Previously: The Offense

Resources: My charting, PSU game notes, PSU roster, CFBstats, Last Year

I remember a game I FFFF'd one year for Michigan State against PSU, and I got furious at one point because the usual suspects were taking cheap shots at the PSU NT's knees, and finally knocked the guy out of the game. Part of that was this occurred right after Robert Windsor had a string of great pass rushes on a series of all long downs. I don't remember the exact series but it went something like false start-sack-throwaway-defensive penalty-sack-sack-give up and punt, and Windsor had gone OFF. The next series the cheap shots started, and Windsor left the game, and from there he developed a reputation as a guy who screams upfield every play, damn the consequences, and is utter hell on bad OLs. State's certainly was.

Maybe he's still that guy? I dunno. But I have a theory that defensive tackle play in this day and age is to defense what quarterback play is to offense, i.e. of outsized importance. If you want a good example of this, pull up any Clemson, Bama, or Ohio State game in the last five years. Or Mo Hurst highlights. Or for a more recent demonstration, the last quarter of Penn State, when I couldn't tell if anyone else was any good because the poor quarterback had only half a second to fling the ball out of the backfield before #54 was in his chest.

The film: Penn State at Iowa last week.

Personnel: My diagram:

PDF Version, full-size version (or click on the image)

Hope you print this one out because hooo boy are there a lot of guys to remember. A lot of them have site tags if you want to torture yourself with when Michigan tried to recruit them (or didn't).

The front seven are all returning starters or heavy rotation players replacing nominal ones. NT Robert Windsor (+27/-0) we'll discuss later, and I'm sure you're familiar with WDE Yetur Gross-Matos (+13/-3 against Alaric Jackson) by now. SDE Shaka Toney (+9/-6) is a pass rush sort who split time last year with the more stalwart Shareef Miller. Toney avoided a pretty clear targeting penalty late in the Iowa game that should had him pulled for the first half of ours—thanks John O'Neill. DT Antonio Shelton (+7/-3) is the guy I liked better than Windsor last year because he's more responsible. He's ceding a lot of snaps to the backups, mostly Fred Hansard (+3/-3), a very large top-250 type, and 2018 top-100 DT PJ Mustipher (did not chart).

The rotating cast of pass rushing backup ends starts with Toney's new platoonmate, Jayson Oweh (+3/-4), the #76 composite recruit last year, who did some work inside on Tristan Wirfs, and an equal amount of freshman errors in edge protection. Shane Simmons (+3/-0) was a fringe five-star back in 2016, and is only just now starting to pay that off. Daniel Joseph (+1/-0) was in the same class, just outside the top 250. They can also throw the linebacker depth chart on the edge. I mention them all because Gross-Matos limped off at the end of this game.

Linebacker recruiting clearly benefitted from going through the early part of 2016 without any. They still have some familiar faces. SAM Cam Brown (+4/-0 run, +2/-3 coverage) is the same weird, tall, anti-tight end specialist. WILL Micah Parsons (+6/-2 run, +3/-7 coverage) was last year's #5 overall player to the 24/7 composite, and the #2 prospect at weakside end. His athleticism is still well above that of a typical linebacker, but his coverage remains very much "this guy is an elite defensive end prospect"-ish, mostly because he tends to get mesmerized by the backfield and doesn't get enough depth. His slow reads don't matter as much in the run game because he accelerates like a running back. Between Brown and Parsons starts the same walk-on they put out there against us in '16, MLB Jan Johnson (+2/-0 run, DNC in coverage), who's fine, but now just technically the starter. Most of his minutes have gone to Ellis Brooks (+3/-0 run, +0/-1 coverage), a 4-star in 2017, and Jesse Luketa (+1/-1 run, +2/-2 coverage), a top-250 guy last year. Brown comes off the field often for a nickel safety, and Parsons doesn't leave it, but they'll find a few snaps here and there for #18 overall true freshman Brandon Smith (+0/-3 run, DNC coverage), who's not quite ready.

[After THE JUMP: And they all have stars]

Replacing Nick Scott at safety was the offseason interest story. They went with short and firey, 5'9", top-50 junior Lamont Wade (+3/-1 run, +9/-4 coverage), whom you may recall from the time he said Michigan was his dream school until they asked him to come to the camp he was attending anyway (okay.gif). Wade spent most of the offseason in the transfer portal because Penn State won an intense battle with Bama over top JuCo transfer Jaquan Brisker (+2/-2.5 run, +2/-2 coverage), a much more boring player. Ultimately Wade got the starting job, and plays nickel for half the game with Brisker replacing him at safety. The odd man out is Jonathan Sutherland, a taller (he's 5'11"), less animated version of Wade. The other safety job still belongs to top-150 redshirt senior Garrett Taylor (+3/-1 run, +3/-1 coverage), whom I've been calling decent for several years so Penn State fans can @ me their strong feelings otherwise.

