don brown 3-3-5 maven

Michigan added a couple of defensive assistants last week to replace rising stars Chris Partridge and Anthony Campanile. Both losses grate for different reasons—Partridge was due to move up but chose easily the least respectable program in the Power 5, Campanile took a lateral move into the NFL after Michigan fought off other suitors, possibly botching their own chances to retain him in the process. On the recruiting front, neither is replaceable, especially Partridge, who was the first assistant at Michigan since Cam Cameron to have sustained success recruiting the Deep South.

Some of that ground will be made up for with Brian Jean-Mary, a scion of Apopka who's been recruiting the Confederacy since the first time I swiped my M-Card at the Union—for example I noted while doing his hello post that 9 of Louisville's top 10 recruits in 2013 were Floridians. I suspect, however, that there was another goal in mind with Harbaugh's recent hires. I can't say Harbaugh hired Bob Shoop and Brian Jean-Mary because those were the two most experienced former defensive coordinators on the market in the kind of defense Michigan was running a lot last year. But if the goal was to find guys who know more about zone blitzing than anybody not in a job, Shoop and Jean-Mary were #1 and #2. And given the types of players they've been recruiting, and the types of weaknesses on the depth chart, I think it's fair bet that Harbaugh and Don Brown are at least a little zone blitz curious.

As are we.

The Path of Shoop/The Don Brown Connection

Though best known as James Franklin's DC at Vanderbilt and Penn State, most of Shoop's coaching career has been either as a secondary coach or defensive coordinator in the same New England coaching circle as Don Brown. The 53-year-old Northeasterner played for Yale in the late 1980s, was the head coach of Columbia for three years, and spent a year coaching defensive backs under Don Brown at UMass in 2006.

From there Shoop moved on to the defensive coordinator job at William & Mary, where he won the FCS version of the Broyles Award, whence Franklin hired him as the new Vanderbilt DC and safeties coach. In 2016 Bob surprisingly left Penn State to join Butch Jones at Tennessee, which means yes, Shoop had Brady Hoke as his defensive line coach and was then Hoke's defensive coordinator for half a season after Jones was fired. Shoop was also key in recruiting Joe Moorhead to join Penn State's staff in 2016; Bob was most recently Moorhead's defensive coordinator at Mississippi State. I posted the path in full on the message board this week.

Shoop left Penn State after two seasons, and not on good terms—the university sued him for for just under $1 million for breach of contract for departing for Tennessee in January 2016. Shoop was countersuing under the claim that Franklin had already all but fired him at that point (their linebackers coach and current PSU DC Brent Pry had already been elevated to "co-coordinator"). The countersuit also claims Shoop was subjected to a "hostile, negative work environment" at Penn State. The suits were ultimately settled in February 2018.

Shoop was also the guy who got Gattis on James Franklin's staff. Bob's younger brother John met Gattis when the latter was finishing his pro career with the Bears, shortly before the former took the offensive coordinator job at North Carolina. John Shoop gave Gattis his introduction to coaching offense at UNC, then lobbied his brother to snag the up-and-coming assistant when Franklin had an opening for receivers coach at Vanderbilt.

[After THE JUMP: Examining the defenses Shoop and Jean-Mary came from]

While this game didn't lack for some fascinating things to talk (or grumble) about on both sides of the ball, I wanted to give the defense—and particularly coordinator Don Brown—their due for the rush package last Saturday. By the final drive, Iowa was flat-out not blocking fifth rushers, they were so discombobulated by what Michigan was doing. Joel Klatt explains:

How did we get here? Why was it working so well against Iowa in particular? I think I have to start with what each team wants to do.

Don's Defense

The basic precept of the 4-2-5 Cover 1 defense that Don Brown brought from Boston College is you want to be able to play man outside and cover extra gaps with your linemen in order to free up the linebackers for havoc.

As the name suggests, there are two of these LBs to spare, taking into account that together they have to cover (or get to) the running back. Often one linebacker is sent on a blitz. The other is used to guess where the ball is going in reaction to the pressure, to provide extra coverage there. If one is sent on a blitz that's one pass read that's going to be open, but Brown’s philosophy is if you can cover the first two reads by playing tight off the snap and dropping an LB into the 2nd read, there won't be time for a third.

Ferentz's Offense vs Cover 1

Iowa prefers safe underneath passing to their surehanded receivers, either underneath soft coverage or to their slot receiver running through the linebacker level looking for holes. They keep this open by threatening the seam with their tight end, and using their deep threat receiver to keep the safety occupied.

In practice it's a lot of crossing routes and dink & dunk, with the defense's overreaction to this opening up big plays to the tight end or deep receiver. It works well with Mesh (just run the #1 receiver across the slot) as a one-two combo. Mesh is to passing what inside zone is to running: it works against everything and it's run by everyone. It's how you play off mesh that determines your identity, and this underneath passing game is Iowa's.

This year the tight end hasn't been much of a threat so they're having him mostly just block the SAM (or Viper in our case) out of the play. Is it OPI? Yeah, probably, but this is the Big Ten.

[After the jump, let them fight]

[Bryan Fuller]

SPONSOR NOTE: Reminder that Matt is hanging out at the Charity Tailgate at 327 East Hoover (if you were at the preseason MGoEvents this year and last it's the same place). It's right next to the train tracks on Hoover. The band goes right by it on their way to the stadium, which is cool. Say hi.

When not tailgating Matt is also a person who will get you a mortgage right quick from the comfort of your own home.

FORMATION NOTES: A couple of tweaks: Michigan pulled a linebacker to go with a true 4-1 dime setup on various passing downs. Paired with that was a shift in personnel on those snaps. Michigan's 4-man line on passing downs was Winovich-Dwumfour-Paye-Gary, with Uche replacing Gary after he went out.

Uche standing to bottom, Paye tucked inside

They did this a bit last week. Since this seems to be a Thing now I've designated it as "Rush" in the package column, with "Rush N(ickel)" indicating two linebackers behind it and "Rush D(ime)" indicating one.

Northwestern was almost all a standard 3-wide spread setup.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES: Winovich omnipresent. Gary got about two-thirds of the snaps, exiting late. Paye picked up most of that slack; since he also got in on those rush snaps he was out there maybe half the time. Dwumfour got more DT snaps than anyone else, which was up and down; Kemp, Mone, and Marshall split the rest. For whatever reason Aidan Hutchinson barely got in. I think he had one snap?

At LB, Bush omnipresent. Glasgow and Hudson omnipresent in their respective halves. Ross again got more snaps than Gil but it was closer than last week—and probably closer than it should be at this point. Furbush and Uche got maybe a dozen snaps each, functioning more as pass-rush DEs than linebackers.

Secondary was the usual, with injuries knocking the starting safeties out here and there. Brad Hawkins got a fair amount of time. I think Woods might have got a snap or two.

[After the JUMP: a lot and then not much]