Previously: Offense, Last Year. Resources: My charting, RU game notes, RU roster, CFBstats

Rutgers has a system defense, so if you read this you'll learn what a Stunt 4-3 is. Then on Saturday you'll be able to point at the nose tackle lining up at a weird angle, and explain why he does that, and then say something smart about NFL history. It won't make you popular, but if you're really into knowing things for the sake of knowing things, you were never going to be popular.

The film: Indiana, whose offense is actually a decent comp for ours, sorta. Next year maybe.

Personnel: My diagram:

PDF Version, full-size version (or click on the image). Bell got his star, Milton did not, two OL cyaned.

Even more than the offense, Rutgers built their defense out of other peoples' players. You'll most lament starting 3-tech #99 Michael Dwumfour (+24/-8.5), whose Nelsonesque zeal for barging into the enemy's backfield works well for their system. #11 Drew Singleton (+2/-0, +0/-4 coverage) is the rotational backup LB after . We also got to see second-string DE #71 Aaron Lewis on the field quite a bit. He looks long and strong, and likely to justify Don Brown's recruitment of him for years after Brown's SDE scouting is no longer a Michigan asset. They're a bit more circumspect about their Buckeye contingent. DT-ish DE #55 Malik Barrow (+2/5/-1.5) stopped at UCF to cover his tracks. Cornerback #21 Tre Avery changed his name from Kareem Felder when he transferred in 2017. Starting boundary (free) safety #7 Brendon White (+2/-3, +0/-4 cov) stays off-screen unless absolutely necessary.

[After THE JUMP: Players Rutgers actually recruited]

The guy Lewis is backing up , DE #97 Mike Tverdov (+13/-8.5), still (he got a cyan last year) gets blown out sometimes, but he's 20 pounds heavier than last year and held up well against most TE/T doubles by Indiana. Between him and Dwumfour is NT #50 Julius Turner (+14/-11), listed at 6'0"/265, who is the reason they play a Stunt 4-3. They give him a rest on passing downs (when the line goes Onyechi-Dwumfour-Barrow) because their backup, #98 Robin Jutwreten (+1/-4), also listed at 265, tends to get run over in the role. Like late-2015 Michigan, if you can lock some backups on the field with tempo they're gashable. I'll let you know if the not-Michigan team that uses this advice sends a thank you card.

Their hybrid DE/OLB, who functionally plays a role similar to our anchor, is previous pass rush specialist #26 CJ Onyechi (+9/-5.5), though the smaller #23 Elorm Lumor (+2/-2), who started last year, gets at least a third of those snaps. #58 Mohamed Toure (+0/-2.5) will grow into the role eventually, but for now he just comes in for passing downs.

Onyechi's not the only linebacker who moved up the depth chart. Singleton was passed last season by MLB #8 Tyshon Fogg (+6/-6.5, –8 coverage), whom I'll discuss in the overview. The other ILB is the guy you got chills from last year whenever Carl Grapentine got his mouth around this sound arrangement: WLB #3 Olakunle Fatukasi. You'll hear it plenty. Singleton then lost his offseason battle with hybrid #17 Deion Jennings (+3/-4, +1/-0 cov); both took part in reducing former starter at SLB #9 Tyreek Maddox-Williams (+2/-1) to an edge rushing platoon role.

The starting secondary's pretty good—it was Ash's specialty after all—but they can't get off the field. Redshirt sophomore field (strong) safety #0 Christian Izien (+1/-1, +2/-6 cov) scrapped his way to an even platoon with a 5th year senior last year—he's had a rough season so far. Aforementioned Tre Avery (+1/-0, +6/-2cov) has the speed you'd expect of a former Ohio State recruit, while boundary CB #2 Avery Young (+1/-0, +2/-1 cov) has taken a big step forward in his third season. On nickel downs Young moves into the slot while CB #16 Malachi Melton (-1 cov), the WR's true freshman brother, comes in outside. Melton is scrawny and can get lost at times, but he's an upgrade over tiny CB #29 Lawrence Stevens, whose presence on the field means it's time to go deep.