Cornerback is still a strength. Iowa really went after lifelong senior CB John Reid (+1/-0 run, +9/-6 coverage), who's plenty talented (#124 in the composite in 2015) and only a little small for the job, and has been the most technically savvy corner in the Big Ten for some time. Only nominally a new starter because of Reid's injury history, CB Tariq Castro-Fields (+4/-0 run, +3/-6 coverage) is almost as beloved by PFF as his predecessor, now-Detroit Lion Amani Oruwariye. TCF is almost certainly the best run defender among conference cornerbacks (there's a guy at Minnesota but whatever), and shares Oruwariye's knack for jumping a pass from Cover 2 then dropping the interception. Five of those six negatives were from two plays: a bomb he gave up by biting on a double move then slipping, and a bad downfield PI I couldn't not neg even if the refs didn't flag it because he was beat clean and had to tackle or die. Notably he made PFF's team of the week for this performance, probably because he was avoided. I thought that was more because TCF had safety help while Reid was covering on an island every play. Their backups come in rarely. Redshirt freshman Trent Gordon (+2/-0 coverage) gots about 10% of snaps, and freshman Keaton Ellis (+0/-2 coverage) appeared late in a dime situation.

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Base Set: It's a 4-3 over philosophically, and in fact for a small plurality. They base out of 4-3 or nickel safety personnel, depending on whether the SAM (Cam Brown) is needed to match with a second tight end, or little safety Lamont Wade is required to operate opposite a slot receiver.

When they go nickel, either Brown or, quite often, an MLB comes off the field for Jaquan Brisker, who drops back to safety while Parsons takes over MLB and Brown sticks to a tight end. I keep avoiding the safety terminology because they have it backwards. For this, they blame Shoop:

[Nick] Scott: Coach Shoop jacked us all up years ago. It’s really confusing. Technically, Garrett (Taylor) is what the football world calls a strong safety, but we call it free. And I would be a free safety in the football world, but we call it strong. That’s how we’ve been doing it for four or five years now.

Penn State is very much a program that considers anything five years old immutable tradition and I applaud them for that. I added a "Comeback" line to the chart below because the last ten snaps were Penn State responding to Iowa trying to score twice in the last five minutes. I also removed goal line/QB sneak snaps where they weren't relevant.

PSU vs Iowa	Personnel					Safeties			Rushers
Down Type	4-3 Over	4-3 Under	3-3-5	Nickel		1-high	2-high		3	4	5	6+
Standard (38)	45%	18%	5%	32%		43%	57%		-	50%	37%	14%
Passing (23)	13%	13%	4%	70%		43%	57%		-	57%	35%	9%
Comeback (10)	-	-	-	100%		10%	90%		-	90%	10%	-
Total (56)	20	10	3	38		27	43		-	41	23	7

They even went pure 3-4 one down:

What Shall We Call the Hybrid Today?: Star, if we're talking about the position in their nickel package. However that's a true nickel; their base personnel versus two TEs or fullback formations is a true 4-3 with tight end-shaped linebacker Cam Brown, who's been around for years now as a specifically anti-tight end weapon I'm surprised other schools haven't copied.

Man or zone coverage: Base Cover 2/Quarters with plenty of Cover 1 with a "rat" safety patrolling between the levels. That might have been an anti-Iowa strategy because they live there.

Pressure: GERG or GREG: I rebuilt the chart. Now 100% more useful, sorted left to right by righteous GREGness to total GERGosity.

I kept last year's SMU and WMU out of because they're extremes that hide the detail between these more recent opponents. Brent Pry has indeed upped the blitz dial on standard downs, and especially on passing downs. I'm guessing that's personnel-based. They've replaced pass-rusher Kevin Givens at 3-tech with a rotation of more standard nose types, and because they're using a converted WDE instead of a converted safety as their weakside linebacker, and because the MIKE is often a 4-star youngster instead of a stay-at-home walk-on. This defense acts a lot more like Ohio State's defense last year. Before the changing.

Dangerman:

Robert Windsor was at +10/-0 going in the 4th quarter, which is a good day's work of splitting doubles and whatnots. He was a problem in the 1st quarter:

It was when he was let loose against an offense that knew it had to pass late in the 2nd quarter when he started to really mess things up.

