Previously: The Offense

Resources: My charting, UI game notes, UI roster, CFBstats, Tampa 2 primer

In the late '90s Lovie Smith, along with Monte Kiffin and Tony Dungy, helped develop the Tampa 2 defense, a Cover 2 variant that uses the middle linebacker as a quasi-safety, and finally forced the West Coast offense to get dinky. This (and Warren Sapp, Derrick Brooks, Hardy Nickerson, John Lynch, Simeon Rice, Ronde Barber, Donnie Abraham…) earned Lovie a head coaching job with the Bears for the meatiest part of Brian Urlacher's career. On the strength of that defense the Bears went 13-3 in 2006, losing to Dungy in the Super Bowl. The NFL quickly adapted, attacking the seams with power forwards they called "flex tight ends" for lack of a better name, putting those MLBs in run-pass conflicts, and option-routing the poor OLBs to death.

By March 2016 Lovie was coming off two losing seasons in Tampa Bay and hadn't taken a team to the playoffs since the 2010 Bears, but to Illinois and their new AD, that was infinitely preferable to rolling with the post-Beckman interim Bill Cubit. The hope was Smith could fix the defense enough that their explosive offenses could do more than lose 67-65. Lovie brought in his longtime associates, including Hardy Nickerson as DC, and Donnie Abraham to coach the DBs.

Abraham suddenly quit in August 2018, followed in mid-season by Nickerson, who cited health reasons. Lovie raised his son from OLBs grad assistant to DBs coach, named himself acting DC, and spent the winter of 2018 searching high and low for a defensive coordinator. Instead, he found a bag coordinator type who'd followed Lane Kiffin to various places and knew how to recruit USC, moved his son to linebackers, named himself the DC, and grew a beard.

The beard is amazing. The rest is a comprehensive disaster. Longtime starters who weren't that good in the first place have regressed. The transfers who replaced them have no idea what the defense is trying to accomplish. Even the guy PFF thinks is the #2 linebacker in the conference right now graded out with double-digit negatives when faced with something more terrifying than Akron or UConn. I know you're all gonna BPONE this with "Just like our offense [clapx5]." That's because you've forgotten what the end of 2010 was like.

The film: Illinois was super-lucky to be in this game due to some Minnesota drops and weather stuff.

Personnel: My diagram: 

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

[After THE JUMP: Beard game is strong]

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If you came looking for the scouting to match the stats on the big USC transfer, former five-star (15th in the composite) SDE Oluwole Betiku (+4/-9 run), I'm sorry but I was disappointed too. I'll cover him below. He's also not nearly as bad as converted linebacker WDE Ayo Shogbonyo (+1/-10.5). I see now why Illinois fans are so hype on his backup, the Uche-like Isaiah Gay, who was injured for this game and is questionable for ours. Shogbonyo's thing is he's still linebacker-sized, so he dives inside early, which leads to no edge, which leads to touchdowns. Backup DE Owen Carney (+0/-4) was crumpled or ejected on five plays and quickly removed from the field, and budding star Bobby Roundtree was lost to a freak swimming accident in the offseason, so depth there seems to be nonexistent.

It's too bad they lost Roundtree, because the DTs are good enough to pay things off. 3T Jamal Milan (+11.5/-2) is the one thing about Illinois living up to expectations, and the defense's lone bright spot in this game. A big ball of hate who regularly mucked things up in the backfield, Milan was probably responsible for most of the gaudy stats Betiku's getting credit for. Nose Tymir Oliver (+4/-5.5 run) was tracking that way but started getting hyper-aggressive late and picked up a chunk of negatives for running by the play. Rotational DT Jamal Woods (+6/-7) was more aggressive and thus more exploitable. Backup DT Kenyon Jackson (+0/-1) was the opposite: plenty of snaps where he wasn't the problem.

Oddly for LB guys like Lovie and Hardy, LB recruiting has been an issue since they arrived. Onetime Michigan commit MLB Dele Harding (+10/-6 run, +0/-6 coverage) is a good example of what Don Brown was living with at BC/UConn/Maryland: a good blitzer who reacts correctly to guards but won't hold up if he actually meets one. The coverage minuses are a coaching issue discussed later. Also discussed later, the guy PFF currently has in the top 15 among NCAA LBs, WLB Jake Hansen (+9/-12.5 run, –4 cov), because I have some thoughts. It's best we not dwell on Washington transfer SAM Milo Eifler (+6/-11 run, –2 cov), a major athlete (24/7 composite #142) who sat out last year, was behind a safety coming out of spring, and seems very confused out there. Both OLBs are more in the hybrid range, and all had some flashes. Coaching's doing them dirty.

