So last November

SO LAST NOVEMBER Michigan's #1 defense was eviscerated by Ryan Day and Urban Meyer. Mostly what happened was Michigan's Cover 1 system was badly exposed against Indiana with crossing routes, and Ohio State copied what the Hoosiers did the previous week. IU showed you could double-team Winovich and Gary and get away with it because Michigan's DTs weren't going to win the 1-on-1 battles that created. That gave their quarterback enough time to find their receivers on crossing routes that exploited the lack of speed of some of Michigan's defenders. It worked for IU until Michigan was expecting it and ratcheted up the pressure. It worked for Ohio State because there were speed matchups like Brandon Watson vs. Parris Campbell/KJ Hill/Chris Olave and JK Dobbins/Parris Campbell vs Devin Gil that vastly favored the Buckeyes, and Michigan's five-man pressures couldn't get home before those came into play.

I thought all offseason about showing what happened and why, but couldn't bring myself to do so. Bad enough that it happened; what's the point of talking about it if there's no way to fix it? I'm bringing this up now because Michigan just played another offense—one with a receiver on par with those at Ohio State—that wanted to run mesh plays with elite speed, was able to protect their quarterback, and yet got virtually nothing. I'm not talking about a patch—doing something unsound to stop Mesh is a good way to get your defense torched by all the other things. Michigan now has multiple responses to crossing routes from a multiple-looking defense. I know it's still early—no sports fan should ever have to go through The Rehabilitation of Urban Meyer twice—and there's no shame in not wanting to face it again. But if you're ready, I'll show you what I think happened, and why it's not happening anymore.

[After THE JUMP: Crossing routes. The bad ones.]

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Preparing for Pain

So this was the first indication that something was broken about Michigan's base Cover 1. Watch what happens to #28 Brandon Watson, who starts on the bottom of the screen.

That's a legal pick from the tight end, and creates enough space the receiver to open a gap on Watson. You run these pick plays if you're pretty sure of getting man coverage, and against Michigan that was nearly a guarantee, especially when the front started getting weird. A lot of guys flip around before the play but ultimately there are four pass rushers, a linebacker to relate to the running back, an overhang safety for insurance, and everybody else in man coverage. I want you to note something else: Watson is set up outside of his receiver, while Hill and Long are on top of or even shaded a bit inside.

How you align over a receiver will determine what sorts of routes you have an advantage over. Last year Michigan was aligning anybody they didn't want faded with outside leverage. Of course if you're cheating to the fade you're giving up a step on every inside route, like a drag or a slant. Here that's true for Watson.

Brandon Watson is good at jams but limited by speed. That's one mark against him. He also set up in an anti-fade stance: two marks. Then they ran a tight end across his face: three marks. And then Michigan used a five-man pressure, losing the gamble that their blitz with Devin Bush would make up for the lack of Devin Bush in the middle. Four marks: big play.

This led to a season-long tradeoff battle: leave an extra linebacker in coverage to help on these disadvantaged DBs, or keep the pressure on and hope to get to the quarterback before the long-developing route has a chance to get halfway across the field. Most of the time Michigan opted to leave the LBs in coverage, which nerfed the LBs' pass rush and saw Bush's and Hudson's TFL rates plummet. Occasionally, such as in this instance, they gambled on pressure and left the middle open.

As long as you're in man coverage, the offense can play rock, paper, scissors against the matchups they choose. That won't matter if you're consistently generating pressure, or (as is the case with Ohio State) all of your DBs are better athletes than the receivers they're lining up across from and can just play it straight. Here, "recruit better!" guy gets to nod his head and ignore conditions that are favorable to certain schools and unfavorable to others in that department. Those of us with more useful brains can move on to reality, and how to try to win in it.

But first we're going to lose. Lose everything. Prepare for rock bottom.

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This Is Going to Hurt

Here's what Ohio State loves to run, so much that this image is directly from our 2018 Hail to the Victors preview of OSU:

They have variations but it's a strong take on a base play everybody runs. Mesh uses multiple receivers crossing each other to rub off man coverage. If it finds zone coverage, the crossing receivers can just stop and sit between the zones. Ryan Day picked up this tweak from Oregon, where there's a back on a wheel route to remove a linebacker from the middle, and a hook route (that's often run as a simple pick) to hold the remaining coverage away from the crossers.

