(paging Sharik) how do we defend the WR screens that killed us last year?

JT Floyd, et al. should not line up "in the parking lot."

On a similar note, I'm also wondering if someone can explain, briefly, the difference between Spur and Bandit.

The way I understand it, our FS (Gordon) is really our deep safety (lined up deep and in the middle of the field), and the Spur and Bandit (the other 2 safeties) play close to the line.  Is the only difference between them that 1 plays on the strong side, the other on the weakside?  Is that pretty much it or is there something else I'm missing?

The thing about zone is that we should always have guys in the general vicinity of the ball carrier, even if we blitz a guy or two.

The first thing that will help us is that we will have a guy (the spur) at the line to take on the blocker. The second thing is that the FS would shade to the strong side of the field on that play, which would then allow for the CB to play a bit closer to the line, but not quite as close as the spur. Third, the SLB (or MLB if the SLB is blitzing) will be moving that direction anyway to cover the curl zone.

Essentially, you are moving two guys closer to the line and your FS and a LB are moving closer to the play as well. Go watch the spring game and look to see how the defense lines up against unbalanced WR sets. That should answer a lot of your questions/concerns about the defense.

We need to visualize and attack

They're trying not to get beat deep.  Looking that alignment, it looks like they're playing man cover 1.

The Sam is coming in on a blitz.  The Mike and Will are running themselves out of the play following the RB outside.  Mike Williams is coming up to support against the run, which is puzzling because its a 2 step drop with no ball fake.  Maybe he's coming in on an overload blitz.

Anyways, the corners have only 1 safety to help them, so they're just trying not to get burnt.

As a sidenote - what exactly was this defensive call trying to accomplish?? Both DBs on the bottom half of the screen are 8-10 yards off the line and immediately start backpedaling.

We didn't want to give up the deep ball.  

that is the job of the Spur or Bandit.  The Spur and the Bandit will line up outside of the LBS, but closer to the line than the CBs or LBs.  Thus, the Spur and the Bandit should have the underneath coverages on the flanks and the CBs will be dropping to medium deep on the outside.  In the play the OP embedded, either the Spur or the Bandit would have responsibility for the man who caught the ball, and the CB would have the other reciever who went deeper.  This, of course, assumes that Spur/Bandit doesn't bite hard on the run fake and run himself out of position.  Am I right about this?

I don't know what happens when a team lines up trips to one side or we blitz.  I guess that the deep safety becomes invovled in coverage (and we all pray that no one gets toasted.)

Getting killed on the screen pass last year against Sparty isn't as fresh in memory as getting killed on wide open passes against Iowa the following week.  Iowa converted nearly every one of their 3rd and long plays.  And there were many.  3rd and 15, 3rd and 20, 3rd and 25, they got them all with shocking ease; 20 yards, 30 yards, even a 40 yard TD on one.  In a game that ended 30-28, if we make at least one or two stops on 3rd down, that game ends differently.

Those kinds of plays hurt.  But when the opponent makes it look they could do it blindfolded, you feel like pulling your hair out. 

I'm wondering how we can stop those [WR screens].

The best way to take away either a bubble screen (what the video showed) or a rocket screen (which is thrown to the outside WR and the slot blocks) is to play 3 over 2.  Basically this would mean having an overhang player, a half/quarter safety, and a corner to the side of the 2 WR set.  However, this would likely take a defender out of the box.

Saban has all his DBs key QB first for quick throws like these screens and basic 3-step routes like hitch, slant, quick out, and fade.  He also has the DBs shuffle step for 3 steps (which it looks like our guys were doing) so they can drive on the throw more quickly.

I believe the best coverage against a bubble or rocket screen is Cover 2 Read.  While similar to Cover 2 in that the corner has the flat, in Cover 2 Read the deep safety would be quicker to react to the bubble route of #2.  (This is why Texas liked the rocket screen, b/c the slot receiver attacks vertically at the snap.)

As a sidenote - what exactly was this defensive call trying to accomplish??

We were playing what Saban calls "the best defense in football:" Cover 1 (aka man-free).  In cover 1 you're strong against the run, have all routes covered (assuming your DBs lock down the receivers), and are strong up the middle against the pass with LB help in the low hole (crossing routes, hooks, checkdowns) and FS help in the deep middle.  

The down and distance was 2nd and 10 they were on our 29 yard line.  I'm sure the coaches were expecting run and loaded the box in doing so. 

This year, if we are playing Cover 3 concepts, I would hope we play them like Saban.  This would mean the corner would have aligned outside the #1 WR  (since the #1 WR is aligned inside the numbers) at a depth of 7 yards and quickly attacked downhill upon reading the step-and-throw of the QB.  Also, instead of meekly avoiding the block of the WR (as Warren pitifully did in the clip), the corner will attack the block of #1 with his outside leverage, thus making the slot cut inside to the rest of the defense.  The overhang player (Spur or Bandit) and free safety in the middle of the field will also quickly read the step-and-throw and get in proper pursuit angles.  The remaining defenders should see ball thrown and run to the ball in proper pursuit angles (which were very poor in the clip).

The bottom line is this: if we're in some sort of Cover 3 concept or man coverage with off man (as opposed to press), a properly exectued bubble or rocket screen is an easy 4-yard gain, minimum.

If we're zone blitzing, we don't have to play 3 deep or man behind it.  At Milford in 2008, in the 2nd half of the season we played a lot of 2-deep, 4-under behind our 5-man pressures.  I greatly prefer this b/c QBs are taught to go to hot routes against blitz, which usually means a quick throw underneath, and 2-deep is much better suited to take this away than 3-deep.

What's the matter with you? Is this what you've become, a Hollywood finocchio who cries like a woman? "Oh, what do I do? What do I do?" What is that nonsense? Ridiculous!

This is a safe call.  I mentioned it earlier, but I don't think the coaches trusted the cornerbacks - and they probably didn't trust the safeties, either.  They wanted to keep everything in front of them and essentially be a "bend but don't break" defense.

One way to defend this would be to roll into a Cover 2 defense.  Woolfolk could take a deep half and Warren could take a deep half, with Floyd sitting down in the flat.

Another way to defend it would be to play press man coverage, although like I said, the coaches didn't trust the defensive backs in man coverage.

As someone else said, this was a good call by MSU.  They took advantage of the defense's weakness.

MSU scored fewer points than all of our Big Ten opponents.  While frustrating on a play by play basis, this strategy is fine with me.  Much better than what happened in many other games.