donald is kind of what really was like, I'll put them over the top for that Super Bowl run. And this to me is like, where do we need help? We needed in the secondary getting James and Ramsey is kind of a no brainer to me. They'd need to just make it happen. And but obviously we're not going to get it until the money's right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. That's all I got for you. I'm going to put in the outro here or the intro to Tyler. Yeah. Let's do the intro to Tyler. I think I'll keep it recording just so to make it easy and take myself off. And then or yeah, you go and do the intro. I'll like cut it here and then you do the outro at the end too. So. Yeah. I'm really excited for this next segment. This is one of my good friends. Tyler Manis is going to come on. He's from Balmannacks. He probably know him on Twitter as well. He has essentially been watching every snap of Ohio State. He's also a bigger, random guy. He is very knowledgeable about defense and he basically watches college football. And so since I've kind of pivoted more to the NFL, I enjoy kind of seeing what he's talking about and talking to him a lot. And so I'm excited to have him on. Let's dig in. This is going to be really, I mean, we call this Let's Talk Ball. That's basically what we're going to do. So get ready, get your notepad ready and let's let's talk about. There's one of my good friends in coaching. I've known him a long time and he watches probably more college football than I do now that I'm doing mostly NFL stuff. So I wanted to make sure that we get him on here. Let's have a conversation about what's going on defensively. But also to what's going on offensively because remember defensive reactionary. So what we're seeing is what we're going to then have to defend. So one of the biggest things that I've noticed and I started noticing this is especially at the high school level is that the game is going away from RPOs and more to quick games. So we're talking about play action based. So it's essentially high low reads for the quarterback instead of reading a leverage defender. Because I think defense is pretty much adjusted that higher efficiency on early downs easier for the QB. Tell me some of the ways that defenses are trying to counter this now on early downs. Yeah. So I think there's a couple things with it. I think one of the first things is a lot of defense coordinators got away from playing a ton of press and a ton of press quarter to press man. So typically if you wash an up tape, you know when a defense is going to be playing off with the corner. Typically if you get it to two receiver split, corner is going to play off. Right. So right there easy access throw. And when I say not like four or five yards, it's like six to eight catch or the pedal uneven out of that. So easy access throws. The top down scheme wise, this is kind of the trend used to be in, you know, for four or five years, everyone was going to match quarters. Obviously, you know, Cody being match quarter, she knows that. And I think that's generally what most people still think college football is a ton of match quarters. And it is to some extent, but the way the game is heading now is because offenses are flooding that second level intermediate level is your CN teams get to middle of field close coverage and flooding that second level number different ways. So I think that's one reason that we see a ton of teams starting to play more and more Tampa. We obviously saw that with the house date with their, you know, four, three, three high Tampa package with Caleb downs. But you see teams get the Tampa all the time now. Whereas, you know, probably five or six years ago, it really wasn't that common. Most teams were trying to play some some form of match quarters. So a ton of different ways to flood that second level. You can play cover three, you know, no, really was for him, depending on down and distance. On first down, he was going to play middle of the close, but it's going to be cover one, right? Because he had the cats yet, you know, essentially four NFL DBs. So he'd rather play tight coverage on first down to try and get you kind of behind the sticks. And then on second and third down, he was going to jump you with some sport, sort of spot drop in the middle of the close coverage and flooding that second level. Now talking to some college football guys, I guess the reason for that and, you know, an offensive guy would have to tell me this is right wrong. They really feel like it's because of quarterback play. And part of that has to do kind of with the transfer portal, I think most colleges are probably only going to get a quarterback in for one or two years max, you know, very rarely are you going to get a system guy that's just going to live and die in your system for four years to where, you know, you can progress to reads and things like that. So it's a really like plug and play, which, you know, makes it easier on them when it comes to access to those and things like that. So, yeah, I think every defensive coordinator has different philosophies on how to flood that second level. But that's, you know, my feeling is kind of where the game's going to go. The other thing is the RPO has kind of been figured out, especially if you're a side coach. So if you're, you know, if you're a quarter's team, you know, you're overhanging to the side of the back, you