Fielding Yost had a problem. After four years of dominating college football many other teams had learned his speed-'em-up and spread-'em-out offense, and were coming up with new ways to use the attack. Single-wing football was taking over, and the old way of matching seven players on the offensive line with seven defensive linemen was starting to get run around.

The guy who solved it for him was center Adolf "Germany" Schulz. Rather than limit himself to taking on interior linemen when the ball kept going outside, Schulz stepped back, ready to launch himself back at the interior if need be:

If you're wondering where's the safety, he had to hang way back in case the offense punted.

It wouldn't be the last time defenses learned to counter offensive innovations by pulling back box defenders.

S/O to Iowa State for finishing 22nd in the country in Rushing S&P+ while employing a 4 man box as often as possible. pic.twitter.com/iwrd1BfsfN

— Seth Galina (@SethGalina) May 8, 2018

As forward passing took hold, Crisler and his contemporaries began playing with lighter guards they could move off the line as a third linebacker. When teams starting regularly splitting ends out as wide receivers, Bump had to turn one of those linebackers into a second safety. As the I-formation took hold Bo had to replace his ends with OLBs to match their speed to outside runs. As shotgun three-wides became the norm, so did fifth defensive backs like Don Brown's Viper. And if you think it stops there, you're still living in the 2010s.

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Michigan's 4-2-5 defense was good enough to match up with most of their schedule, but you don't need to be reminded of the times when it got got. You recall Saquon Barkley on McCray. You remember Devin Gil hopelessly chasing Ohio State's scatback DeMario McCall. You probably remember Florida quarterback Feleipe Franks running into acres of space. And if your lizard brain didn't go to "RECRUIT HARDER!" you've probably begun to understand what that signifies: The reign of nickels is over. The time of the dime has arrived.

[After THE JUMP: Why elite spread offenses torch us, and how we can use Woody Hayes's defense to stop it]

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Feleipe Franks Running Into Acres of Space

This is only news up here in the Big Ten. The Big XII has been living in a world of four- and five-wides for quite some time. While offenses still generally start with "11" (one back, one TE) on the field, most teams now carry at least one back who can double as a slot bug, while tight ends are getting on the field well before they hit a plausible weight for blocking, because you don't have to weight 240 to split out into the slot as a jumbo receiver.

Doing so screws with Michigan's defense. The way the base Cover 1 they run is structured, every Michigan defender should be able to cancel out the guy across from him: corners for receivers, a slot safety for slots, a Viper for tight ends, and linebackers for running backs, with a little left over up front to lend an assist. That leaves a safety to roam deep and help on in-breaking routes, and a linebacker free to cover an extra zone or blitz.

But when Florida went five-wide with their base personnel, it pulled the personnel away from the jobs they were recruited to do, and a simple QB zone run turns into a disaster:

Michigan's DTs both didn't do very well here. Kemp got himself scooped and sealed by the guard and center, allowing the center to get out and harass Kinnel into taking one side of the center with nobody left to take the other. Dwumfour got too far upfield, widening the gap for Franks to run through when it's his job to squeeze it smaller:

Since these are the projected starting tackles this year this isn't a problem that's going away. The issue here though is Florida coach Dan Mullen has removed all sorts of run defenders who would normally be in a situation to come off their guys and help. Let's check in on our nominal front six and see what they're up to:

Player	Matchup	Role	This Play	Result
Kemp (N)	C/G	Close A gaps	Close A gaps vs C/G	Bad-2
Dwumfour (T)	G	Attack B, squeeze A	Attack B, squeeze A	Bad-.5
Winovich (A)	T	Attack C, slow TE release	Atttack edge, squeeze B gap	nil
Uche (E)	T	Set edge/rush	Attack edge	nil
Ross (M)	RB	Stop RB/QB	Edge CB/RB man	nil
Hudson (V)	TE	Cover TE, set edge	Edge CB/TE man	nil

They've got Tyree Kinnel playing linebacker behind the front four. Where are the real linebackers? Waaay outside, playing man to man on the tight end and running back. That's okay if everyone does their jobs, but not the structure of the defense. The structure of the defense has Hudson in a spot where he can read run and take the edge off Winovich's plate. It has Ross in a spot where he's watching the ball and can go after it. It also has Winovich (as the Anchor here) in a place where he can affect inside runs because Hudson's around.