Now let's backtrack to Indiana and Watson's marks and add one more: Chris Olave, a highly coveted four-star Michigan lost out on to Ohio State, is much faster than Brandon Watson, a low 3-star jam specialist Brady Hoke thought might be converted into a Cover 2 safety when many other options were already off the board.

Outside leverage vs inside release ✔, Picked by a TE ✔, Watson has bad speed ✔, Chris Olave has good speed ✔, Linebacker erased by pressure that doesn't get to QB ✔. Five bad marks. Disaster. Baby-eating Buckeyes just took half of France.

So what do you do here? You can change the leverage, but then fades are dangerous again. Here's what happened when we tried that:

Watson here is playing Olave straight up, and Olave straight-up wins off the snap, baiting Watson into thinking he's got to haul ass for an inside release before stepping outside and putting distance between them. Behind by over a yard, Watson can only guess where Olave and the ball are going, giving Olave time to adjust to a ball thrown well inside.

Maybe you can fix the pick? Next time Ohio State bunched up receivers like this Michigan had Watson stick with the guy coming inside on motion. Even the Mesh pick doesn't matter because Watson's outside leverage✔ has him a step behind, and his –1 speed✔ is dominated by KJ Hill's elite +2 speed✔✔. Also: five-man pressure✔ doesn't get there.

Watson wasn't the only guy picked on. Ohio State used KJ Hill and DeMario McCall and Parris Campbell, all +2 speedsters, against Michigan on crossing routes.

On this one Devin Gil had inside leverage, but gave it up by reading the cut✔ too slowly, and the TE pick✔ forced him to cede a yard upfield to avoid, and then his speed deficiency✔ relative to McCall came into play, and then so did his tackling ability✔ versus McCall's running back-ish grind-out with a linebacker on his foot. Michigan's five-man pressure✔ again couldn't make it to the quarterback versus the extra-wide splits they used to give their pass setters an extra half a second to ID the pressure.

It didn't work half as well when they attacked more even matchups. Here's a version of the play that beat Watson a moment ago run by David Long (versus Johnnie Dixon) instead:

The initial pick is dealt with by the "travel" call, but Long has outside leverage✔, and Dixon has + speed✔, and the six(!!!)-man pressure✔ gets nowhere because the DTs can barely cross the line of scrimmage and the RB and TE sacrificed half of their routes to provide chips on Michigan's good edge rushers, but guess what: Long has +2 speed and ball skills , and even a perfect throw by Haskins gets PBU'd.

This was OSU's offense all year, taking advantage of their speed checkmarks by running crossing routes, protecting the quarterback with five-man protections, and getting their yards on YAC. It's a great system if you've got the guys, just like Michigan's Cover 1 is devastatingly effective with a bunch of David Longs and Maurice Hursts running around. But if your cornerback can't make up the space from outside leverage on in-breaking routes, and you can't give him LB help because your interior pass rush sucks, and leaving him heads up means he has to commit penalties to stay alive, either you're a Michigan opponent who can just get away with that, or you're going to die:

Notice again Ohio State committed to doubling inside moves from Gary and Winovich/extra blitzers, giving up any chance of a play from their TE or RB. Haskins can afford to step up because the DTs are losing one-on-one battles with interior line. Even Winovich's excellent outside rush can only brush Haskins a second too late. And because he's so terrified of getting beat inside, Watson can no longer align to dominate a simply fly route on 3rd and forever. He has to hold, quite obviously, and gets flagged.

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Answers: Answered

So if you're locked into a speed disadvantage (for whatever reason—I don't know why Ambry didn't replace Watson either), and you're not getting pressure even with five guys, and your coverage is getting picked or messed with by routes of guys not getting the ball designed to mess with the guy covering where the ball goes, you have to abandon your base. In this case if your defenders can't cover a man, have them cover a zone.