know, he's typically going to be your free player. He's going to be your whole player for past game, whether, you know, that doesn't matter what kind of RPO, whether it's slant bubble, stick, what have you. And then if it's pistol, you're going to have to kind of, you know, flop rate it. You're going to have to really quarterback size, which makes it a little more difficult, but it's still been figured out, right? Even, you know, with glances now, you're still going to see it be effective on Saturday. in front base, but it's kind of been figured out. And it's something that really you start to install as a defense on day one. It's something that you're going to talk about on day one. It is RPOs who's in the fit, who's out of the fit based on the coverage show. So most defense coordinators have a plan for that. So kind of just layering that on top of each other. Yeah, go ahead for you. And I'm kind of viewing this as a chiefs fan and seeing as there's many great defensive backs as they've had over the last couple of years and they've been really young. And we've kind of talked about offense as a whole in the NFL kind of being dumbed down, if you will, to the college level. Now it feels like college defenses are being smartened up, if you will, to NFL levels. Is that general idea kind of true? Yes and no, I would say teams are playing much less three match, Replace. So I think that portion has kind of like dumbed down. I think they're going to play like more traditional. Some people think it's like high school Harry spot job cover through your Tampa. It's really not though because there's still typically going to have a match quarters base. That's what they're going to be your day one install of some, you know, whether, you know, save and cover seven, you know, some type of match quarters are going to play stump stubby mini. They're going to play all that on day one. The same thing with the tight front base teams, you know, they might not be tight front based toward, you know, most of them are now playing over front defense, but on day one, they're tight front installed to make the fits make sense. This is same thing with coverage system, I think, where they're going to still play all of those match coverages, but then second step or the second thing that they're going to install is kind of a dummy version. Or, you know, true spot drop coverage to where they're, you know, now they're going to have eyes on the quarterback. And we'll kind of probably, you know, talk about quarterback design run game as well. All kind of layers and together and coding those that with defense and all layers together, but you want eyes on the quarterback, you know, if you're playing a bunch of tight, whether it's coverage, whether whether it's cover one or match quarters, you're playing a bunch of tight coverage. So your plan B has to be some kind of loose spot job to where you're dropping at windows and kind of changing the picture up on, you know, the quarterback. Yeah, that's been the big thing for me when I've been talking to a lot of coaches is like, look, if you are living in a match world, you are playing man coverage, like whether you're, I mean, that's kind of always been the argument with quarter right off blitz coverage, right? That's what Sabin said, right? And then you have Rip Liz and then, okay, well, it's all cover one at the end of the day. Okay, well, we play cover seven. Well, what has always given kind of the thorn inside for cover seven. Well running quarterbacks. Okay, well, that's because it ends up being two man. And I know I got a carl Scott giving me the laser eyes at the Lone Star clinic right now. I said to man, but, you know, that's kind of the idea here. And you know, you made it a really good point and Felix and I have talked about this before, especially with what just came out with Caleb Williams about, you know, no one would be watching film with him and that there's he didn't know what to look at. And I think people are shocked. Like, what do you mean? Like you were with Lincoln Riley and you were, you know, you have all this access to these great offensive minds. And you made a really good point of like, well, yeah, but there's no thing about it, even Caleb Williams. He didn't, I mean, yes, he played in the Lincoln Riley system. He's probably a little bit of anomaly. But for the most part, these guys have, these guys are getting like one or two years within a system to play. And so being a play action is usually that I've talked to more coaches in the past couple of years that have moved that are saying we're moving more to a more spot drop one. It's easier. You're talking about like you were talking about a layering defenses. If we're going to have a little bit more ways of tacking in terms of blitz packages or we're going to have different players. I need a, I need a guy that can just spot drop to a point. If we're going to spend a lot of guys are going to more odd front, right? Three, four, this way, you know, that mixing of we're in odd front, but we run even spacing and then we're in even front, but we get into. Okay, well, if you're going to do all that, you know, it's the whole deal with like, I think peace of like, well, I don't want to teach my defensive end. What three up means I'm going to put them as I'm going to put them in the flat. I'm going to put them in the hook. He's going to read vision and he's going to