And then Iowa got behind in the 3rd quarter:

And needed a touchdown in the 4th quarter (ignore the teleprompter's circle):

And things got completely out of hand. This is most of a quarter:

• 11-cov a little off, 54+2 broke through
• 54+3 blows this up himself in the backfield. DUDE. #6+ also chucked Jackson
• 54+2 through immediately again, Stanley can't set and overthrows fade. 38+1cov in position to break it up if it's catchable
• 18+3 through and nearly sacks in endzone on a twist.
• 54+ againn through unblocked, so is 18+2, who picks up a hold, declined
• 99+2 pushes Jackson into backfield, 54+ also destroying his guy, chucked in catchable range but WR doesn't see it and neither does 29+cov who's running his route for him. #7+2cov got over this and nearly INTs. 29 does get a little shove on the guy's shoulders but ASM embellishes and refs-3 buy it. CONSPIRACY!!!
• 54+3 againnnnn this time he causes a pick. Iowa C and Gs have no chance against this guy. 

• 54+ this is ridiculous. Don't let him pass rush. #5+2cov breaks it up
• This time they finally double 54. Ref+2 miss a pretty bad hands to the face on 99- NO YOU'RE BITTER ABOUT THE OTHER LIONS. 38+2cov comes down to hold to small gain. 38 stands up woozy and walks off the field tapping his head.
• 54+ doubled again and is about to get to the QB. Lol. 11-2cov trips and gives up an out he should be all over
• 54+3 I can't. This guy is unblockable vs Iowa. Uncalled hold of the normal variety (Refs-), 99-2 fell down and tripped Windsor else he's getting another insta-sack, and 18-2 ducked inside and gave up the edge. #2-cov is way off so it's an easy reception but this long into a play I understand.

Notably, other guys given the opportunity to go against Iowa's soft middle also wracked up highlights before I figured out the source. More impressive was the work the defensive ends were doing against Wirfs and Jackson. I don't know if Alaric Jackson is 100% back yet given Kwity Paye et al. had a good day against him too, but when you're grading +10/-2 against an NFL tackle before comeback hour, you're probably just good, and it's not like this is the first time we've heard Yetur Gross-Matos is quite good:

He seems a lot more patient this year, but he also didn't have to work that hard for pressures when Windsor was forcing the quarterback 9 yards back. Not even NFL tackles have that kind of reach.

Oweh got inside Wirfs a few times, which was scary to see a week after Uche got ejected for trying this same thing:

Micah Parsons will do five-star things sometimes (#11):

And finally I didn't get a lot of clips of the other defensive backs because Reid got targeted so often. A lot of those Reid targets resulted in pluses and catches ceded because of perfect throws or weird stuff like Iowa's first TD versus a Power 5 team this year when Smith jumped over Reid's face. A lot more of them went like this:

Reid is the Hermione Granger of the Big Ten. He looks like a muggle, but he also knows your route better than you do, and will be happy to demonstrate it for you.

OVERVIEW:

Now this takes context. You remember Iowa's interior OL wasn't that good from the caveats we put around Dwumfour's mostly triumphal return. And Windsor was +10/-0 against those guys before 15 minutes of lol. Given the opposition so far, what Penn State's defense looks like if you can stop Windsor—if he can be stopped—is still as much a mystery as which five-stars Franklin will be playing any given drive. Michigan has too much (any) pride to go the Spartan route. But Cesar Ruiz's issues have been more of zone blocking kind, I gave Ben Bredeson his star back, and Onwenu should have a shield right now according to PFF and ESPN. What I'm saying is Michigan might just be able to block Windsor. And that opens up all kinds of interesting possibilities.

Like their offense, Penn State's defense is currently sitting at tenth in S&P+. Also like their offense, their defense ain't played nobody. Idaho (FCS), Buffalo (116th in offensive S&P+), and Pitt (114th) are in sniffing range of Rutgers. Maryland (56th) and Purdue (15th) happened after both of those were struck by redefining injuries. Michigan (53rd) isn't exactly distinguished in that group, but Iowa's 65th.

Passing into their zone defense is going to be as much of a slog as it always is, but in the past you could run around Windsor or bury him because he's 285 and your guy is 350*. Michigan's offense isn't what it was last year, but it's shown in recent weeks it can maybe be salvaged into a top 25 unit by taking care of some low-hanging fruit. Hot young defenders are going to make some plays, but they're also going to make mistakes, and the design of Michigan's offense, when executed at just the level the same guys were executing it last year, gives guys like this a lot of opportunities to screw up.

The trick with them is to stay on schedule, rip off a few chunk runs, and for Bo's sakes don't get behind by several scores. Iowa's OL is probably crap and ours is probably pretty alright, but Yetur Gross-Matos and Robert Windsor are most dangerous when they can pin their ears back and pass rush. They're both almost certainly going to be doing it in the NFL. You saw what happened to Iowa when the dam broke. Don't let that happen again.