Part of the reason Eifler looks so lost is the offseason plan was to move SS Delano Ware (+1/-8 run, –4 cov) down. As of this game, Ware was back starting at safety, for reasons made apparent when the other candidates came in for a spell. Ware's day was alright until you count three EXTREME busts, but when you're personally giving up three huge plays you get the cyan. And it's not like FS Tony Adams (+1/-9 run, –4 cov), the guy they like, was much better. Adams spread out his negatives over more plays, churning out bad angles and flat-footed misses as the single-high safety when Illinois went 4-3 Under/Cover 1 to load the box. Backup Kerby Joseph (0+/-1 run, –5 cov) started some last year, and is unplayable, giving up two TDs in only a handful of snaps. Stanley Green, a more responsible, less athletic option they brought in a lot last year whenever Adams needed some time on the sidelines with a protractor, was out for this game and is questionable for Saturday.

I gave field CB Nate Hobbs (+0.5/-4 run, –1 cov) a break since he was usually there in coverage, but any run that came near him was good for an extra 5 or 10 yards. At the boundary, this was the first start for CB Devon Witherspoon (+1/-2 run, –2 cov), a true freshman who committed late last July, and doesn't look a pound more than the 160 listed in his otherwise informationless recruiting profile. Witherspoon's in there because they've apparently had enough of CB Quan Martin (+2/- run, –4 cov in like 10 snaps), because nickel Sydney Brown (+0/-2, –1 cov in plenty of snaps) has enough on his plate with that and learning safety, and because top-100 recruit Marquez Beason is out for the season.

The Beard (+15/-2 in upkeep, +8 in conception) is stupendous.

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Beard Game [Scale: 1: Bad Case of Laurinaitis to 10: Civil War General]: 10. Stupendous. The head coach sets the tone for the whole team, and when he's also the defensive coordinator that goes double. Look at the fullness. The natural shading. The perfect edge that nonetheless doesn't look remotely shaven. The few whiskers left to react to the wind, not enough to appear shabby but enough to bring your attention to the magnificence of the thing.

Is Lovie Smith the worst coach in the Big Ten? I can't argue otherwise. But consider how much of football is running plays, and how much is looking at the head coach reacting and leading and stuff. So let's take a moment and appreciate the guy who makes this part of your afternoon an absolute pleasure, especially when you consider some of the Keebler salesmen on TV these days.

Base Set: Illinois came into the game a 4-3 over with two high.

They then switched to a 4-3 under and man coverage for awhile, then single-high later in the game, bringing down a safety because Minnesota was having no problems running. Alignment didn't change within a drive unless a tight end swapped the strength; in this case only the linebackers moved and the DL became the opposite of whatever they were before. The solitary exotic was a 3-3-5 with two DL to one side, the WDE off the edge of the other, and a couple of LBs threatening to blitz then backing out as another LB came.

This was 85% 4-3 over for the first 20 minutes, and 90% two-high until mid-way through the 3rd quarter, FWIW. They only switched to a base under (with the SAM down like a fifth lineman) to get more guys at the line of scrimmage, IE they went from sending four guys 75% of the time to more than four guys 70% of the time. It's really reactionary; they want to be a rush-four 4-3 Cover 2, went to an under because the run game was getting shredded, then got blitzy because that was destroying their passing game.

The beard however.

What Shall We Call the Hybrid Today?: Sam/Will. The old Tampa 2 made the middle linebacker a sort of hybrid and gave him middle deep coverage responsibilities. Lovie's latest defense has that and uses a pair 225-pound OLBs (think Stevie Brown).They'll remove one for a dedicated nickel in extreme passing situations.

Man or zone coverage: Hybrid. They want to be Cover 2, went to a lot of Cover 1 in this game.

Pressure: GERG or GREG: Average bring was 4.7 on standard downs and 4.4 on passing downs. That's about in Michigan State (fairly GREG) range, but not mixed like Michigan State. As I said, they brought four until that wasn't getting it done, then kept adding rushers as the desperation level rose. It's predictable.

Dangerman: So this is going to take some explaining. WLB Jake Hansen, the guy who'll appear on all your programs as "one to watch," the LB currently sporting a 2nd round grade and an 81.6 rating (#13 LB in the country, #2 Big Ten), was, at least in this game, not good. There were times he did things that were good. Visibly good. Notably awesome even. Take this blitz, where he shot past a tackle and forced a fumble that led to a defensive TD:

I gave him a +4 for that. Here's a more conventional thing he did on a pinch blitz where Hansen followed the tight end across the formation on a split zone and stuck the ballcarrier at the line of scrimmage.