sit there and he's, pees is like the simulated master, right? So I think you know, you brought it up and that's good. That's that's an easy segue into the next question I had, you know, we are seeing more middle of the field close spot drop. So people moving away from Ripley's as a, as a cover to start it. A couple of years ago, SMU is a great example of that Simmons there is doing a lot of good things there, pendulum swinging back away from match heavy, which I just mentioned. So there's a need for blackboard coverages, meaning that things don't change in the function, especially to one of the aspects of this is emotion and shift. So what are some of the ways like we talk about how Tampa and spot drop cover three kind of married together and why that's a trend. Yeah, so one thing perfect point that you brought up was the motions and the shifts when it comes from, you know, the diversity and match coverage and spot drop coverage where if you're just playing spot drop coverage, especially if you just line up into it. Now there are different teams that do philosophies on their, you know, pre snap, pre snap rules, whether they're going to show too high every time and then roll down or maybe like no, he's a guy. He just blinds up into it. And like 85% of the time he's going to show you whatever he's you're just going to get what you get right now. Yeah, some wrinkles based off of that. But, you know, most of times it's going to show you whatever it is. Now if you do that, it's really easy. If you know someone I'm studying right now is cool, Nikki Penn State, he does a great job. 85% of the time they're going to either shift from ocean 85% of time. So if you have a bunch of match, match based rules to where, you know, it's too about one we're going to get the stubby and then it goes back to two by two and then you're going to play, you know, four mix and mod and you know you're going to have a bunch of different checks. Well, that's really difficult when, you know, the slot is doing this constantly and guys are rotating different ways. So, you know, that's one thing to where if you just line up into it, you can just kind of pull a string. You can word about leverage a little bit, but you're not so much worried about responsibilities and checks and things like that. So that's one thing. The other thing is when it comes to, you know, I think we're seeing more teams get the 12 personnel again that pendulum swing is swinging that other way to where we had a ton of 10 personnel and four open pictures now, probably we're getting now 12 personal pictures as well. So you're less worried about matching four verticals tour, you know, that's what that was the big thing with rib lives, obviously in three matches trying to match four verticals constantly now you're not getting that you're getting more quick game, you're getting more 12 personnel right, you're getting. You know, more routes, second levels tour, you know, now you're not too worried about matching vertical threats and an easier like that. The other thing is, you know, we do still see a lot of play action on our POs toward the, you know, the ball is going to be in the right of the stomach. So just kind of making it easier on them on, you know, in the fit out of the fit and, you know, who's who's where, you know, you can kind of plug and play pieces again. And again, I think again, we're going to come back to the transfer portal when it comes to DBs is like they're kind of in the same boat as quarterbacks. Yes, you know, you're not going to have guys even Caleb downs like he's going to be at two places. Imagine trying to go from the Sabin system one year and then go and learn no system. Like a lot of DBs are probably going through that toward, you know, they might go from a match quarter base system to then, you know, so defensive coordinators are learning pretty fast that their wrinkles have to be somewhat simple on, you know, 19, 20 year old kids if they want to be proficient that, you know, that year. Yeah, I am Andy Colman, that yeah, I've been a big fan of his for the last couple of years. He was at Kansas and I'm living witch toss or I've got to cover the resurgence of what they did at Kansas. Now he's at Penn State. So what are you seeing with what he's doing that that is and he got to do a lot more with the run game at Kansas than what he's doing with Drew Aller and Penn State. So what is he, what are you plan to see moving forward with him? Because it seems like everybody's obsessed with his office and maybe trying to stop it. Yeah, I mean, I offense a coordinator, especially like, you know, you hear high school offense grind all the time. They're big thing is like, how can I install the least amount of plays with the most amount of, you know, priest now variation, right? And that is cold and Nikki to a tee. All right, he's the type of guy. He's going to give you 10 different personal packages. He's going to give you two quarterback looks. He's going to give you 13 personal 23 personal 32 personal and it's all going to be so that he can run wide zone encounter. Right. Literally that's it. Now he's going to run counter a bunch of different ways. He's going to just line up and traditional why off and run to each counter. He's going to same side it. He's going to stick an extra tackle in the game and he's going to put him a slot. He's going to motion that dude over and he's going to