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Base Set:

It's time to talk about the Stunt 43, which front is most associated with the Steel Curtain (that's the 1970s Pittsburgh Steelers for you young 'uns). Rutgers uses it to deal with their lack of large defensive linemen. It's a neat trick, and if Gattis has any success attacking it I'm probably writing about it in more detail next week.

For now there are two identifiers you want to look for:

1. A nose tackle who's lined up at an angle of 45-70 degrees.

Lined up between Dwumfour and Aaron Lewis (#71)

At the snap that nose tackle is going to try to earhole the center and just create the biggest possible mess in the middle. Grab, bite, take out knees—whatever you have to do. If you're 260 pounds and playing nose tackle in the Big Ten and this is what you have to do.

2. A linebacker-ish defensive end (or a true linebacker) who stands up at the snap then stunts INSIDE the offensive tackle—or if he reads a pass play, stunts all the way to the backside and finds an open path to the quarterback. Watch #23 on the far right of the line:

ALSO WARNING LEAVE IT MUTED

To this they have the 3-tech (Dwumfour) and the 5-tech burst upfield as fast as possible, adding to the mess and forcing the ball the hell out of the middle as soon as possible. Now, normally you don't want to do this stuff because you're asking for your DEs to be doubled to oblivion by the OT and TE. That's fine in Stunt 43 world because they have the ILBs jumping outside those blocks. All you get for removing a defensive end is a linebacker popping up on the same edge, and nobody for him. Watch IU deposit #97 downfield with a TE/OT double-team, and what good it does them:

#8 the middle LB

Conceptually what they're doing is the opposite of MSU's strategy: Rutgers wants to gum up the interior gaps so bad that you'll try to kick outside, where they have their linebackers waiting. As a bonus, once they have a linebacker stunting, if he reads "high hat" (quarterback standing up), he doesn't have to take the first lane—he can take the most dangerous lane:

#26 on the left not the guy circled

It's an underdog strategy, for sure, so if you get it blocked correctly they're going to break for big chunks, not to mention playing with fire all day in the passing game because you're asking too much of your safeties. They can set this front to either side to get the same effect, usually based on how the offense aligns.

2020 Rutgers vs IU	D Shift					Safeties			Rushers
Situation	Under	Over	Exotic	Eagle		1-high	2-high		3	4	5	6+
Normal Downs (45)	69%	31%	-	-		-	100%		-	68%	24%	9%
Passing Downs (21)	29%	29%	29%	14%		20%	80%		11%	33%	33%	22%
Total (66)	33	18	6	3		4	51		2	29	14	7

Exotics were two snaps each with 404 Tite, Bear, and Okie fronts; the point there is they will use a lot of them on passing downs to free up those stunt blitzers. This team is designed to be a bear for teams that can't ID their blocking assignments. Indiana struggled at first but got the hang of it. If Michigan's still without their two best pass protectors this could be a real issue.

Also the FS1 director who's never seen a football game before was zoomed into the box all game so if I got a view of the safeties before the snap it was when they were lining up.

What Shall We Call the Hybrid Today? The hybrid space player is equivalent to the Star in MSU's defense; they call him the Field Linebacker, which…is not what I'd call that. The DE/OLB who lines up outside and stunts a lot is called the Jack.

Man or zone coverage: Quarters still, because that's what Chris Ash was doing here. It's also what Luke Fickell and Chris Ash were doing at Ohio State before Greg Schiano took over and converted them to a Cover 1. Schiano ran a mix of Cover 2 and Cover 1 at Rutgers before Ash took over, and is transitioning back. I charted the coverage, leaving it blank if I couldn't be mostly certain, and that sample came out 72% Quarters, 18% Cover 1 (you can tell when a safety hammers down and the CBs have inside leverage and aren't watching the QB), and a few Cover 2 traps or CB blitzes.

