Fee Fi Foe Film: Penn State Defense Comment Count

Ace

Previously: Penn State Offense



the mutant muscle in Amara Darboh's arm just twitched for, oh, no reason.

Penn State's defense got the job done against Temple despite entering the game down their top corner, two starting linebackers, and a rotation defensive end; they finished it without their other starting linebacker, who's now out for the year; both starting safeties also exited due to minor dings during the game, though both got back in. While not dominant, they held the Owls to only 5.2 yards per play, and shut down their running game almost entirely after they struggled mightily in that regard against Pitt the week prior.

Unfortunately for PSU, there were still obvious deficiencies despite facing a Temple offense that ranks 104th in S&P+. Unless PSU is awarded points for degree of difficulty, they could be in for a rough afternoon against Michigan.

Personnel: Seth's diagram [click to embiggen]:

We're continuing to incorporate Pro Football Focus grades into these posts. A red border around a player indicates a sore spot, which we've defined as a player who averages around a -2 PFF grade per game—or, alternatively, someone who stands out for the wrong reasons on film. In the above, Michigan guard Ben Braden and PSU linebacker Jake Cooper fall under this category because of their PFF grades, while PSU spacebacker Manny Bowen has a solidly positive PFF grade but looked like an easily exploitable player to me.

Yes, PSU is down all of their starting linebackers after Nyeem Wartman-White injured his knee against Temple. Safety Koa Farmer is making a midseason position switch to strongside linebacker (backing up Bowen) to help cover for depth. The new starting MIKE is redshirt junior walk-on Brandon Smith, who appeared in three games before this season.

Base Set? 4-3 under. Bowen will slide over the slot against three-wide formations. When PSU goes to a nickel set, they usually bring on Christian Campbell as an outside corner while sliding John Reid inside. Grant Haley missed the Temple game, so that could change; he's listed atop the depth chart, which has removed all the other injured players, in Penn State's game notes.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the breakdown.]

Man or zone coverage? Mostly zone and pattern-match stuff, though I have to largely punt here, as BTN's director for this game was as bad as the guy assigned to the Colorado game.

Pressure: GERG or Greg? PSU brings a vareity of blitzes, though some of them seemed doomed to fail by design. This was a third-and-eight on which they blitzed two linebackers and dropped two defensive linemen into coverage; they got the worst of both worlds, as Temple picked up the blitz and hit a hitch between the two dropping DL to the open receiver at the 40 on the near side:

That was still somewhat understandable; Temple had already blown a couple protections to this point and would do so again. This next one, however, I don't get at all. On a critical fourth-and-eight, PSU sent six, including a safety who didn't get any sort of head start on his rush from standard safety depth. The five initial rushers got crushed, Temple's QB broke contain, and the safety still hasn't reached the line of scrimmage when all of this has happened—he's the guy in no-man's land at the 49-yard line:

The QB rolled out and found an open receiver for a first down.

PSU was also fortunate that a couple obvious blitzes from their slot corner didn't cede big plays; Temple threw swing passes to the side the blitzer came from, but PSU's safeties did an excellent job of coming down and making open-field tackles.

Dangerman: DE Garrett Sickels was the relative non-factor on an otherwise dominant PSU D-line last year. He's improved quite a bit. I noticed him early on when he flowed down the line to tackle on an interior run in a similar fashion to one of Rashan Gary's TFLs from last weekend. Also reminiscent of Gary was Sickels's bend around the corner on this sack:

Sickels is 260, not 290 like Gary, but he's still an impressive player. He's grading out as PSU's top DL on PFF with a respectable +4.4 grade over three games, with most of that coming from his pass-rush.

I didn't clip anything from PSU's safeties, Malik Golden and Marcus Allen, but they're the team's two leading tacklers for reasons beyond the myriad injury issues. Both aggressively fill lanes against the run, and while they don't always make clean tackles—an issue last year—they're at the very least able to disrupt the play in a way that allows the cavalry to arrive.

Their ability to put out fires in the run game shows up in the advanced stats; PSU is 92nd in rushing success rate and 29th in isoPPP, which measures explosive plays. Meanwhile, PSU has only given up three passing plays of 20+ yards this season; I can only go by that to get a good read on their deep coverage thanks to Idiot BTN Director #2. Temple's long passing play in this game, as you'll see, was a combination of bad linebacker play and a terrible angle by Farmer, who was filling in at safety but as noted is now a linebacker.

OVERVIEW

Outside of Sickels, I wasn't impressed with Penn State's defensive line. The starting DTs are undersized—Kevin Givens is only 275, making Parker Cothren look relatively large at 295—and they're very boom-or-bust. Both have a tendency to try to knife past blockers instead of taking that on with very mixed results. These back-to-back plays are a good example. First, Givens blows through the right guard, but inexplicably takes himself out of the play once he's in the backfield, and the rest of PSU's line has been controlled by Temple; they're fortunate to stop this short of the sticks:

On the ensuing snap, Givens shoots a gap again, and this time he meets the ballcarrier in the backfield for a big stop:

Both Givens and Cothren are grading out positively on run defense according to PFF, but given Pitt's huge performance on the ground and what I saw from the Temple game, I'm skeptical that'll continue. PSU's stops tended to come from one guy making a good play or Temple's OL seriously screwing up. Most of the time, their D-line looked like they could be handled one-on-one, and that often meant LBs eating blocks at the second level:



not only is everyone singled up, there's an OL with nobody to block on the second level.

