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

Let's hope Tom Allen never does get his hands on a roster full of Big Ten average talent, because he knows what to do with it, at least on defense. Fortunately he hasn't been able to recruit like his predecessors, and that leaves some major gaps he's constantly plugging. From a film analyst perspective a good and desperately undermanned coach like Allen is awesome. It takes me back to watching the defenses Mattison was calling at Michigan in 2011, except Allen's talent is mostly in the secondary. Oh what he wouldn't give for a Mike Martin or Ryan Van Bergen.

Instead he's rolling out the 3-stars people wanted Michigan to go after when they whiffed on the twitchier giants, and the generic 300-pound three-stars are getting deposited into the second level. Allen makes up for it by leaving no linebackers in the way. It's a gamble he has to take, and works well enough to keep them in games when his opposition is trying to just do their thing and getting frustrated that nobody seems to be where he's supposed to be. Play smart, play fun, and play like you're in the backyard against these guys, and they'll get gashed. I really mean it this time: the weirder the box score the better. It's Michigan-Indiana. The only correct answer is to lean into it.

The film: Indiana versus Penn State, because the other option is Rutgers.

Personnel: My diagram:

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

Strap in because IU uses a lot of guys. I only had detailed scoring for the first three quarters before the clock ran out (it was still a full game's worth of charting) so I'll skip scores except for some high-magnitude cases, and give you the skinny. To begin, their DT situation is worse than ours, though I'd have taken the Stanford transfer, DT #51 Jovan Swan (+5.5/-2), including over all three returning "starters", #98 Jerome Johnson (+3/-3), an active muck-a-muck without much power, and #94 Demarcus Elliott (+3.5/-9) who's a case study for bad leverage.

Swan is #51, DT on the bottom. Elliott is #94 the DT to the top.

IU was also rotating (or starting) DT #50 Sio Nofoagatoto'a (+3.5/-4.5), who was too easy to push off the ball. They'll sprinkle in #55 CJ Person (+0/-5 on like ten snaps) and #91 Jeramy Passmore, who's DE-sized but spunky.

I had a star on SDE #6 James Head Jr. (+2/-8.5) last year, but that's rescinded as he was regularly ejected by PSU's line (as well as Michigan's). The other end position is transitioning into an OLB hybrid, something #87 Michael Ziemba (+1/-3.5) is better suited for than trying to stand up to blocks. He was mostly invisible while rotating with #92 Alfred Bryant (+6.5/-2), a no-pass-rush quasi-DT. Head would be spelled by #18 Jonathan King (+1/-4), who dropped 25 pounds and moved back to the Anchor-like position after spending last season at DT.

[After THE JUMP: One Don Brown linebacker and a bunch of misfires]

The linebackers were the source of some major yeesh. I still like the one linebacker MIKE Micah McFadden (+12/-10.5, +1/-1 in coverage), because he can accelerate in a straight line as well as any Don Brown recruit. But he does have a tendency to get pulled in wrong directions by backfield action.

The other spot is the defense's big weakness. While the DTs will get shoved around, they'll also do a good job of that light defensive holding that doesn't get called but keeps the linebackers free to flow. These invitations were routinely turned down by #4 Cam Jones (+8/-18.5, +0/-5.5 coverage) the new starting WILL. Jones is clearly a miscast hybrid safety—and even plays the SAM role if they have cause to go to a real 4-3—since he's pretty good at the Viper stuff.

Those are offset by having the game go way too fast for him inside. Most of the carnage on this play was his fault:

It earned a –4.

Challenger #8 James Miller (+10/-2, +0/-5 cover) is vastly better against the run but unplayable on passing downs. Miller had a couple of big plays in short yardage that got me saying "Why aren't they playing this guy" in the notes. The next two plays were spectacular coverage fails, which notes were "Oh." and "I guess that's why." There are three more rotational backups who get in—they're all there mostly to blitz.

To keep all of these guys—yes, including the DTs—out of trouble, Allen will nearly always blitz at least one of his ILBs, creating four- and five-man fronts using anybody on the field, which was cool until PSU started just running QB draws for big gainers.

IU is down HSP Marcelino McCary-Ball to a season-ending ACL, but former cyan'd safety #31 Bryant Fitzgerald (+5/-0, – coverage) has found a home at the slot safety position. Fitzgerald is still 100% safety in size and oomph, but the move to the slot hides his speed issues and emphasizes his plus read-and-react skills. For the back two, after cycling through a ton of guys last year, Indiana has found a pair of decent juniors who seem comfortable in their Cover 2 system. Field (strong) safety #1 Devon Mathews (+2/-0, +5/-4.5 coverage) was the most picked on, but held up admirably given his lot was PSU's Pat "Baby Gronk" Freiermuth, and he didn't get much help with it. At times I can see the star IU was talking up in various spring practices past.

That wasn't a one-off. Matthews is aggressive when you throw under him, especially on run action. Which means it might be time to pull the old Eubanks downfield game out of the closet.

Boundary (free) safety #22 Jamar Johnson (+5/-1, +2/-1 cov) is boring, which earned him a star. Their backup #5 Juwan Burgess is a carryover from the bad old days, and as such got the internet blame for the long TD at the end of the 4th Q that should have ended IU's chances, though on replay I think it was on Matthews.