Pressure: GERG or DR BLITZ: They bring it on passing downs. On standard downs they're usually a four-man attack but they punish you for guessing at their 43 stunt formula by bringing the HSP on blitzes and slanting the line away from him, or slam the MIKE into an inside gap and flip to a Cover 1 with the strongside safety hammering down behind him. They also turned it up when Indiana went to 2TE sets late, which rose the average here a bit. The blitz level feels mostly like MSU.

Dangerman:

I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry yes it's Michael Dwumfour.

But let me explain! Michael Dwumfour is still very much Michael Dwumfour (see: –8.5). He will get too far upfield, leave his lane, and drive any coach who cares about being gap-sound insane. In THIS defense however his job is simply to burst upfield like Mo Hurst, and let everyone else figure out how to clean up after. The first step that he was recruited for is still unreal (this was called a hold, and ended the drive):

Yes, considering Michigan's other DT isn't much larger than the 265-pound nose tackles Rutgers is using, and their middle linebackers are supposed to be pretty quick, and their defensive ends were really good last year, you can be mad at Don Brown for not solving his problem the George Perles way. When we're getting gashed and Rutgers is stopping multiple QB sneaks and forcing field goals in the shadow of the goalposts you can shake your fist at whatever caused Michael Dwumfour to do this for someone else.

Or you could say you don't know any more than I do about what went down there, and chalk it up to one more thing that was out of our control.

The other DT makes his plays too but he's 265 and when asked to do anything but dive at the knees of a guard two gaps over he's a guy giving up 40 pounds to the man trying to move him, and physics happens.

I also put a star on Olakunle Fatukasi, who gets called out on broadcasts all the time for filling when it looks like the frontside has just turned the edge into goo. He has the much harder job between the two ILBs, and doesn't have the major coverage issues that his counterpart does.

OVERVIEW:

The passing game is going to come down to whether the quarterback has enough time to burn them deep, plus some RPOs on the safeties that could punish their Quarters behaviors. I gave cyan rings to Vastardis and Zinter. If Michigan starts picking up these stunts I'm happy to remove them:

Stopping these guys isn't a talent issue but an identification one, which takes a lot of practice and organization. One can hope.

There should be guys open, because their system asks a lot of those middle linebackers; the whole thing is predicated on their ability to make their nominal edge guys right when they blast inside. Extra onus on linebackers means they're not always going to be there to defend intermediate routes:

Middle linebacker Tyshon Fogg came out with a –8 coverage grade in this game. That's been an issue with him historically, but the same thing happened to the other linebackers (Singleton was –4, Fatukas was +1/–3) because they're being asked to do too much in the running game to cover intermediate routes. Run a play-action route behind them and they probably aren't getting there. Make them think there's a tight end crossing behind them and they'll panic and abandon the flats.

Rutgers will do the normal Quarters thing about this, having their safeties hammer down on the intermediate routes. It's that sort of behavior that opens up the bomb. Don't miss.

As for the moribund running game, the typical way to attack the Stunt 43 is to figure out how to deal with the 3-tech/5-tech who's bursting upfield. If you can get him kicked out somehow, they're giving you a sweet lane:

That might just be a matter of outnumbering them at the point of attack. Illinois Denarded them to death, locking the second-team DL on the field with tempo and messing with their fits by having the running back leave the backfield or block a linebacker.

Teams that are good at zone stretch will zone block it:

This too was Ohio State's answer. They widened their splits so the nose tackle couldn't affect anyone but the center, then let Dwumfour fling himself useless into the backfield and went hunting for little edge protectors.

You can also extend the front—Wisconsin style. You're probably sick of Stunt 43 facts now but the reason they have to rush more guys when you put more dudes in the box is they still have to jam up those interior gaps, so if there are more interior gaps that just means more jamming, and now you're having people who haven't practiced the same thing a thousand times make those slips out to the edges. You don't have to be Wisconsin to pull it off; just have a guy they're not expecting to handle the kickout. In this case it's a wide receiver:

Basically no matter what it is you do well you should be able to tailor it to beat the Rutgers system. Just figure out what that is, rep it, and run it.