Fee Fi Foe Film: Northwestern Defense
Previously: Northwestern Offense
Matthew Harris forms half of arguably the best corner duo in the B1G. [Fuller]
Let's get this out of the way: Minnesota's offense is bad, they should feel bad, and trying to scout an opposing defense based on their performance against the Gophers is difficult because of that. I stopped charting when Minnesota benched Mitch Leidner for a true freshman. I hope you understand.
Personnel: Seth's diagram [click to embiggen]:
This is a defense with standouts on every level; it was tempting to give both of their safeties stars as well, but I didn't see enough of them in coverage, and that wasn't their fault.
Base Set? 4-3 under, though Northwestern will shift to an over depending on the offense's alignment. When Minnesota went three-wide (which was rare), nickel Keith Watkins replaced SAM Drew Smith. Former four-star recruit Ifeadi Odenigbo comes in as a pass-rush specialist for the most part.
[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the breakdown.]
Man or zone coverage? Northwestern ran a lot of Cover 3 on passing downs in this game, allowing Leidner to throw dumpoffs into the flat and making sure nothing was open over the top. They were also comfortable letting their corners play man, though they usually played off instead of pressing.
Pressure: GERG or Greg? The Wildcats mostly played straight-up until obvious passing downs, when they'd often bring a couple extra rushers. They'll bring a defensive back off the edge or go with a double A-gap blitz from their nickel set.
Dangerman: MIKE Anthony Walker flew under the radar heading into the season, but it's hard not to notice him now that he's amassed 44 tackles and 8.5 TFLs through five games for one of the most surprisingly strong defenses in the country. While he's a tiny bit undersized at 6'1, 235, he's got great athleticism for an inside linebacker, and his ability to read and react only makes it easier for him to shut down plays in a hurry:
Walker is at his best going sideline to sideline but he can also shed blocks and make plays between the tackles; he's also a solid cover linebacker.
Both of Northwestern's cornerbacks, Nick VanHoose and Matthew Harris, also deserve mention here. Both have good size and are tough to beat in coverage; Minnesota didn't test VanHoose at all and when they went at Harris, it burned them:
That throw is a bad idea but Harris makes a great break on the ball; that's not unusual for him—he plays the ball very well in the air. VanHoose is less of a playmaker but is in the receiver's hip pocket so much that he doesn't get thrown at much.
OVERVIEW
While Minnesota's offensive ineptitude certainly played a factor, this defense is legit, if a little light on playmakers in the front seven outside of Walker and defensive end Dean Lowry.
Starting up front, Lowry has taken the Ryan Van Bergen track; always solid, he's now reached the point where he's stronger than most linemen he faces, and when he's not making the tackle himself he's usually in the right spot to drive the play towards free hitters. The rest of the D-line didn't really stand out, good or bad; they held the point of attack well against Minnesota but most of the actual plays were made by linebackers or Northwestern's aggressive safeties.
Walker is easily the team's best linebacker. WILL Jaylen Prater had a very quiet game; he had a hard time getting off blocks and looked to be victimized on a couple throws to the flat when he was in zone coverage. (BTN replay angles made deciphering coverages somewhat difficult.) SAM Drew Smith might be the weak spot in this defense. He missed multiple tackles and got out of position a couple times, especially when asked to play in space—he went on the wrong side of a block when shaded over the slot on a bubble screen that would've resulted in a big play if not for a great tackle from safety Godwin Igwebuike.
Igwebuike and Traevon Henry both had great games in run support, helped by the fact they could play 8-10 yards off the ball since Minnesota was no threat to throw the ball downfield. Both are solid wrap-up tacklers and they take good angles to the ball. As for their ability in coverage, I can only go by the numbers, which show they've been great at preventing big plays.
Michigan's offense will have their hands full. They should be able to get movement in the running game, and I think they can attack the edge Smith is playing on. Minnesota also had success throwing to the flat and could've had a couple big gains on receiver screens if they'd blocked better on the perimeter. That hopefully will be enough for Michigan to exploit—and based on the matchup on the other side of the ball, it should be—as the pass defense might be tough for this team to crack unless Rudock plays much better than he has so far this season.
October 8th, 2015 at 5:51 PM ^
I thought Duke or Stanford would have been a good FFFF for Northwestern. No access to those games?
October 8th, 2015 at 6:04 PM ^
Also wanted a look at Thorson's most recent game since he's improved over the course of the season, but it definitely took away from what I could get out of looking at the defense.
