Previously: The Offense, Last Year's D

Resources: My charting, UMD game notes, UMD roster, CFBstats

Well, it's Jon Hoke, Brady's NFL older brother. Unless you count an extra title while defensive backs coach for South Carolina under Steve Spurrier, Hoke hasn't coordinated a college defense since the Old Ball Coach was at Florida.

The film: Not a lot of recordings because BTN+ is so crappy. The footage is so bright and skips so many frames I had to rewind most of these plays six to eight times to figure out what happened (and you can only go back exactly 10 seconds). Finally I called it a night and took the kids trick or treating.

Personnel: My diagram:

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

Onetime top-150 CB Marcus Lewis, a onetime FSU transfer who's excellent in run support, has been nursing a knee injury since Penn State. He played last week, intercepted a pass, then had to quit mid-runback. He'll probably give it a go again. Lewis was a (sometimes silent) commit to DJ Durkin over three stops, and left the team last year during *that*, and because he wasn't starting over "I only do zone" Tino Ellis, who's out for the year. In Ellis's place are a murder of true freshmen, the tall and boring Deonte Banks and the extremely tiny Lavonte Gater. They also rotate through redshirt freshman/tiny person Vincent Flythe and redshirt sophomore Tahj Capehart, who didn't chart. When they need a dime they bring in dust mite Rayshad Lewis, who'll remain in that DELONTE HOLLOWELL role (and return kicks).

Safety has been, well, exciting. Antwaine Richardson, a former Michigan commit, is out for the season again and has been replaced by #55 overall true freshman Nick Cross, who was heading for a Mouton day if I'd finished my charting. The other spot was won by Deon Jones, a highly rated recruit because he can get from any A to any B, and a cyan because he has no brakes; my two-year-old thinks Jones falls down excessively.

They did try playing slot extraordinaire Antoine Brooks there, but when you're graced with the perfect nickel you leave him there as much as you can. Brooks does bump Jones when they go to their base 3-4, when it's like 3rd and 2. Past Jones they're playing Jordan Mosley, a Cam Gordonesque fellow who should be a linebacker (24/7 thought so too!), and some other guys I just want to skip past so I can include Muppet Glee Club treasurer Fofie Bazzie.

[After THE JUMP: Jon Hoke as Billy Beane]

At the middle linebacker spots they tried and failed to replace Isaiah Davis, that most fascinating fount of –2s who likes to wait until an offensive lineman is sure—no, absolutely positively sure—he's releasing before Davis attacks. By now this guy has to have an NCAA record for most ankle tackles between 5 and 6 yards after the line of scrimmage. He's a senior so he's not as easy to mess with, but that just means the plays I tagged "22" for are getting 7 yards instead if the 9.5 from last year. Candidate 1 to dislodge the longtime awful starter is the new WILL LB, a skinny sophomore named Chance Campbell who still looks like a wide-eyed freshman. Candidate 2 is Ayinde Ely, a safety who was too slow for the above safety depth chart.

Candidate 3 was supposed to be former 5-star, former Clemson Tiger "JACK" Shaq Smith, but Smith has bulked up to take on the LB/DE position that maximizes his talent without asking him to read too much. This is him on the bottom of the line:

The other OLB spot is another blue-chip transfer, OLB Keandre Jones from Ohio State. While those OLB positions in a 3-4 are normally interchangeable, note that these are not: Smith is over 250 and can play defensive line just fine; Jones is a 6'3"/220 hybrid space player being asked to do Jake Ryan things. He's a good player when jetting somewhere, but gets blown out constantly. They're playing small in order to mitigate how much they play forever-eligible/forever-not-athletic-enough-for-this SDE Brett Kulka and his understudy Lawtez Rogers, a little-used DT/DE hybrid. They do still have last year's rotational WDE/OLB Bryce Brand, the more linebacker-ish OLB backup, but are without injured Durrell Nchami, a sorely missed pass rushing specialist.

