Building a Defensive Gameplan for Ohio State: The Spartan Blueprint

Bud Foster faces a daunting task against the Ohio State Buckeyes. While Ohio State has the reputation as a big play offense, Foster has to approach the game in a similar manner as developing a game plan for Georgia Tech. Everything in Ohio State's offensive approach is predicated on a handful of bread and butter running plays. Those core plays, if properly executed, can break for big gains at any time, but they are designed to be steady gainers and set up positive down and distance. Then, when the defense overcommits, Ohio State uses far superior athletes in space to punish the defense with big plays. Foster's approach will aggressively work to take away those core plays and put Ohio State in less than favorable down and distance situations where their less than stellar drop back passing game is heavily dependent on Braxton Miller keeping plays alive with his feet until his receivers can break open.

The Hokies don't have a tremendous amount of experience against an offense that uses so many of the single wing/rule blocking principles that Ohio State utilizes on most of their core offensive plays. Clemson runs a similar offense; however they utilize more multiple tight end sets and misdirection. Foster has more experience setting up a scheme to cope with an inside zone play, a staple of UNC and several other spread offenses that the Hokies played last season. UCLA's Brett Hundley wasn't as efficient executing read options, but he was a terrific athlete on par with Braxton Miller as a runner and a more accurate thrower. To put together a game plan, Foster will likely incorporate learning and successful strategies from all these experiences, plus closely examine how Big Ten teams had success against the Buckeyes.

The Spartan Defensive Blueprint

After Meyer's first season of implementing his single-wing spread offensive system, Eleven Warriors compiled a breakdown of some of the key defensive strategies that Big Ten opponents used successfully against the Buckeyes. After reading this breakdown, I went back to the Michigan State film to see which strategies were most effective as the Spartans stuck Meyer with his first Big Ten loss. The Michigan State film is even more critical because the Spartans use the same defensive front alignment as Tech—a four-man "over" defensive front with a three-technique to the strong side, with two inside linebackers shifted away from the strength, and a wide outside linebacker who shifts around based on a variety of keys based on alignment. Foster uses a slightly different approach against base plays, but against the option I would expect Foster to make some adjustments.

First and foremost, teams that had success against Ohio State made a commitment to take away big running yardage between the tackles via formation and a variety of run blitzes. On almost every snap, the Spartans had both defensive tackles and both inside linebackers occupying interior gaps. Often, they incorporated a variety of slants and linebacker twist stunts designed to confuse the defense, but those linebackers were sticking their heads in and challenging blockers on every snap. On read options, Michigan State committed to taking away the dive. On power, the tailback again was the focus. On the inverted veer, they defended the tailback sweeping with one contain defender and sold out on the inside. No matter what, the Spartans were going to limit what the Buckeyes got between the tackles. This lead to some big plays on the edge and in the play-action passing game, but by putting the Buckeyes in poor down and distance situations, the Spartan defense put itself in prime position for success against the Buckeye's suspect drop back passing game. According to cfbstats.com, Ohio State had a season low of 20 first downs against Sparty (25.8 average).

That commitment started with defensive alignment. As I documented last week, Michigan State, who normally shifted their three-technique to the strong side, went away from their tendency and shifted their three-technique to the tailback alignment regardless of the offensive strength of the formation.

On power plays and the inside zone read, jamming up the center-guard gap (1-gap) opposite of the tailback's alignment forces the back to bend his run slightly outside or cutback. The Buckeyes want their backs to get downhill into the natural bubble of the defensive front (much like Georgia Tech). Forcing a cutback or a bounce to the outside slows down the back's forward momentum.

Second, on every single run-down snap, the Spartans committed their inside linebackers to taking away inside running lanes. Rarely did you see those linebackers scraping wide. Either they were coming straight ahead and plugging the hole, or they stunted in coordination with the interior defensive line. Much like Bud Foster's system, every gap was accounted for by a defender, with the defensive ends playing a contain role and the alley players (safeties and the whip linebacker) acting as free hitters in case the back or quarterback broke through the umbrella. Here is a great example. On this play, the Buckeye's run the power from the shotgun alignment with three wide receivers and a tight end.

You will note that Michigan State stunts on the play. The one-technique stunts outside the down block of the guard, forcing the motioning H-Back to turn him out. This leaves linebacker No. 28 Denicos Allen flying into the gap left vacated by the tackle and fitting on the pulling guard. Allen was only 5-11, 218 but he sticks the guard right in the hole. On the backside, the three-technique tackle stunts through the center-guard gap, with the other inside linebacker, No. 40 Max Bullough crashing through the right guard-tackle gap. This means there are four defenders at the point of attack, a fifth (the defensive end) preventing the back from bouncing outside to the left, and on the back side the whip and defensive end are unblocked and squeezing down the cutback lane to finish off the tackle. Hyde has nowhere to go.