Meanwhile, Sickels looked like the only guy capable of generating organic pass-rush; backup DT Antoine White has graded out well in that regard but didn't do much in this game.

The linebackers, as you'd expect given the injuries, are a mixed bag at best. Cooper was mostly invisible unless a pass was going over his head in zone coverage. Bowen, the spacebacker PFF likes, is very fast but has a hard time controlling that speed and making stops, and he got worked in the screen game. He gets a free run at this receiver screen and can't even get a hand on the guy:

When he got blocked, he stayed blocked. Here's another screen; he's the defender locked up with a WR five yards downfield:

He didn't get off that block, and got lucky Temple's WR tried to set up blocks and allowed Cothran (#41, making a damn impressive play for a DT) to catch up in pursuit and hold this to an eight-yard gain.

The linebacker who most impressed me was the one I least expected: the walk-on MIKE, Brandon Smith, who had to take over for Wartman-White mid-game. He's only listed at 228 pounds but brought a load on his tackles, he's able to cover ground sideline-to-sideline, and he didn't have any noticeable errors in coverage. That can't be said for Cooper, who was the initial culprit on Temple's big pass play when he sucked up on a play-action fake and didn't come close to recovering:

He's responsible for the first 15 yards or so of that; the rest looks like it's on Farmer, the S-turned-SLB, taking a brutally bad angle from his zone in the middle of the field, but BTN was zoomed in and provided no useful replays so I can't be sure.

The corners look like they'll be a significant step down in competition from Colorado even if Haley is back and playing well. Corner John Reid, a former top-250 recruit, gave up a would-be touchdown bomb on a flea flicker where he stayed in decent position but didn't play the ball well—it came back on an unrelated Temple penalty. He allowed a first down by going for a shoulder-first kill-shot and whiffing entirely on an intermediate throw into a dangerously small window, and he also picked up a blantant and unnecessary holding call when he decided to bear-hug the slot receiver. He's good in run support; he looks vulnerable in coverage. Christian Campbell looked decent in coverage, but he's grading out at a rough -4.0 against the run.

While they didn't always take advantage, Temple had a lot of open receivers on short crossing routes; this PSU blitz hit home because Temple's center passed off a DT to nobody so he could chip the other DT, but look a the middle of the field:

Running mesh should produce good results. Temple also had success in the area over the linebackers's heads and in front of the safeties, and they were close to connecting on a long bomb over the top but the throw went awry.

PSU may boot Michigan off the field on some frustrating drives where aggressive D-linemen are able to catch the guards, er, off-guard and force negative plays. When that's not happening, Michigan should get good push on the ground, and De'Veon Smith can run through safety tackles much better than Temple's backs could. PSU gave up two touchdowns on jet sweeps inside the ten, so that staple of M's run game should provide a big play or three. Receiver screens look quite viable—in general, PSU looked weak on whatever edge didn't have Sickels—and there should be openings in the intermediate passing game, as well.

After going over this game in detail, I have a much better understanding of how Vegas landed on a M -19 spread. The offense is still plagued by horrible OL play, and the banged-up defense got run over by the only viable opponent they've faced.

Comments

J.

September 22nd, 2016 at 5:28 PM ^

I'm pretty sure you meant to add a picture of James Franklin in the coaching area, with a giant red circle surrounding him.

markusr2007

September 22nd, 2016 at 6:05 PM ^

and make a statement.

Penn State is going to load the box with 8+ just as UCF and Colorado did and force Michigan to throw against their secondary.

Michigan needs a big day from the OL and RBs Smith, Evans and Isaac.

Hopefully they run the ball with some authority this time.

 

 

Steves_Wolverines

September 22nd, 2016 at 6:33 PM ^

1) We win convincingly, rush for 200+ yards, pass for 200+ yards, cover the spread, and get a shutout on defense. (Michigan wins 55 - 0)

2) We win in a similar style to Colorado and UCF. We give up 4 big plays for scores, and struggle to get much going on the ground, but still win comfortably due to winning the TO and Special Teams battles. (Michigan win 38 - 24)

3) We struggle even worse than we did against Colorado, and win a tight one. Confidence hits an all time low, as our OL, QB, and S all look like glaring weaknesses, with no optimism for improvement. (Michigan wins 21 - 20)

4) We lose, and everything burns to the ground. (No prediction; not possible). 

getsome

September 22nd, 2016 at 6:42 PM ^

does garrett taylor play at all?

that dude givens has a nice first step (a la mo hurst), should be interesting to see #30 vs michigans OGs.  quickness is great and he could develop into a real player, he just needs to be careful bc hell get buried if a 300 pounder catches him under that swim move

M Ascending

September 23rd, 2016 at 10:00 AM ^

If we can't run this week, we will be in deep trouble with the likes of Wisconsin and State coming up.   Hopefully, the line can get its act together against an extremely weakened Pedo State defense.  Last year, we managed only 2.9 YPG against them in the running game. 

  While I am encouraged by the improvement in the outside running game, we continue to be unable to create holes up the middle, or for our backs to find them consistently when we do open one up. 

I think we will win this game fairly handily; but would prefer not to have to rely mainly on the passing game and jet sweeps.

 

Jon06

September 23rd, 2016 at 11:31 AM ^

I didn't clip anything from PSU's safeties, Malik Golden and Marcus Allen, but they're the team's two leading tacklers for reasons beyond the myriad injury issues. Both aggressively fill lanes against the run, and while they don't always make clean tackles—an issue last year—they're at the very least able to disrupt the play in a way that allows the cavalry to arrive.

I thought the safeties were the cavalry.