Their two starting cornerbacks would start at Michigan, no question. #3 Tiawan Mullen (+6/-0, +3/-1 cov) is at least All-Big Ten; Penn State barely went near him. #23 Jaylin Williams (+5/-0, +4/-1 cov) has been awesome so far, though his listed 6-0 height is a lie of at least two inches, and his weight is probably inflated too. He had a good Rutgers game too so he gets the dangerman star. As with the safeties there's a big drop from the starting pair to their shared backup, #2 Reese Taylor (+4/-4, +0/-6 cov). Taylor was fine on their few nickel snaps, when he went outside with Mullen moving into the slot. Things broke down when Mullen sat out a drive for a foot issue.

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Base Set: Indiana has adjusted to life in a world where Ohio State gets to fill their coffers before anyone else gets an athlete by going to more two-high stuff, however they don't mind shifting back to the single-high system. The result has been this 4-2-5/3-3-5 hybrid with a standup DE who backs into coverage quite often. Like Don Brown—Allen's from the same philosophical school—Indiana likes to get a five-man attack going by blitzing a middle linebacker. Unlike modern Don Brown, Allen won't go through a game without every starter getting at least one blitz.

They use less of it but they still have that three-shell dime that Big XII teams all use nowadays to staunch the bleeding. Note the down and distance.

2020 Indiana vs PSU	D Shift					Safeties			Rushers
Situation	Under	Over	Eagle	Thirty		1-high	2-high		3	4	5	6+
Normal Downs (48)	48%	35%	10%	6%		31%	69%		-	43%	50%	7%
Passing Downs (20)	25%	50%	5%	20%		30%	70%		16%	47%	37%	-
Total (68)	28	27	6	7		19	44		3	27	28	3

Here's last year for comparison because these were mostly the same players:

2019 Indiana vs PSU	D Shift					Safeties			Rushers
Situation	Under	Over	Eagle	Thirty		1-high	2-high		3	4	5	6+
Normal Downs (43)	60%	36%	2%	2%		5%	95%		-	40%	40%	20%
Passing Downs (25)	16%	52%	8%	24%		8%	92%		8%	46%	29%	17%
Total (68)	29	28	3	7		5	63		2	28	24	12

So they've worked their Cover 1 back into the game, as well as some Cover Zero and that three-high "Aztec" I screen-capped above.

What Shall We Call the Hybrid Today? HUSKY. One of my favorites.

Man or zone coverage: They're a mostly Cover 2 and Cover 2 trap team, but they still use plenty (~30%) of Cover 1, which was the base until last year. Best I can describe it is a move evolved version of Don Brown's coverages.

Pressure: GERG or DR BLITZ: They're pretty blitzy but mostly they're varied. You could get seven, you could get three.

Dangerman:

Cornerback Tiawan Mullen burst on the scene last year as a true freshman. He's Lavert Hill, and like Hill, Mullen was mostly avoided. The first time PSU went anywhere near him this happened:

They did get a positive play by throwing against him on a fade, but you remember the leverage talk with those and how Michigan safeties had to align outside. Note the angle that Mullen has on the slot receiver before the snap on this one, and then he made up so much ground that he ended up on the WR's back a second before the ball arrived.

I only charted one completion on him in zone, and that was mostly just a good throw as Mullen was in position for a pick and misread the throw. He's also and underappreciated run stopper off the edge because of his acceleration.

He really should transfer to Michigan is what I'm saying.

OVERVIEW:

I love IU's pressures. Remember how they used to blitz the hybrid LB all the time and called it "America"? Now there's DOUBLE AMERICA:

As long as they're letting me name things let's call this one LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL:

This one is ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL because if a cornerback wants to blitz on 3rd and 24 it's his God-given right:

When backed against the wall, Allen will eschew safeties entirely and call POWER CONCEDES NOTHING WITHOUT A DEMAND. IT NEVER DID AND NEVER WILL:

Allen is clever and dedicated to his philosophy, and therefore won a lot more of his RPS rolls than he lost. He suffers a lot of setbacks however, because his team is carrying a significant proportion of passivists and a minority who are actively trying to sabotage the system.

IU has talent deficiencies in the middle that can be exploited, but they're going to make you play ball to do so. Some things they do are just untenable, like spreading the DTs into B gaps and hoping a blitzing linebacker will two-gap the center by blasting him out of there. Or backing the 6'2"/260 DE into coverage. Or blitzing too many of their cover guys when their defensive line does not have the athleticism to push the pocket. They were saved this game because Sean Clifford is Shea Patterson. If Joe Milton can hang in the pocket and get the ball downfield there's going to be lots of intermediate space for that.

Despite this being the better half of Indiana, I think Michigan has a better shot of taking advantage of IU's weaknesses than Penn State because the things that work against this defense are the things both Gattis's and Harbaugh's wheelhouses. Those games Gattis loves to play to get the WLB erased are doubly powerful against a team that needs to use the MLB to blitz an interior gap. The old Harbaugh trap and draw and ISO fullback stuff were all plays designed to punish defenses that overcommit to the B gaps, or try to use pass rush as a run defense. The trick is battling their unpredictability. If McFadden is blitzing you have less time to deal with it but a better chance of breaking a huge play when Cam Jones or his backups hesitate. If it's the opposite you can get McFadden to freak out about one thing and go the other way. As much as I like the Indiana secondary, they put too much on them, and Michigan has a few dynamic players who can take advantage of that.

What would doom Michigan is a repeat of their MSU gameplan. With pressure coming from all directions the quarterback can't turn away from the defense. Zone reads aren't great against them because they attack the edges so much. That spin-o-rama screen we used to break out once a game could destroy these guys.

Your Moment of Zen: