Previously: Connecticut Offense

So we have to talk about UConn's defense? Has anyone ever written this much about UConn Football in the past 10 years? I don't care enough to look it up, but I have done the due diligence anyway in researching a team that few people know about. Today we will talk about a defense with no defensive coordinator, a projected star vanishing from the roster, and a group of corners that, uh, *gulp*. 

The Film: Still going with the Utah State tape for the reasons mentioned in the last piece. I will integrate a little footage from the condensed highlights of Syracuse/UConn because I think the 'Cuse are much more analogous in terms of talent level and scheme to Michigan, but most of the analysis here will draw from the USU game. Which is slightly frustrating because I was internally screaming constantly while charting that game at the schematic ineptitude of the Aggie offense, but I will take what I can get. 

Personnel: Chart. (Click for big). PDF

UConn, like Michigan, claims to be a 3-4 but is definitely not that. Seth and I settled on describing the UConn defense as a 3-3-5, but it's either that or a 4-2-5 and the distinction hinges on how they choose to use the SAM/EDGE position in a given matchup. 

There are always three down linemen, with the starters being nose Dal'mont Gourdine in between two defensive tackles, Collin McCarthy (today's dangerman) and Eric Watts, the latter of which some refer to as an EDGE. The defensive line sees some rotation, with the backups Sokoya McDuffie, Jelani Stafford, and Price Yates rotating in, as well as Carter Hooper. I felt that there was a pretty clear drop off from the first team DL and the second team DL when watching the Utah State game. 

That SAM/EDGE spot is a rotation of two ex-P5 players who are now on their third programs, Brandon Bouyer-Randle (MSU and Texas Tech) and Marquez Bembry (Kentucky and Tennessee). That position alternates between being a true LB role, dropping into coverage and playing from the second level, and being a stand-up edge rusher role that looks more like what Michigan asks its edge guys to do. It is very rare to see Bembry and BBR on the field at the same time, with those two sharing that job. 

The true linebackers are pretty constant, with veterans Jackson Mitchell and Ian Swenson holding that level down. Mitchell has played every snap this season, while Swenson has missed just five. Therefore, there are no reserves worth talking about at this positional group. PFF is a pretty big fan of Mitchell's- I had enough concerns to keep the star off of him. We will investigate that during the piece. 

The corners are a major problem. The team typically uses five DBs, three of which being corners in outside guys Kaleb Anthony and Tre Wortham, as well as nickel Chris Shearin. This group struggles to do anything resembling coverage, be it in man assignments or in zone, and they represent the weak spot of the defense. Myles Bell rotated in a little bit in the game I saw, and he was no better. Safeties Durante Jones and Malik Dixon-Williams are fine, with the latter making a few nice tackles against the Aggies. On some occasions, a corner will rotate back to play the safety role. 

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Base Set: Two looks to mention here, the 4-2-5 and the 3-3-5 alignment. Here's the 4-2-5: 

Three down linemen, the stand-up EDGE (lined up above the LT), two true LBs, one safety rolled down and another deeper, and three corners. The alignment of the corners bounces around some. This is an obvious rushing situation, so they're playing closer to the line. More frequently they are stapled 5-10 yards downfield. We will get into that more later. 

Here's the 3-3-5 look: 

What UConn did against Utah State that's rather interesting in the 3-3-5 is they took one of the LBs and lined him up closer to the slot. Here the third LB is the player standing on the left hash, inside the slot receiver. Sometimes it looks like a proper 3-3-5 stack, but I wanted to show that alignment because it is a notable permutation of the personnel package. 

Man or zone coverage: UConn alternated between Cover 3 and Cover 1 in the game I saw, more to the latter against Utah State, but they were using plenty of Cover 3 (and some Cover 2) in the highlights I was able to obtain against Syracuse. As a whole I would put UConn more in the zone camp, but there was plenty of man going on too.

What is universal about how their secondary operates is that they play with massive amounts of cushion for their DBs. If the corners are in man, they'll give them 10 yards of cushion, completely ceding everything underneath. If they're playing a zone, it's one of the softest zones you've ever seen, DBs late to pick up receivers who enter their territory, and cushy holes all over the place. There are strong 2021 Michigan State (except with not an ounce of P5 talent) here in the secondary. 

Pressure: UConn rushed more than four on 22.6% of plays and rushed less than four on 15.5% of plays that I charted. That number of plays with <4 was rather interesting, a number quite a bit higher than Hawaii and reflective of a tendency UConn had to rush three and drop eight into coverage... if only it were effective. On the other side of things, that blitz number is pretty un-blitzy as a whole. UConn didn't push much for pressure, and it was probably a good idea because the blitzes they run are not terribly effective anyway. 