Modern offense is all about pulling material away from where the ball's going. We've been going over how Gattis does that all offseason. Here's us getting Gattis'd. All the help got yanked as far as possible from the play, a few guys screwed up, Metellus decided the four receivers bunched to his side were more deserving of his attention, and Florida got themselves an easy six.

How Bump Elliott & Woody Hayes Solved It

This resonates with developments back in the 1950 and '60s. At first the wide receivers were just the same tight ends and running backs who were on the field for the base running plays.

Wingbacks were 75% running backs and 25% tight ends. Tight ends were tight ends. But as they spent more time split wide they became specialty times. "Flankers" were running back-like wide receivers; and "Split Ends" were tight end-like wide receivers. For a short time, some defensive coaches (notably, Barry Switzer at Oklahoma) kept their ends on ends, but that became less sustainable as split ends turned into wide receivers and defensive ends remained, essentially, linemen.

Splitting out like that however took away other guys who'd been involved in run stops. Defensive halfbacks used to have a role more like Khaleke Hudson's. They set the edge, freeing the ends to try to bend around and cause pressure. Forced way out wide, those halfbacks could no longer help much in run D; they were in fact well on their way to becoming the modern cornerback. They also could no longer help with any tight ends or backs who released into routes. Look at that setup above and you tell me: who's covering the TE on the left? Now look at the setups below:

What needed to be done was obvious. The defensive philosophy of the 5-3 was everybody in the defensive front has a man, with one roving free to track down the running back. So the front 7's free hitter was pulled out of the box for an extra defensive back who could do all the things the halfbacks used to. They had all sorts of great names—wolfman was ours—as occurs when there's a new hybridization, but this position ultimately became the strong safety.

That took care of the passing, but necessitated a change in philosophy, since there were no more free hitters. From the time of Germany Schulz (it was his idea) defensive players generally lined up off the outside shoulder of their counterparts, using the leverage gained by that to insert himself in the outside gap and shove the inside gap closed using the body of his blocker. Both solutions in the 5-2, in trying to preserve what their coaches liked best about 5-3 philosophy, hit upon the same idea: move in the tackles.

The "Oklahoma" wanted to keep individual matchups: my guy on your guy. The three interior DL would be right on top of their counterparts and try to cover multiple gaps by owning the player. This freed up the ends to do all sorts of fun things when a TE wasn't there, like scream after the quarterback or drop into coverage. Ultimately the ends got replaced by linebackers, and the Oklahoma 5-2 became what we know as the 3-4. This became Bump Elliott's base defense (Bo used a 5-2 formation but his "angle" defense was unique).

The "Eagle" tried to win back a free hitter by focusing more on gaps, having one guy take two so the others could play their gaps aggressively. The first step was to move in the tackles.

Keep going.

Keep coming.

Stop there—on the inside shoulders of the offensive tackles. There they could control those B gaps that most running games were built to attack. The middle guard would control both A gaps by beating the center (usually the smallest and weakest of the offensive linemen), one gap would go to a linebacker, and the last linebacker was again freed to go hunting. It worked beautifully, allowing the defenders to shoot their gaps aggressively instead of worrying about where the play was going, since that was the free linebacker's job. And it allowed them to keep that hybrid linebacker/safety over a tight end.

Eagle defenses also learned they could move the middle guard off the line a bit to mess up blocking angles and give him a second to choose where to attack. 