It is a risky approach. Much like the Hokies approach, if one player loses a fit at the point of attack, the tailback is into the secondary with only four defenders (all of whom are in some kind of man coverage scenario and have to focus on play-action first) to support. Allen and Bullough were talented and experienced players, both of whom were four year letter winners and both receiving All-American consideration. Chase Williams and Deon Clarke are smaller linebackers with limited experience. Their speed can create confusion, but they will have to be strong at the point of attack against the Ohio State guards and centers in order for Coach Foster's gap fit approach to work. It must, because taking a scrape exchange approach leaves Williams and Clarke moving laterally against Miller's speed (and the possibility of a pulling guard) and poses an even greater risk.

Cover-Four / Quarters Coverage

This defensive approach requires seven players into the box. That leaves four defenders to cover 3 to 4 receivers with no deep help. Instead of playing man coverage all over the field, the Spartans used a Cover-Four / Quarters Coverage approach. Hokie fans should be familiar with the concept, as Bud Foster has become increasingly reliant on quarters coverage as spread offenses become more prevalent.

In a quarters coverage, the defensive secondary aligns like they are playing man coverage. The secondary is essentially split vertically into 4 quarters. In each zone, the assigned defender's goal is to not let a receiver behind him. When the Hokies play quarters coverage, the corners will either line up seven yards off the ball, even with the safeties, or they will line up in press, but backpedal immediately at the snap, or after the quarterback finishes his pre-snap reads. Initially the defender plays zone coverage, unless his cushion is threatened. The cushion is the space between a defender and receiver. The defender wants to turn and run without being burnt deep. While in coverage the defender is looking into the backfield, reading the quarterback's eyes. Once the cushion is threatened, the defensive back will turn and run with the receiver, just like in man coverage.

Quarters coverage frees up the front-seven to stop the run, but it is high risk. Ohio State loves to send their big tight end and fast slot receiver's on seam routes against opposing safeties. The Buckeye commitment to establishing the inside zone read and the power play causes safeties to start creeping up, and then those vertical routes slip behind the defense.

Michigan State's secondary did a spectacular job of identifying the run before coming forward in support. Let's take a look at the above power play again, but from a different angle where we can see the secondary.

The Spartan corners both align in press coverage. The field safety takes the right slot. The boundary safety stays deep. All three stay deep until they identify run, then come up in delayed support. If the front-seven doesn't seal everything up, those safeties have to start coming up in run support. The Spartan safeties made several spectacular plays stopping those deep seam routes off play-action.

Here is a great example. Miller fakes an inside zone with a wham block and looks for his slot receiver on a seam route. The boundary safety takes one false step towards the line of scrimmage and the receiver blows by him. The safety makes a spectacular play to close the gap to the receiver and force an incompletion.

Many teams don't have the safeties capable of playing this kind of coverage the entire game. The Hokies though have two starting safeties that have corner experience, coupled with a nickel back in Chuck Clark that Torrian Gray feels is a solid coverage player. All four starting defensive backs have extensive experience running quarters coverage and have cornerback backgrounds, so if Foster chooses to run a whip against Ohio State for the extra run support, his secondary is positioned to have success using this strategy.

The 30 Front on Passing Downs

The Spartans made a commitment to get Ohio State into bad down and distance situations, and then they used a variety of blitz packages to confuse the veteran Ohio State line. The Spartans had their most success using a 3-3 defensive front alignment. The Spartans would use three down defensive linemen, with three linebackers and blitz from a dizzying array of pressures.

Ohio State's veteran offensive line was completely baffled by the different pressures that the Spartans utilized during the game. By my estimate, on ten offensive snaps with the defense playing the 30 front, the Spartans forced 2 sacks, pressured Miller 3 times, forced a motion penalty, and only gave up one completion. Not surprisingly, Bud Foster was running a 30 defensive front in some of the spring scrimmages with Corey Marshall playing as a stand-up defensive end, as I documented back in the spring. Given the success that the Spartans had, it is worth a second look.

The Buckeyes present a huge challenge. Using these principles, Michigan State (second ranked defense according to F/+) still gave up 273 yards rushing and 24 points. The Buckeyes present a huge challenge for Bud Foster's defense. Foster could use a similar approach, but in the last matchup versus the Clemson Tigers, Bud had some different tricks up his sleeve. Next week I will go back and review that Clemson film and speculate how Foster's 46 defense may factor into the battle at the Horseshoe.