Dangerman: This week's dangerman is DT Collin McCarthy. I felt that he had an excellent game against Utah State, a big part of why UConn was able to keep Utah State's rushing game under control for a large portion of the contest. He made his presence known on the third play from scrimmage by hammering his assignment into the backfield, getting off the block, and bringing the RB down for no gain: 

DT #91 lined up third from the bottom of the line

McCarthy showed a swell ability in this game to shed blockers and target the ball. Here's another nice run stuff: 

DT #91 as the last lineman to the bottom with a hand in the dirt

Even when he wasn't shedding a block, McCarthy was capable of driving his assignment right back into the backfield: 

DT #91 lined up at the top of the DL

Pass rush as a whole was a major struggle for the Huskies across the entire defense, but one of the few times a DL turned the corner came from McCarthy, even if it didn't really affect the play: 

DT #91 rushing around the left tackle

Each of the first two Michigan opponents did not possess a major disruptive force up the middle. I am not sure if McCarthy will be that against Michigan-caliber teams, but he is a player I'm interested in watching against a Michigan OL that has had a few moments where they've spaced out on a snap in the first two weeks. 

 

Overview

Is this Hawaii? 

No. UConn's defense is better than that.

So no utter depravity having watched these games? 

I am in a better place this week, yes. 

You're all good then?

Well, actually, Utah State's offense hurt me more than UConn's defense. 

Wait, really? 

They just kept running into boxes stacked against them and showing their hand like they were Josh Gattis against Army. If this were a UFR they'd be gunning for an RPS minus record. 

But what about UConn's defense?

Oh, right, they're bad. Not catastrophically bad, but bad. Let off the hook by the incomprehensible decision-making of the Utah State offensive coaching staff, but when we saw them against Syracuse two weeks later, all the flaws apparent in this game were on display. 

And those flaws are?

The corners. 

Uh huh. 

Garrett Shrader might be pretty good. He was very good against a real team (Louisville) in Week One and then put up this line, which earned him the PFF national offensive player of the week award. Watching the highlights, Shrader made some big boy throws that the Utah State QB definitely wasn't hitting (or seeing), but also a lot of the throws were painfully wide open: 

The problem in pass defense for UConn is the corners are not good enough to play man without giving them a giant cushion that gives away chunk gains underneath at will, but also they are not familiar with how to run an effective zone at all right now (this might be related to not having a defensive coordinator anymore). Oh, and they can't get any pass rush either to speed the play up. Utah State's QB, Logan Bonner, did a lot of things that made me very frustrated (throwing the ball away on plays where receivers were open), yet still finished with a line of 20/29 for 281 yards on 9.7 YPA for 3 TD and no turnovers. 

He didn't get that line by dropping dimes for the most part (there were a few nice throws), but by taking what the defense was giving him. So many throws were easy money: 

Come on, man: 

One more: 

You can march right down the field so long as you're content to throw 8 yard out routes every play, or have a QB who is capable of finding whichever guy is left wide open in the zone. 

We got to see why they play this way in the Utah State game, during one of the times where the corners were forced to play man with no cushion: 

That's Kaleb Anthony shoving his guy out of bounds at the first side of trouble and then falling several strides behind. I thought Anthony was their worst corner, though Tre Wortham is not great either. Here's Wortham getting beaten for a deep ball TD against Syrause: 

That is a nice throw from Shrader, but if we're comparing this to Michigan, really not hard to see how they could reprise that with JJ McCarthy as Shrader and Roman Wilson or Cornelius Johnson as the receiver. 

The other problem with the pass defense's inability to cover anyone is they get no help at all from their defensive line. There is not a single dangerous pass rusher on the DL. They had one sack against Utah State and it came when the Aggies declined to block multiple players on the defensive front. Otherwise PFF had them down for *one* QB hurry. Their blitzes did very little: 

This is a five-man rush that Utah State picks up with no problem and gives the QB enough time to hit the receiver on a route against reserve corner Myles Bell. As stated in the pressure section, they didn't blitz all that much, and it's not like they were in a good situation. If they sent an extra guy, he wasn't getting home. If they left that guy in coverage, he wasn't helping the zone because no one knows what they're doing. 