Here we see the origins of the 4-3, which moved that middle guard back to a third linebacker and shifted the front around. As offenses adapted to run more off-tackle, Eagle teams could shift their front to the frontside: the 5-2 Double Eagle. These ultimately evolved into the 4-3 and 4-3 under, each with variations on a 1-tech, 3-tech, 5-tech, and an edge. But if you wind back the clock to the original Eagle we find a very similar front to the one Iowa State was in at the top of the post:

And in case you're wondering if Woody Hayes's Double Eagle variant is used today: it is! I was watching the Army defense—one of the first Tite adopters—a few weeks ago for HTTV and noticed they were having the nose sometimes step off a yard then shoot into the backside A-gap. When I pinged Ian Boyd about this he confirmed:

And Cody Alexander even called the Tite front the "New age Double Eagle."

Spread Teams Hate It So So Much

Alexander also focused on how the Tite messes with the base plays of spread football:

The modern Spread offense is based on two primary plays: the inside and outside zone, plus the reads and RPO’s that go along with them. Many offenses choose to add gap plays, but the Spread offense is predicated on the cutback….

In this day and age, the great defensive minds are turning disadvantages into their own advantage. If a team is zone heavy, why not plug the middle and force the cutback early, if not drastically? Most high school and college Spread offenses rely on speedy backs to run the ball outside or cut it all the way to the backside once the over pursuit has been walled. Many Spread formations force the defense into light boxes that Spread teams feast on. Again, why not make that an advantage for the defense? The 3-4 Tite Front can be a simple way to eliminate the inside zone, make zone reads harder for the QB, and force the teams that like to run a zone offense to bounce their plays outside to open defenders.

The "404" is a bit confusing as a name because in the 3-4/4-3 era we all learned to use "30" to mean three-man fronts and "40" to mean four-man fronts. The 404 here refers to where the three defensive linemen are aligning. Remember the weird numbering system for "techniques" on the defensive line:

That's what they mean here: two guys in a 4i-technique flanking a nose tackle in a 0-tech. Boyd's article on the 404 Tite front is going to be required reading as dime defense becomes the norm up here, so let's link and quote it now:

With the DEs sitting in position to handle the B-gaps, the defense then has three guys positioned between the tackles to handle the two remaining A-gaps. The nose will typically lock one down while one LB will be able to take the other while the other is freed up to key the ball or take on an insert block. What’s more, not only is the defense well positioned to defend all the gaps between the tackles but two of the five guys up front are off the line and thus “moving targets” for the offense to try and block.

The positioning of the linebackers and of the DEs makes life very difficult for offenses trying to execute spread run game favorites.

The "spread run game favorites" he's referring to are inside zone runs, including zone read, split zone, belly, etc. They've learned to look for and emphasize runs into those 'B' gaps, recruited tackles who are good at getting out into space and heavy guards who are good at pushing 300-pound DTs out of the way. One of the reasons the 404 has been successful is it swaps that paradigm (sorry if it's upside down):

All of the good rules of thumb for zone running become bad ones. Edge defenders are harder to find, let alone option. Power running teams have a hard time finding anybody free to from the backside, since you don't want to remove someone with lineman off his shoulder and the tackle is a bit too far away to help. RPOs designed to attack run/pass linebackers are no longer pass reads because that guy's not there.

And most importantly the defense can get away with another hybrid in place of a defensive lineman, so the defense doesn't have to keep specific players matched up all the time. If they want to take you wide, you've got versatile defenders all over the place who can handle that, while your run-stoppers stay home.

Drawbacks

SBNation's Seth Galina spelled out how it solves the RPO problems for backside defenders.

THe Tite front eliminates this perpetual conflict for linebackers.

In a Tite front, there are no open B gaps. The gaps that are open are the C gaps (outside the offensive tackles), but, again, defenses are fine with the ball-carrier having to run east-west before turning his shoulders and dashing to the end zone. Linebackers can be a little more passive and less committal as they wait for the ball to go downhill.

One of the most interesting parts of the Tite front has been the hybridization the edge rusher. When defensive coordinator Dave Aranda arrived at LSU for the 2016 season, he inherited Arden Key, a stellar defensive end. With his length and size, Key became a standup outside linebacker who could rush the passer or drop into coverage, based on the call.