crack the man on a scrimmage. Right. So that's another way they're going to run counter. My favorite way that he runs counter and, you know, some of his wide zone variations, whether it's split zone or stretch lead is out of two back. I think his split back stuff out of a lot of the whole personal is really, really good because, you know, every defense now is so used to just seeing a traditional why off look and then you get an indicator fits. You can play city key coverage with a safety is our looking at the why they're all going to kind of pull string and fit off the why. Well, now you get to back now it gets a little hair. You're right like who's getting the ball who's blocking where. Where's the ball going to hit. So it just kind of muddies the picture a little bit and colonic is the king of doing that. So he's going to give you a bunch of different pictures like I said 85% he's going to either double motion. He's got every he's got tempo. He's got sugar hot. He's got double shifts. He's got shift in motions. He's got every type of motion in the book and it's like I said it's just a run wide zone encounter like power read a little bit speed option a little bit with you. But that is like to me that's that's the most proficient way to play offense. It makes it so difficult on almost every other team like what it'll have stayed to. Well, no, no, it's pretty much was like we're still going to play cover one and I'm just going to have Caleb down chase whoever it is all the way across the field and I'm the only team in the nation. I can do that. (laughs) Those guys aren't going to do that. And that's not like, that's not me saying like, nozzles dumb. He's smart for realizing that. - He doesn't have to. - He doesn't have to out coach his defense. 'Cause if he tried, there's like his first years, if he tried to do a bunch of different things, they wouldn't have won that national championship. Like if he tried to run a bunch of matchcovers and checks and things like that against Penn State, this is not possible, right? So if you have the cats, that's probably the best way to do it is, hey, you've got that guy, you're playing one on one basketball. If he blocks down, okay, you're just going to fit off and if he runs a drag, you're going to fall, but if he runs a vertical, they'll fall. Right, that kind of, again, we go back to simplifying a little bit. And that's for the number one team in the nation. They simplified it a bit and won a national championship up a bit. So. - Yeah, and I think that you hit it, like I think that that's where it's much easier to teach formations to kids and motions to kids and then just kind of design it every week than it is just in terms of like saying, hey, we're going to have a bunch of these different runs. We're going to have a bunch of these different passing concepts. If I can dress it up, basically be a flavor of the weak team in terms of what the formation is going to be, but you know what we're going to get. And then we can have tags off of that to get to you different looks. I think one of the other things too, when you're seeing this, the spot drop to me has been a really big thing for man zone indicators. We know now, offenses are moving guys all the time to get that man or as its own indicator. So if I can go ahead and say, look, we're going to travel the nickel this week. And so now he's going, but as long as I know where I'm slotted, it helps me understand what where my run fit is, but also to where I'm supposed to be in the coverage. I know now like people are going to more of these like lever spill lever, but these like they call them fire zone fit. So a two three two fit to where it's like, hey, you match two and you fit outside of three. You match three and you fit inside of him. And then you're you match outside of two. And so then we always have like wherever two is, wherever three is we always have a guy inside. We always have a guy outside depending on flow. And a great point to you that you made too is like, we're seeing less and less for for verticals. I know I've been seeing all these offensive guys start talking about like, oh, wow, look, this guy got in 30 personnel ran for verticals. And so you're only seeing it a couple of times and it's usually not traditional. And so that brings us another great segue into the next thing is basically the dying of the traditional why off. I mean, when I started in 2010 kind of getting into this 2011 at Baylor, everything was for open. So you started every play diagram was for open. And you like you mentioned, you went over for verticals on the very first day of camp. We're going over trips. We're going over quads. We're going over for open. Now everything a 10 years later, everything is why off phase. Now we're starting to move like to me, this is more under center, more pistol NFL trickles down. I mean, you've already mentioned it of wide zone. We're getting away from indicator fits. You mentioned indicator fits. So for those that don't know, we're not playing gaps anymore. We're not playing primary gap that as soon as that tide in moves, everybody's going to move over a gap or it's going to sling me to a spot in where I'm going to work. Everything's slowed down. You hear what's also called ball fit, meaning that I'm really just kind of leveraging the running back, which again, kind of feeds into that 2, 3, 2 fit. So talk to me about kind of the