October 9th, 2015 at 12:59 AM ^
October 9th, 2015 at 1:02 PM ^
I found a condensed 1-hour version of Stanford at NU:
October 8th, 2015 at 5:58 PM ^
Is it a #N00M game or 3-30? I'm hoping for the latter. . .
October 8th, 2015 at 6:01 PM ^
3:30. BTN.
October 8th, 2015 at 6:28 PM ^
It might not matter; for some reason all the clocks in my house are flashing 00:00
October 8th, 2015 at 6:07 PM ^
not only does Minnesota telegraph the play, but the fullback runs right past him. Yikes.
October 9th, 2015 at 9:00 AM ^
He really needed to poorly block that safety in the knees.
October 8th, 2015 at 6:10 PM ^
I wonder at the people who say Stanford=Michigan because Harbaugh. Harbaugh is the better part of 5yrs removed from there. Is it fair to still compare the two?
October 8th, 2015 at 6:30 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
October 9th, 2015 at 10:02 AM ^
They said Harbaugh influences. I think that acknowledges that they are not the same and there may be divergence between Harbaugh and the Stanford offense over the past five seasons. That being said, David Shaw was Harbaugh's OC for four seasons at Stanford. They also lived in the same area for another four seasons, and one would assume still exchanged ideas at least now and then. Throw in that Stanford continued to use similar concepts after Harbaugh left, and I think it's reasonable to suspect that Stanford and Harbaugh's offenses are as similar as possible after a five year separation.
Are the offenses identical? No. Are they at least reasonably similar? Probably.
October 9th, 2015 at 10:16 AM ^
They don't employ a fullback much, typically go with a lot of receiver-heavy shotgun formations, and their two main running backs (Christian McCaffrey is their starter) are 200lb not-quite-scatback types.
October 8th, 2015 at 6:12 PM ^
October 8th, 2015 at 8:14 PM ^
October 8th, 2015 at 8:33 PM ^
Would you happen to recall which podcast? Looks like they have a few!
October 9th, 2015 at 5:25 AM ^
October 9th, 2015 at 9:43 AM ^
I want to say it was this one because they were reviewing the BYU game, but I can't 100% say for sure: http://www.solidverbal.com/2015/09/27/college-football-week-4-review-9272015/
Apparently, a lot of Michigan fans took offense to them saying that Harbaugh coaching in college is unfair, which...why? It's a compliment. We have a top 5 NFL caliber coach. It's great.
October 9th, 2015 at 12:49 PM ^
Because they likened Harbaugh coaching at michigan to a college professor teaching 7th grade.
October 8th, 2015 at 6:18 PM ^
is Rudock vs Thorson. Who makes enough plays to give his team the win? You'd like to think a 5th year senior has that edge over a RS freshman, but Rudock hasn't been solid enough yet to give us any confidence that that will be the case.
October 8th, 2015 at 6:46 PM ^
I grok your logic but both defenses have good CBs and bad passing games, so I see both coaches trying to take their own QBs out of the game as much as possible. Neither side can afford the mistakes; I mean, a pick-six probably wins the game. So both defenses will put their CBs in man coverage, shut down the run and dare the QBs to throw, and neither HC will take that blatantly obvious bait. It won't be #M00N in terms of ineptitude, but this might be the manballiest of manball games played all year.
Special teams will take on a prominent role as we may go four quarters without either side scoring a TD. Edge to us; we have O'Neill, Peppers and Baxter. (Just don't run on 4th and 16. . .)
Thinking through rationally anyway. This is a matchup of two of the top defenses in the country so of course it'll be something like 42-38 because football is weird, and UM-NU games are ESPECIALLY weird.
October 8th, 2015 at 6:55 PM ^
Specifically the punt returner who put them on the 5 for an easy TD. Is he anybody we need to be concerned about? I mean, I guess our guys handled Will Likely, so probably not a concern. But we probably are going to be punting a lot in this game.
October 9th, 2015 at 5:24 AM ^
October 9th, 2015 at 9:35 AM ^
I wouldn't put too much worry into that... I've watched a bit of MN games this season and I've been saying all year their punt coverage might be worse than their offense. Should be fun to see Peppers get a return against them in a couple weeks.
October 8th, 2015 at 6:41 PM ^
Personally think this game falls on the OL and the RB's especially Smith. Northwestern's defense seems really quick and anything to the outside seems like a TFL waiting to happen.
If their CBs are as good as this says and Rudock being a bit shaky at QB, I think power manballing might be the way to neutralize their speed to the edges by going straight at them hat on a hat, especially if their DL isn't standout.