Running off-tackle and the front-side A gap are now back on the menu. But with all kinds of speed on the edges these days, defenses will take a ballcarrier with his shoulders pointed to the sideline a win. And three yards and a could of dust in the context of what modern offenses put up doesn't sound very sexy. As they quickly learned in the 1960s, if an offense's center can create space on your nose tackle all by himself, the linebacker help can't get there until the could of dust is already dissipating.

The bigger drawback is you're giving up those pass-rushing DEs. With nickel defenses all the rage, dropback passing doesn't happen very much anymore—Rashan and Chase put a definite timer on anyone who tried. Khaleke and Glasgow would certainly be involved in pass rushing instead, but it's not the same thing.

Another drawback is those hybrids have to be in some kind of zone defense, since they're now your run/pass conflict defenders. In the context of RPOs, that's not a bad thing, since these hybrids are best at hanging back in a passing lane then shooting up to make a stop. It's what safeties do best. In the context of Michigan's defense, it's fine: they often had Khaleke or Peppers in zone anyway.

And finally, it's supposedly not very strong against Power Read/Inverted Veer—that play Ohio State really loved to run in the mid-aughts.

Don Brown's way of dealing with this was a kind of scrape exchange between the DE and Viper, where the DE would crash down and get replaced as an edge defender by the hybrid linebacker behind him. OSU's adjustment was to trap block, and that ended hilariously against Michigan when Taco Charlton deposited said trap blocker in J.T. Barrett's lap. That DE is no longer available—if a linebacker has to come up and set the edge, he's going to get wrecked against a pulling guard or tight end.

However the one time I've seen Power Read run against a Tite-like formation was it was a 3rd and 1, and ended up as a four-yard loss. It's also one of the only Tite-like plays I've seen Michigan run. I keep saying "Tite-ish" because Brown only ran it as a changeup with his base 4-2-5 personnel, taking advantage of the fact that Rash Gary can move like a linebacker and Devin Bush can move like a hybrid space player.

This play was from last year, and since it was right before The Game I don't doubt they were preparing it for Urban. I don't know if IU had an RPO read on this one but Metellus shoots up when he sees the quarterback tuck it:

If Metellus doesn't have eyes in the backfield he can't help on the edge there. Bush had the tight end beat and probably ends this himself if they're just playing their regular 4-2-5 cover 1, but we don't get to have Devin Bush Jr. anymore, and asking a guy to do Devin Bush Jr. things in the 2020s is just asking for it.

We also don't have anymore Rashan Garys. It's easier to find safeties. But picture the above with Hudson in Bush's spot, a free safety in Hudson's spot, and another hybrid where Kinnel was, and you can see the Tite. Stuff like this has been in the playbook for awhile, but usually only comes out for special occasions:

Including one time they went with basically a Double-Eagle:

It's never been more than that.

The Case for Michigan to Go Tite

The personnel available this year might be a better fit for a base 3-2-6 dime than for a 4-2-5 nickel. Some benefits we might be interested in:

• One DT on the field instead of two of Dwumfour/Kemp/Jeter
• Michigan has two experienced DEs who can play a B gap but aren't great pass rushers in Kwity and Hutchinson, versus a grad transfer from CMU and a guy who's been injured the last two years who can pass rush but might not hold up in a B gap.
• Michigan has two good vipers in Khaleke and Glasgow, and a lot of safeties who'd like to play it.
• Nothing matters this season but beating Ohio State, a modern spread that likes to use its RBs as extra receivers.

I'm not saying it has to be their base defense—the 5-2 era still saw plenty of 5-3 and 6-2 (which returned in the 1980s as the 46 Bear), just as we still have a use for 4-3 and 4-4 personnel today. In fact Michigan can probably get through most of their schedule this year in that base 4-2-5. But I would like to see them have the Tite in their back pocket to use against Notre Dame and Ohio State, including blitzes that neither rival has seen.