That was a +2. His five plays of good work however were more than offset by a lot more of this kind of thing:

Hansen did that weird thing with his hands, like he's trying to get off a block from a ghost, a lot. He also got edged a lot, got owned by (corporeal) blockers a lot, and got stiff-armed a lot. He was also a total zero against the pass, biting hard on play-action, then doing nothing but hang out near the line. His constantly sucking up on play-action is discussed in the overview because it was a team thing. There were also two very bad coverage plays where Hansen was almost certainly the guy with the curl/flat zone but was hanging out in someone else's. But he does lead the nation in fumbles forced (four) and recovered (three), so.

The other guy you'll hear about is SDE Oluwole Betiku. The USC grad transfer is already up to 10.5 TFLs and 7 sacks on the season. Glance at the game long and you'll see all but one of those were courtesy of Akron (3 TFLs, 1.5 sacks) and UConn (3.5 TFLs, all sacks). Glance at the highlights from those games and you'll see more of Betiku getting caved by a tight end or giving up the edge for a big gain than swimming past what had to be some super-cyan tackles. His positives in this game were mostly helping after getting washed down the line. I suspect Betiku's raw athleticism is too much for UConn, but if you're looking for the closest Michigan comp it's probably what we'd have if Luigi Vilain was starting right now (Betiku's USC career was beset by injuries).

I also suspect that Betiku's stats were really the work of Illinois's true unsung hero, the bowling ball in #55 named Jamal Milan. At first blush he looks like a standard space-eater. Then he splits his third double-team of the day:

And then he comes around a stunt and accelerates into the backfield so fast the quarterback thinks it must be a linebacker, and throws the ball to the linebacker.

The lack of many negatives is noticeable in this defense where everybody's trying to guess how the guy next to him is going to screw up next. Milan was consistently disruptive, mostly immovable, and has a quite good 75.1 rating from PFF this year. If the guys around Milan ever execute their assignments, his disruptiveness will reward them with highlights.

OVERVIEW:

Once again Illinois Football Breakdown is out there chartin' in the kind of conditions that would have even the hardiest Michigan fan reaching for Henri the Otter of Ennui:

It's rough out there, and so much of it is self-inflicted that it's hard to tell if any of them will be any good one day. Lovie has a system defense designed to stop Brett Favre that he's running with freshmen and transfers, some of whom've been on campus less than 10 weeks. This isn't 100% his fault—the defense was in shambles when he arrived, and Champaign is hardly a jewel of the Midwest. But if you're hoping the new arrivals are going to be your best players in Year Four, that's a problem. If you're using one of the most coaching-intensive positions (linebackers) to give your young son his first coaching gig, and another coaching-intensive position (cornerbacks) for a guy mainly there to help you recruit players off USC's roster, that's a problem. And when you make yourself the defensive coordinator of all these problems, you're out of other people to blame for them.

We have to talk about play-action, because oh my frikkin god these linebackers won't believe it's a pass until an offensive lineman is whispering it in their ears:

See if you can spot Dele Harding (MLB #9) on this one:

Remember in this defense the middle linebacker is supposed to be deeper than normal. By the time Harding figured this out all he can do is leap from two yards beyond the line of scrimmage at pass going 14 yards downfield. Even the safeties' minds were like RUN! RUN! OMIGOD RUN THEY'RE GONNA RUUUUU—oh, hamburgers.

Okay, yeah, you're right, that's a backup in that example. Let me show you why the starter had just been pulled (watch #15, Delano Ware, the safety starting on the top on the first down line):

But really most of this was on the linebackers, who look like they've never been coached on zone coverage. Rule #1: you and the other linebackers' butts should never touch:

I've never seen linebackers this blitzballs against the run, and I've charted WMU. In 46 run, RPO, or play-action snaps in this game, 44 I noted "Hard" linebacker reactions to the run. The first time Hansen sat back, ate a blocker, and got deposited 7 yards from the gap he was supposed to be in. The second time was when Delano Ware (#15) returned from getting chewed out over the Rashod Bateman bust so tentative that he gave up the easiest give read since OC Rod Smith was running them for Glenville State.

I mean...

And it's not like all this hard-chargin' is helping them against the run anyway. All they're doing by moving more guys to the line of scrimmage is removing whoever could be there to help when the DEs forget to set an edge:

So, yeah, this ran long, but I don't believe I'm ever going to get another opportunity to write about a Lovie Smith defense. There's a stance bad teams take when they know it's over, even in competitive games, where trying hard just makes you look like the fool. This touchdown is the kind of thing that happened to 2010 Michigan all the time. They're rolling the safety on the top down expecting a run to the tight end's side. From there:

Illini D has one good idea per play then gives up. This time they bring down a safety late to get numbers to the TE side, get zone the other way, and...
91: What gap?
47: Shoulder tackle's good enough right?
5: Someone else will get it.
8: No stats in my lane; I'll try another. pic.twitter.com/0ZN3QsdjEw

— Seth M. Fisher (@Misopogon) October 10, 2019

The beard though.