But if OL gets blown up at the line of scrimmage I will be remembering shades of Utah all over again.
October 8th, 2015 at 6:19 PM ^
Just wondering.
October 8th, 2015 at 7:30 PM ^
I really like what Northwestern has done with their standard uniforms so those look extra bad.
October 8th, 2015 at 7:01 PM ^
I wonder what happened in that game against stanford for NW... remains to be seen if that was an outlier game for Stanford or if NW is really that good. In my opinion, hard to draw much from any of there other games.
October 9th, 2015 at 8:18 AM ^
It definitely seems like an outlier to me. I watched much of that game. There was just one TD in the game, Northwestern's QB had a long run to the TD. He took a step back, like it was a pass play then ran untouched 42 yards. You can watch the play here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_n2BiZgMV0
It was an ugly game with not much offense for either side. That one TD and three FGs for NU and two FGs for Stanford. Stanford's offense seemed out of sync (as sometimes happens in first games), plus Shaw's playcalling had me befuddled. He seemed determined to establish the inside run play, calling it over nd over, even late in the game when they needed points, and it was not working. It reminded me of that Michigan game at Penn State. Stanford did finally open it up a bit in their last drive, but that ended in an interception, and even if they had scored there, it would have taken an onside kick and a FG to have a chance. They diddled around so long, there wasn't enough time to win the game.
October 9th, 2015 at 9:27 AM ^
Am I crazy or does Stanford look incredibly slow on defense on that NU QB keeper for the touchdown? #15 LB particularly, #21 at corner also, but he had to get off a block and start running from a dead stop.
Thorson ran that 42yds in about 5 to 5.5 seconds (by my count on the game clock) w/ a running start.
October 9th, 2015 at 9:29 AM ^
Also where on earth is the safety #29? He goes off screen, but from his pre-snap alignment he either didn't see the QB take off at all or bit at least 5 yards the wrong way in coverage first.
October 8th, 2015 at 7:41 PM ^
Will post this here for those who don't get to the Mgoboard daily
NW Strengths
Natl rank | Value | UM rank | Value | |||||
Offense | Defense | |||||||
3rd down conversion | 10 | 49% | 3rd down conversion | 1 | 20% | |||
Rushing offense | 14 | 248.8 | Rushing defense | 5 | 71.4 | |||
Sacks Allowed per game | 13 | 0.8 | Sacks | 45 | 2.2 | |||
Defense | Offense | |||||||
3rd down conversion | 2 | 20% | 3rd down conversion | 46 | 42% | |||
Defensive TDs | 7 | 2 | ||||||
Fumbles recovered | 10 | 5 | Fumbles lost | 55 | 3 | |||
Passing Yds Allowed | 7 | 130 | Passing Yds | 96 | 191.2 | |||
Rushing defense | 26 | 117.4 | Rushing offense | 35 | 201.4 | |||
Total defense | 5 | 247.4 | Total offense | 77 | 392.6 | |||
Red zone defense | 6 | 60% | Red zone offense | 12 | 94% | |||
Scoring defense | 1 | 7 | Scoring Offense | 74 | 27.8 | |||
Misc / Special Teams | ||||||||
Fewest Penalties/Game | 8 | 4.2 | ||||||
Penalty Yds/Game | 5 | 34 | ||||||
Kickoff returns | 3 | 31.6 | Kickoff returns def | 19 | 17.9 | |||
Punt return defense | 2 | -1.6 | Punt returns | 62 | 8.7 | |||
TOP | 11 | 33:42 | TOP | 6 | 34:20 | |||
Turnover Margin / game | 28 | 0.8 | Turnover Margin / game | 84 | -0.4 |
NW Weaknesses
Natl rank | Value | UM rank | Value | |||||
Offense | Defense | |||||||
Completion % | 92 | 56.1% | ||||||
Passing offense | 118 | 142.2 | Passing yds allowed | 3 | 112.6 | |||
Passing yds per comp | 94 | 11.1 | ||||||
Scoring offense | 89 | 25.4 | Scoring defense | 2 | 7.6 | |||
TFL allowed / game | 100 | 6.8 | TFL / game | 17 | 8 | |||
Total offense | 79 | 391 | Total defense | 2 | 184 |
October 10th, 2015 at 1:20 AM ^
the NW scoring offense stat is a little misleading because it includes points scored by the defense and special teams. NW has scored twice on defense and once on special teams (KO return). They also have a 5 yard TD drive as a result of a punt return or turnover or whatever. Michigan needs to take care of the ball.
