Previously: The Offense [photo: UM Bentley Library]

A lot about defense has changed since Northwestern DC/former Michigan tight end Mike Hankwitz got his coaching start as a grad assistant for Bo. Like, nobody runs a base 5-2 anymore. Nose guards can't be 175 pounds. Randy Bates no longer coaches the Northwestern secondary. Nebraska ain't so good at it (mea culpa).

But if you've watched enough Dr. Sap videos the Northwestern system starts does start to feel familiar. From the middle linebackers covering interior gaps. To the way a safety comes down almost to linebacker depth when he smells a tight end on his side. To the got-dang soft coverage by the cornerbacks that old guys used to complain about back when they couldn't complain that the latest Michigan head coach is no Bo Schembechler.

This being Northwestern, there are always some holes to fill; this time it's the safeties and hoo boy did Bates chose a bad time to end his 25-year career. It also means there's at least on capital-D Dude around; this time it's The Gaz, and hoo boy.

The film: We are still on Duke, even though I'm down to just official highlights now that some shadow company has re-emerged to strike football video from the internet. Duke runs its offense out of a base pistol with a fullback and uses a lot of zone read, inverted veer, and run-pass options. So they're not quite us, but neither is Purdue or Akron.

Personnel: My diagram (Official depth chart):

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

We'll get to The Gaz. The whole front seven is good and they're deep at defensive tackle. They're at their best though when NT Jordan Thompson is on the field—PFF had him on the Big Ten team of the week after this performance. He's a mean ball of hate with a Hulk-like body shape.

#99 second DT from the top

Last year he was an X-factor, sometimes playing high and out of control and sometimes wrecking all in his path. If this performance is indicative of a new consistency he's immediately in the conversation for best DTs in the conference.

I was surprised by the outside linebacker I liked—it wasn't SLB Nate Hall, who had 16.5 TFLs last year. It was true sophomore WLB Blake Gallagher, who had just 1 TFL last year as a seldom used backup. By their weights last season you might guess the 235-pound Hall would be the interior guy and Gallagher, who as 215 on the '17 roster, is a hybrid type; that was correct last year but Gallagher is up 20 pounds and playing in-yo-face WLB. Hall, who remains over 230, is lining up over slot receivers. That looks as awkward as it sounds:

Hall was up and down, picked on in coverage by the slot receiver at times, good at hurtling himself into an attempt to run outside; he was +5/-5.5 in my unofficial UFR'ing. Gallagher meanwhile is about to become the three-year fave of a low-rung PFF employee who has to chart Northwestern games. I had nearly as many clips from Gallagher as the Gaz and scored him +7/-3, which is a thumpin' good outing for a linebacker.

#51 the guy…oh you'll see

The starters rarely come off the field except WDE Samdup Miller moves inside against spread teams with a rotation of EDGE types coming in for DT Fred Wyatt, who's also the backup nose. They leave The Gaz on the strong side, and Duke's offense learned quickly not to move the tight end away. The middle is manned by throwback MLB Paddy Fisher, who might be Pat Fitzgerald back in pads.

In the secondary CB Montre Hardage plays a lot tighter than I remember—that could be a competition thing. Opposite Hardage is a surprise starter, true freshman CB Greg Newsome, who's got a lot more suddenness about him and put two former starters on the bench. Safety is still a work in progress after Northwestern graduated a Thorpe candidate and an MGo-Favorite. The new FS J.R. Pace wasn't tested much but seems to play hesitant. As expected by everybody, SS Jared McGee, a 5th year senior pushing linebacker size, is not keeping up at safety; purple sippers are waiting for word that redshirt freshman SS Bryce Jackson is ready to handle a complicated position.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the breakdown]

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Base Set: It's a 4-3 even, the same that Michigan State bases its defense out of. Even when they shifted to an under look they kept the wide splits between the DTs:

This is a thing you see Match Quarters defenses do when they like their middle linebacker a lot. The uncovered center can be dangerous since there's nobody to chip him if he releases on a linebacker. If you trust your MIKE to beat that block consistently you can get away with this bubble, making up for it with more strength in the B and C gaps. MLB Paddy Fisher is just a sophomore but already quite adept at making this work. They stuck to the even formation with remarkable fidelity:

Shift/Formation	4-3	3-3-5	3-4	4-4	Nickel	Total
Even	33	4		1	2	40
Over	8		2			10
Under	10	2	1			13
Total	51	6	3	1	2	63

On passing downs they do have a 3-3-5 they'll trot out and go Okie with man coverage and 3 to 6 blitzers.

Man or zone coverage: They're a mix. Remember how I said earning a job in Hankwitz's secondary is hard? He coaches the safeties himself, and thus puts a lot on them. Like Bo, historically Hankwitz was a Cover 2 guy, especially at Northwestern where athletes are harder to come by than brains. Cover 2 these days means playing a lot of Quarters and I'm not sure of myself on the difference anymore. Anyway I tracked it hoping to find patterns, along with how the cornerbacks lined up.