The pass rush did appear to do better against Syracuse, but watching the highlights, Shrader also seemed to have some degree of Shea Patterson Brain, running into trouble and bugging out of pockets that were not terribly threatening. Maybe UConn has figured something out in terms of blitzes, but will they be enough to bother JJ McCarthy before JJ can find a wide open guy? I am highly skeptical. The personnel is not threatening right now.

On a semi-related note to why the pass-rush is struggling, if you read HTTV or (The Enemy, Ranked), you may recall the authors at this site being very high on an edge rusher named Kevon Jones. Just days after I wrote the The Enemy: DL piece, Jones vanished from the UConn roster. Because little independent media covers UConn Football, we could not find any articles anywhere about what happened to Jones. Seth emailed the UConn SID to ask what happened to Jones and we were told he was "no longer with the program". That seemed to be confirmed by a piece from UConn's SBNation site's preview for the Utah State game, which was written the day after Seth contacted the program. That piece said that Jones left "the team for personal reasons". In short, UConn's struggles rushing the passer are likely tied to the fact they lost their best pass rusher under mysterious circumstances before the season began. 

Back to the regular FFFF programming, the run defense hasn't been horrible! I wouldn't say it's good, but they did alright against both Utah State and Syracuse. USU continued to slam into loaded boxes while doing nothing to eliminate tacklers from the play in a way that was extremely frustrating to watch. That was a gift for UConn, but I did think their DTs hung in there alright. If you see the second team DL, though, that could be an issue: 

That clip encapsulates some of the concerns I had about LBs Jackson Mitchell and Ian Swenson. Their ability to find where the hole was, Swenson in particular, left something to be desired. If Michigan's OL is able to shove the interior around a little bit better than Utah State did, those runs could turn into longer gains: 

PFF is a big fan of Mitchell, and I saw some things that I liked from Mitchell. Here he saves a running play from turning into a major "uh oh" moment: 

The problems I had were his tendency to get swallowed on blocks and more crucially, missed tackles in key moments: 

He has the guy wrapped up with a chance to get off the field, but the RB gets loose just enough to lunge for the first down. Those sorts of plays were too frequent for my taste and kept him from getting a star on the ole diagram. Don't get it wrong though, he's a fine player. Swenson is a diminished version of Mitchell, but LBs are far from the problem with this defense. 

The only position I haven't talked about is safety. These guys weren't tested much in coverage, where the damage was concentrated with the corners, but Durante Jones was partially on the hook for the long touchdown run: 

Safety #19 lined up on the "E" of "Merlin" 

A lot of problems here, including Brandon Bouyer-Randle (EDGE #0) crashing inside and allowing the bounce outside without resistance, but it's Jones ovrer-running this and exposing the cutback lane that turns it from a solid gain into a house call. This sort of play is what I was alluding to when I was talking about run defense. For the most part, UConn does okay against the run. But I presume there will be some busts here and there that could turn deadly from what I saw in the back seven. 

However, I think S Malik Dixon-Williams did his job tackling later in the game. He had a few really nice sticks, one of which is here: 

Safety #1

The last thing I wanted to bring up was turnovers. UConn has forced three turnovers on the season, two fumbles and an interception. Both fumbles happened in this game, with the lone interception coming against Central Connecticut State. The reason I'm bringing this up is because the second fumble had one of the more comical fumble recovery sequences of all time and the readers deserve to see this: 

This clip being in color is the only way we know it's not a scene from a Buster Keaton movie. 

 

What does this mean for Michigan?

UConn is not a good defensive team. Against their two P5 opponents, they ceded 542 yards and 470 yards. The run defense is okay, but has some struggles in preventing worrying bursts, and will likely be unable to hang in there for too long against Michigan's big boys up front. But the big Achilles heel is the pass defense. I will be very surprised if JJ McCarthy is not able to ruthlessly exploit this secondary and its pillow-soft coverage, be it zone or man. Opposing P5 QBs are 41/55 (75%) for 10.8 Y/A and 6 TD against 0 INT. JJ McCarthy is likely a better QB (probably significantly better) than either of the P5 QBs referenced in that stat. I would not be surprised if JJ's only incompletions are drops again. 

More than likely this is going to be a game where Michigan very quickly pours in a few TDs in the passing game, then turns more to ground and pound later. Given the profile of the UConn offense I painted the other day, this is a game that should be extremely lopsided early, and one that McCarthy will not appear in after halftime. UConn is not a dumpster fire of despair like Hawaii is, with a mess of a roster cobbled together in the offseason and minimal coaching. Instead it's a team of very bad players who don't make many doofus mistakes but are not capable of hanging in there against real FBS competition. Is that better? I think so. Probably won't change the score or bottom line, though.