evolution that you're seeing defensively. We're seeing more 12 personnel. The big 12 started doing this about five years ago with getting into 12 personnel and running spread. So getting back to more bare fits, I know that that's something that you've talked about before is like build a bare vertical run through. It's talking to me about some of the ways that now teams are really starting to counter these, basically 12 personnel, 21 personnel looks that we're getting. Yeah, so I think one thing is the biggest thing from defensive defenses, what is going to be, I'd say most teams, whether you're 3, 4, or 4, or 2, 5, what are you going to do with the field overhang? Who is he? What's that guy? Is he a big nickel? Is he a big safety? Is he a true slot corner? Is he a true Sam inside linebacker? That's going to be your day one question. OK, well, whatever that your day one is, whether it's a big nickel. All right, when you get that 12 personnel, you get 21 personnel. Is that now the third best inside linebacker? Is that did you recruit a Sam? Well, I'm a record just to play that position, 20% of the game if you see that. So that's one big question is who is that guy? What can he do? What's his ability? Is he going to, like if you're playing cold on the game, if you get 21 or 12 personnel, you're still going to get 4 open pictures, right? So can that guy cover? Right, especially when that's Tyler Warren. Can that guy cover Tyler Warren? If not, you might have to stay in the cold. Well, that sucks because now you're getting counter and wide zone stretch leave ran right at you and you weigh 190 pounds. So that sucks, too. So there's a really big personal question to that. The next thing is I think you're seeing, and it kind of comes back to the middle of closed coverage. Typically you see indicator fits in middle of closed coverage. I think now you're kind of seeing the star see a blend of fit and coverage. I think defensive coordinators are now, they're not so locked into this. I have to play Liverpool, Liverpool, and the middle of closed. I have to play Spill Overlapped by Filing Quarters. I think what they do now is they're just going to try and live in whatever they're kind of like day one installers. Like whatever they're comfortable with as far as their fit, if it's a little bit outside of the box and it's not perfect, that's what they want to do. So if they're a vertical base team, they might want to stay in Liverpool, Liverpool, Liverpool, they're going to stay in one gap fits, no matter what the kind of coverage she'll is. You kind of see that play out on film. Whereas same thing if they're a quarter base team, Tony was huge on this was they were going to play seven and Spill Overlapped regardless of the coverage. So they kind of want to, like you see a lot of teams playing stat track full back, even if even if the front is vertical and the coverage just, even if it's cover through a cover they're still going to try and play like stat track full back a little bit with their linebackers. And I think that again comes back to some positivity. But when it comes back to total personal, right, you have a couple of different options. Right and one is if you're a four down team, are you going to play six, are you going to play six, are you going to play seven, the second thing is okay. Well then obviously almost everything is going to have a way to walk that Sam in a sideline back or down or nickel down and what are you going to do with that? Why favor thing, the funniest thing in the world, if you go back to a lot of how state, like again, I think this is what I know is the genius, they play cover one. So they would just walk like the nickel, whether it's Hancock or Downs, they would walk him down and he'd be like the seven technique, but he's got the guy that's on the ball, man. Like that's hilarious to me because I need to have two guys kind of standing right on top of each other, which is like you would never draw that up on a whiteboard. Like that looks super, there's three guys standing on top of each other, but it kind of plays out again, comes back to simplicity, it kind of plays out perfectly if the guys know what they're looking at. So a bunch of different options when it comes to the total personal, I think one thing you're seeing is now teams again, starting to get more vertical based up front instead of trying to really see these apps. Well, how state was doing on this? You know, when they, like when they, this is not total personal, but this kind of an example, when they got into their three safety looks, obviously one of the most difficult parts about playing three safety defenses, the front mechanics. You know, you have a million different options of front mechanics when it comes to light box fits. Cody talks about that all the time. There's a million different options and they range from really simple to really really complicated, you know, what did, what did those do? Again, comes back to the genius. Well, he just pinched everyone. Not like we're reading guys, not like if though you get a face, you're gonna reach inside the big app. Not like you're gonna play a four technique and if you get a pass at your container player and if you get a down, you're gonna try and reach inside the big app. No, we're gonna line up and over or bench front and we're all gonna pinch in the big apps and big apps. Okay, like dumb, high-screwed, like