Coverage	Both CBs Off	One CB Off	Both CBs Tight	Total
Man1	5	5	5	15
Cover 3	10	4	-	14
Cov2	4	1	-	5
Quarters	14	11	3	28
Total	33	21	8	62

Usually if there's one cornerback playing off it was the true freshman, Newsome. The tallies for each cornerback out of 63 snaps (the cameras missed one snap):

• Hardage: 36 snaps in off coverage, 27 snaps in press
• Newsome: 50 in off coverage, 9 in tight
• Williams: 2 off, 2 tight

What usually got both guys in press coverage was a 3rd and long.

The more interesting thing was as much as they changed up coverages they didn't disguise them very well. On Man 1 or Cover 3 the free safety (or occasionally the strong safety) turned and high-tailed it to the middle third from a Cover 2 starting position. On Quarters they stepped down like MSU safeties. Duke exploited this a few times.

Pressure: GERG or GREG: I've got them at 4.43 rushers per snap in this game, which is about average. They're off Nebraska's pace but nowhere close to the two extremes we charted earlier this season:

They'll zone blitz you though, and don't mind stunting the DTs.

Dangerman: You read MGoBlog so you know about The Gaz. Seeing Joe Gaziano lighting up a pair of ACC tackles however should make you stop questioning our preseason hot take that he's a 1st team DE in THIS Big Ten. Let's start, oh, with Duke's first play from scrimmage:

Here's the Gaz destroying a tight end, blowing up the puller, and making the tackle himself:

Here he is around the corner at five yards. Five! Seriously he's parallel with the edge of the 3rd and 3 graphic.

His speed rush is just incredible.

And I could clip 60 more plays when whatever was going on with him was making it impossible to deal with anything else going wrong. "Motor" is a gritty gritterstein word but the world of football has yet to come up with a better metaphor for a guy who goes after your quarterback the way my toddler battles her way back to my bed in a rainstorm.

I thought I put you to bed.

I don't know why you're surprised. Y'all have seen Chase Winovich.

OVERVIEW:

This defense is not a hard scout, but they're a tough out. Duke ran out to a two-touchdown lead in the 1st half with play-action touchdowns and then Northwestern's defense put the clamps on. It felt like the kind of games we've played against Michigan State under Mark Dantonio, and by the way Hankwitz thanks for giving that grad assistant a start in 1981. Or more happily, some of the games Michigan used to play in the '70s and '80s, when the opponent would come out with some modern frippery like passing the ball and everyone would panic about the safeties until the second half when the front seven put the screws on.

The first thing to beware of when trying to beat Hankwitz is don't walk into his traps. This was from the unclippable section of the game but it was as nasty as the thing Hoke and Mattison did to them in the Roy Roundtree silly catch game:

The bubble that's usually between the DTs is now on the backside. The LBs are all leaning frontside. You look back—"Soooo much space between that DT and OLB." But you're smart, you're not going to run where Hankwitz wants you to. You've got this whole turn-of-the-century Single Wing play to the frontside planned. You snap it, and immediately the Gaz is in your backfield cutting off the edge. You cut back, the OLB has gone outside and the DT is just in his gap. Maybe it was open after all?" And that's where you meet both middle linebackers. You go zero yards.

So how did Duke score on these guys? They picked on the safeties.

You see a true freshman cornerback on the screen and think that must be his fault. This was all safety bust. They're running Cover 3 here and J.R. Pace (circled in red below) is in a middle third.

Pace came down to bracket that tight end on the NWern 40 yard line. But Pace's first job is the receiver. Newsome has outside leverage—he is expecting help on anything inside, like, oh, a post route.

The other two touchdowns were play-action passes that got McGee to bite.

#41 who steps down then freaks out

This is man coverage but again the cornerback has outside leverage because he's supposed to have safety help inside. The safety got caught reading the play-action and comically realizes his mistake too late. And the thing is he didn't learn his lesson:

#41, guy nearest to the goal line near the top of the screen

This is a run-pass option that's reading the frontside safety, very similar to the RPO I was chastising Northwestern's offensive coordinator for trying to run against Cover 1 yesterday. This is a Quarters beater, and #41 does too good of a job demonstrating why it's effective against overaggressive safeties who step down at the first sign of run action. The brilliant part is the TEs route looks like he's about to block for a power read/inverted veer then cuts past the flat-footed safety to open endzone.

This won't be the last time this year Michigan will have to go on the road to face a Quarters defense with a nasty DL, a great MLB, and questionably athletic safeties who play lead-footed against the run. It's not quite Michigan State's defense. But I think it will be good practice for it.