And Michigan did have a zone counter. It was Don Brown's old Trap 2 coverage. This coverage has the cornerbacks slide inside off the snap while the safeties take instantly outside breaking routes. This looks like man coverage for a second if you're just watching the corners as they go with the in-breaking routes, but then it snaps to Cover 2: trap!

This structure was a substantial part of Brown's defenses in Boston College, UConn, and Maryland. Theoretically it should surprise a quarterback expecting to run his mesh against Cover 1. You look for the RB wheel but a cornerback is breaking over it. You look for the first crosser but the linebacker is there to cut it off. You go to the hook and the free safety is coming down on it, and now you're on read 3 which is not where you want to be against any team with a half-decent pass rush, especially since you're playing five-on-five up front.

But 2018 Michigan was mostly a tourist in Cover 2 land. They ran their base 80 percent of the time because their base worked against 80% of all comers. So when they went to their trap coverage, guys didn't get to their zones. Here's David Long, now a very good NFL cornerback, setting up with inside leverage against Binjamin Victor, which is asking for a fade route. He gets the fade route.

But Michigan is running its Trap coverage. Long's zone is the flat, and the free safety is supposed to be providing support over the top. But he can't, because that safety has a slot receiver also going vertical and that takes precedence. Now, Iowa runs Cover 2 like Michigan runs Cover 1. They know all the vagaries of it. They live, eat and breathe Cover 2 like it's corn, tight end outs, traffic cones, punts, puns, or tide pods. If you're Iowa, you know if you're a Cover 2 cornerback and the slot receiver is going vertical you've just been drafted into Cover 4 duty and need to stay on your receiver. Long has probably been told this and practiced it a few times, but he's not writing the travel guide. And in the heat of the moment—a very brief one—he stops and lets the receiver get that fade that was already being baited by Long's pre-snap alignment.

Neither was ol' reliable Josh Metellus immune to Cover 2 gaffes. Ohio State checked into this next play. It's Mills, an old Steve Spurrier favorite that you'll most fondly recall as that 3rd and forever pass to Chesson against Indiana in 2015. It's a very good Cover 2 beater, because you're putting a deep crossing route across the safety's face while a post route sneaks behind him. Practiced Cover 2 safeties recognize this and stay back to deter the deep pass. Metellus was not one.

Again, note that both DEs are getting flat-out double-teamed. That leaves the DTs in one-on-one battles that they're losing. While Chris Ash stayed one step ahead of Don Brown all day, the big battle was won when one Buckeye lineman could plant one Michigan DT on the line of scrimmage and keep him there, wracking up the ✔s.

It's fair to question why guys like Ambry Thomas, whose light has gone one this year, or Aubrey Solomon, who charted effectively when deployed previously, weren't on the field. But Michigan's in this season without a DT who's lighting anything up consistently, and is using Vincent Gray and people behind him whenever Ambry or Hill need a break, and are probably going there full time next year. So they need something they can do consistently that isn't going to expose these guys. And they have to know it like they know their base.

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Defending Crossing Routes With Switching

We saw one method Don Brown uses against crossing routes last year, weeks before the Ohio State game, when Northwestern was getting too crazy with their slant routes and Brown broke out the switching. Watch what Metellus and Kinnel do on this one:

See how Metellus bails and gets replaced by Kinnel in the above? Don Brown was asked about this on that podcast he did last summer, and explained when he makes the call (e.g. when the tight end is flexed outside) to have a switch ready, and how it's executed. You can listen at 59:39 at this link. The key comment, regarding how he plays it in his "City" (Cover 1) system is that sometimes they're going to [pattern] match, i.e. switch, and it's up to the defenders to communicate that to each other. In the Northwestern instance, Metellus has a call to yell at Kinnel.

For the first time this season Michigan was going against an offense with talent approximating what Ohio State enjoys. Specifically they have KJ "Speedy Eaglet" Hamler at slot receiver, the closest thing in the conference to a Parris Campbell or KJ Hill in breakaway speed and handling. On their first drive PSU took Hamler out of the garage, and Michigan ran the switch.

It's the same thing against Penn State from the two-high look: Hill is going to get stuck so he calls out and Hawkins takes over.