we're all just gonna run that way and we're just gonna force the ball to spill. So I love stuff like that because it's so smartly. You never think that I don't how state they're doing it because high school guys make fun of other high school guys for doing that stuff. Right. And it's like, no, like this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna live and die by it and I'll do it 30 times a game and I do not care if anyone knows it's gonna happen. We're gonna do it. Right, and I have some wrinkles off of that obviously to make things fit, right? But again, it comes back to circles back to the 12 personal stuff of simplifying the fit. They're gonna be vertical, right? They're not necessarily trying to cross face to squeeze gaps or, you know, fit it with the less personnel. They're gonna get guys to run through. They're gonna try and recruit Twitchy defensive lineman, you know, knows obviously at three guys drafted up front. And was able to do that and create chaos. So again, walking guys up, bare fits allow you to get into one-game fits, which allow you to be vertical and then kind of causes a constant disruption. Yeah, and we've talked a lot about Kodel Mickey and Nulls. These are two coordinators over the last couple years that have come from the big 12 and moved to the big 10. And is that something that we're gonna kind of see? And I'm obsessed with coaching trees and knowing where guys come from because we've seen more gurus and those type of coaches in the big 12. And those guys are going to the big 10 now because of maybe the talents, like kind of spreading out because of the transfer portal, whatever else, is that what is kind of happening in the big 10 in the SEC where they're kind of going and grabbing these coordinators from the big 12 like a Nulls or Kodel Mickey and then bringing some of those same schemes to with better players, potentially in the SEC and big 10. - Yeah, I think one really, and this is just me as an ass, I'm in a hot state fan, I'm a buckeye. I think one really interesting point to that is like, how does that head coach deal with that though? Right, 'cause like one of the biggest kickers as a hot state fan, so we talked about the past three years, was like, we never felt like Nulls was allowed to run as defense. Right, we all know Jason, like, day was a big, like cover three like Seattle defense. Like he wanted, one of like over front cover three. Like that's what he wanted. He wanted to be simple, he wanted him to play fast. And that was like something a hot state fan who were always like going back and forth on, was like, is this Nulls, is it the D-line coach? Is it day kind of sticking his fingers into it? And it's the same thing with, you know, everyone knows that James Franklin is, you know, pretty intense, right? He's gonna have his fingers and kind of everything, you know, I've, you know, I've, you know, I've met him multiple times and he's open about that. I'm going to be involved. And I'm the head coach. I'm going to be involved with everything. Is if you're going to hire these coordinators, are you going to let them run their system? If you compare that null system on Oklahoma State, compared to this, the House State one, it is-- There's a thing. Come back forth. But it's not the same defense. It's not the same defense. And it's kind of the-- Courtney Key obviously had-- he was a lot of doer-y-wants. But even his offense was pretty different from what he ran at Kansas. So that's one thing about hiring these really high-profile defensive coordinators or offense coordinators. Like is the head coach going to allow them to run their system? Right? You can hire those guys, but if you don't run their system, whatever they're going to run, your version of their system will have to not work out. And I think that's what you saw a day do a good job of a little bit this year. And I think Cody's coach, so he knows this. The head coach is kind of like let go just a little bit enough to let the coordinators coordinate. That's typically when they tend to win. But it takes a lot for head coach to do that. It takes a lot for head coach to do that. So I think that's even like-- look at Clemson when they were on the run. It was when Fennables was whatever he wanted. Because that was a type of guy that allows his coordinators to do what they want. And that's typically when teams win. So I think your course, I think with all the money being made in the big 10 SEC, that's where coordinators are. And then you're going to gravitate to get to the towel parents and the money is there. As far as success, it's going to be, I think, based off of how much the head coach lets them do what they want to do. Thanks for joining us today. If you enjoyed this episode and want to help support the podcast, please subscribe and leave a rating and review. If you had any questions about any of this, make sure to email me, hit me up on matchquarters.com, or DM me, or even just tag me in. Tag me in something with your question. Again, like I said, if you have a question about any of this stuff, just ask because I know there's somebody else that doesn't know the answer either. And if I don't know it, I know somebody that probably does and I'll make sure to get it up to you. So again, stay up to date with matchquarters and let's talk about podcasts. Subscribe at matchquarters.com. 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