October 9th, 2015 at 1:38 PM ^
*All Ranks out of 128 teams*
NU's Rushing:
They are 14th in Rushing Yards per Game (as you state),
However, they are a VERY run heavy team, rushing on 71% of their plays this season.
Football Outsiders attempts to adjust this for down & distance (Adj. Run Pct.), and comes up with NU as the 9th most run heavy team in the country this year.
They are also a VERY hurry up team, running 79.8 plays per game.
Football Outsiders attempts to adjust plays per game for Run/Pass mix, and comes up with Northwestern as the 7th most Up Tempo team in the country. I'm not sure they adjust for the defense's ability to get the ball back quickly, so this may be a tad exaggerated.
NU's Yards per Rush of 4.4 is just average (65th).
Football Outsiders' S&P+ Rushing, has them ranked as 85th best rushing attack. I assume this is worse than their Yards per Rush rank because 1) Their Scoring Offense is poor (100th in Points per Game) and 2) They are running the ball a lot on "Passing Downs", making it easier to pick up yardage (defense is playing pass to protect the first down) and lowering what FO considers the overall "success rate" of those plays.
Sources:
http://www.ncaa.com/stats/football/fbs/current/team/23
http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ncaaoff
October 8th, 2015 at 8:26 PM ^
Couple small typos in the diagram: Braden wears 71 and Kalis wears 67.
October 8th, 2015 at 11:50 PM ^
Here's a youtube video of every defensive snap for NU during Stanford game this year. Good scouting material for those who are bored enough to watch it, AKA me multiple times.
October 9th, 2015 at 8:15 AM ^
I watched it twice...can't watch again because if I see one more Stanford receiver drop a pass, or ball carrier fumble for no apparent reason, I might have to jump out this office window. Stanford had PLENTY of holes to run through, and a lot of open routes underneath.
October 9th, 2015 at 9:47 AM ^
this question the other day on twitter and never got a real good response... is northwesterns defence good or have the teams they played shot themselves in the foot to end a drive???
reason being is that northwesterns D has given up yards to teams but they don't score and there has to be a reason why...
October 9th, 2015 at 9:59 AM ^
I saw the same thing. Big holes and a lot of stuff in the middle of the field for the TEs. After seeing this I feel more confident tomorrow. However, I'm sure this will come back to bite me. Just gotta take care of the ball.
October 9th, 2015 at 10:08 AM ^
will open up the playbook some tomorrow. The OSU and UNLV games were pretty bland offensively cause UM didn't need to do much other than ran their base offense. BYU comes to town and the playcalling in the first half was a lot more open then it was against BYU and UNLV.
As someone pointed out in another thread, it seemed like Harbaugh and his staff thought the gameplans against UNLV and OSU would work against Maryland. Once it got to the second half it was still kind of tight score wise, they dialed up some plays and put some points on the board.
I see this game similiar to BYU in that I'm guessing Harbaugh and his staff know they will need to open up the playbook some to score.
October 9th, 2015 at 2:52 AM ^
October 9th, 2015 at 5:41 AM ^
October 9th, 2015 at 5:58 AM ^
has proven that he is going to run the ball regardless of how the defense aligns. You don't hear all the "Kill, Kill" calls like you would with most teams because he wants to pound the ball and trust the blocking. Even while not consistently being the best blocking team there is, our offensive line has worn defenses down in every game this season except the Utah game where we obviously were playing from behind all game and had to throw, plus turnovers. The formula has worked thus far, and I expect it will against NW as long as we can sustain more drives than they can and will the TOP battle. Their TFL stat is encouraging in that regard, because I will now expect them to be in a lot of 3rd and longs, which plays right into our hand. Hard fought game and we better wear them out or it will be closer than expected. Not worried about our D getting worn down, or maybe they could spring the upset.
October 9th, 2015 at 9:51 AM ^
Maybe we'll see Rudock open up throwing short, quick passes to back off the LB's and open up the running game. As opposed to plowing into the line, with 8 to 10 guys in the box, over and over and over.
October 9th, 2015 at 10:23 AM ^
October 9th, 2015 at 10:59 AM ^
Plus they are undefeated against academic rivals since 2008
October 9th, 2015 at 11:27 AM ^
is going to do well tomorrow, like really well. Our O, not so sure, but I think our D gets a score and puts us over the top.
October 9th, 2015 at 11:44 AM ^
October 10th, 2015 at 9:51 AM ^
Solid secondary, and Walker is playing as good as any LB in the B1G. Their defense is tough
Rudock is going to have to step up. He is the key player
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