The DTs are the two backups I was advocating for last year. 2017 starting DT Keiron Howard was bumped by the one-year flash of now-pro Mbi Tanyi, and forced me to give him a star for his Minnesota performance. He stands up to most doubles, and several times squirted into the backfield before a guard could corral him, causing havoc even if he fell down. Former walk-on Oluwaseun Oluwatimi looked good last year and not-good this year—he's scrappy and gritty and all that, but also shooable. Backups are freshmen or the unkillable Kulka.

--------------------------------------

Base Set: It's a 2-4-5, just like Wisconsin:

But it's not like Wisconsin. They couldn't replace former top-5 national prospect/successful reclamation project Byron Cowart, so Jon Hoke recreated him in the aggregate using transfers. The JACK is a girthier weakside pass rusher played this year by an extra 5-star SDE type Clemson had lying around, and the OLB is a hybrid space player from Ohio State's limitless supply. They're in an over front 80% of the time, which Minnesota used to their benefit by crossing the formation with tight ends to make 220-pound Keandre Jones have to play DE.

Yes they have a 3-4 "base" still. It's for short yardage and uses Kulka in place of a third safety (Deon Jones). The far more interesting thing is the Okie package. As Brady Hoke did at Michigan, his older brother will pull out the Okie on any old down, show a 7-man front with zero high, then drop back one or two or nobody. It looks like this:

What Shall We Call the Hybrid Today? They have all sorts of hybrids. JACK is an OLB/SDE mix. OLB is a DE/Safety. And the nickel job that Antoine Brooks plays is..nickel safety? I admit I couldn't find a name—the people who cover Maryland aren't interested in these highly important (read: nerdy and unimportant) things.

Man or zone coverage: As with all things Durkin the Cover 1 emphasis is now almost eradicated. I mean, you still have to man up sometimes, and they usually do on those 5-man blitzes you see coming from 20 yards away, but they're probably 70% cover 2 now.

Pressure: GERG or GREG: Average leaning GREG until passing downs, when they dial it up some to protect the problems in their coverage, namely the middle linebackers and the young safeties. A lot of that is the Okie package, because they sent seven guys twice on that.

Dangerman: There wasn't much to chart from Antoine Brooks from this game. Last year I went to this game with my buddy Matt Peck (this is a shout-out), whose seats were right across the aisle from the Brooks family. So I went over there and showed them the section from last year's writeup.

Dangerman: The one thing about Maryland's defense that absolutely reminded me of Durkin's time at Michigan was the "Nickel" who looks and plays a lot like pre-Viper Peppers. That would be Antoine Brooks. This was a guy I had to defend in our Big Ten preview this year, but I'm not at all happy about being (closest to) right.

Whereas Michigan under Brown asks its hybrid space player to set the edge of the defense on running plays, Maryland often gives Brooks a tight end gap he can shoot—swapping on the fly with another defender—and a lot of freedom to take a risk when jetting inside. Brooks responded by destroying just about everything they put in his path.

Brooks vs. a Tight End:

Brooks vs. a Bubble Screen:

Brooks versus a Zone Read:

Brooks vs. a Kickout Block:

Brooks vs. What Did I Tell You About a Bubble Screen?

Brooks vs. Pass Protection:

Brooks vs. a Guard Wanting Any Part of This:

Brooks vs. Both Sides of a Speed Option:

Brooks vs. Any Chance of Texas Winning this Game:

Brooks wins. In fact there was just one battle all game that Brooks didn't dominate…

Brooks vs. Man Coverage Downfield

A-HAH! You are not Peppers after all!

That's the one knock: While Brooks has insane acceleration and directional change, the pure long speed isn't there. Also he's playing the position Jake Ryan played so that matters once a game when this team is sending everybody else and not getting to the quarterback.

That's why he's not a safety. Also here's a dollop of respect to Marcus Lewis, who's just back from a knee thing, and was still running a star receiver's route better than he could.

Regretfully I didn't get a clip of Keiron Howard. Imagine a football play, and then a 300 pound guy appears in the middle of the pocket, and falls down, and then reaches for you with tendrils and huge fangs.

OVERVIEW:

I think I covered most of it. They are shrimps:

And they give up long plays by doing unsound things to cover for the shrimps. The end.