You can see Penn State's trying to get the Indiana/Ohio State thing going with Hamler. The tight end's fade route isn't dangerous with Hudson set up over it (barring some OPI or something), but it's supposed to create traffic for Hill. Brown's response is to have Hill flip jobs with Hawkins. It ends up looking a little like their Trap but this isn't a zone coverage—it's Cover 2 man play—but it's got switches built into it. Hawkins then has a clean path to Hamler, who senses zone because there's nobody on his tail, slows up to preserve runway, and doesn't see Hawkins until it's almost 4th down.

In this instance Hawkins was an extra defender bought by having just four guys rushing. In Cover 1 that middle zone defender is called a "Rat" because he's kind of sneaking around ready to snatch whatever morsel shows. Brown also uses "Pup" for this guy, because he's bound to go chasing whatever fun or interesting thing shows up. It's really just an extra zone defender in the middle who seems special because blitzy teams that run a lot of man coverage aren't used to having more than one extra guy in coverage.

Also note which guys are doing the rushing: Paye, Danna, Hutchinson, and Uche: three defensive ends and an LB/DE hybrid. There's no Kemp or Mone here, and the stunt is a gambit to force a throw by the time Paye gets around it.

Of course there's a downside to this: you're using your deep safety to come down on a crossing route, meaning another defensive back—the one who started the play thinking he was taking a crossing route, is now your deep cover guy. This almost bit us in the ass when Penn State converted that hook to a fly route. Watch Brad Hawkins, #20, the safety lineup on the bottom hash across from Hamler.

Metellus called the switch and came down on Hamler, but Hawkins didn't get deep. Rule of thumb in coverage: if you go bonk with a teammate, someone's in the wrong spot.

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Cut Call (aka Walling)

Another trick in the Brown playbook with that extra pass defender is to have him come down and interrupt the mesh by standing in the way. I learned it as walling, but I believe Michigan calls it a "CUT!" call because "Wall to Wall" or "Wall #3 to Hole" are different linebacker instructions, and there's this from the BC 2013 playbook I have my hands on:

We saw it used against Penn State the next time they tried to shake Speedy Eaglet loose with a pick and mesh. Watch McGrone, #44 in the middle here.

Ope.

Again this is a kind of switch based on spotting the crossing route. The linebacker's job is to find the low route (not hard when it's a TE and Hamler) and get in the way. If you listen carefully I think you can even pick up McGrone yelling "CUT!" and Metellus repeating it as he gets some additional depth. Unfortunately the pass rush didn't keep lane integrity, but at least the play call was killed.

This too has a downside. The walling defender is coming way down in his zone, and that will leave space open behind him.

You would like one of those deep zone defenders to convert to a hole defender when that happens, and yes, that's the plan according to that podcast linked above. The guy I believe is responsible is Vincent Gray, who was on the crossing route a the beginning, and has two defenders bracketing Hamler behind him.

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Lining Up with Inside Leverage

They need to stop doing this. The long shot over Ambry Thomas to Jahan Dotson and the long TD in the first half to Hamler when he beat Hawkins were both examples.

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Plain Old Cover 2

So the big thing this year is Michigan has developed another base defense. They can play Cover 2 now, and don't actually screw it up too badly. The nice thing about having both is a passing offense expecting one that gets the other will tend to run its receivers toward zone defenders, providing no throwing options. We got a great view of this on one replay, when Michigan ran its first Cover 2 zone.

Note that Hamler is alone for a half second in the middle of the field, but realizes too late that this is because he's running into a zone. By the time he downshifts a throw to him would be in range for Hudson to pick off.

Against a zone, teams that run a lot of crossing routes will teach their receivers to find zones and cut off their routes, sitting down between defenders where the quarterback should be able to find them. But football's a fast game, and if you're not expecting zone you're not in the mindset when running this route of "find some grass." You're booking it to use your speed to dust your man coverage.

The downside of Cover 2 is there always be holes in it. But if Michigan can bring out all of these tricks and execute them correctly, at least we won't have to watch them get eviscerated by Ohio State's favorite play again.