Zone Blitz??

Submitted by Ziff72 on

It hit me the other day that I recalled from Spring we were installing all of these zone blitz packages and Tate was struggling with it, but they were just letting it go because he had to learn at some point and they needed to install the defense as well. I don't recall us using the zone blitz much this year. I would think with all of our issues with coverage especially the linebackers this would be our most effective pass defense.

Get Obi and Jonas to use their athleticism attacking the QB and get them out of coverage, get our db's off their islands where their athleticism can't be exploited as much and hopefully confuse the qb into a bad read/throw because we can't cover anyone and cut down on the big plays.

What do you guys think??

Blue McMaize

October 27th, 2009 at 7:45 PM ^

I've thought at times this year, if we cant cover people with only rushing 3 or 4, why not just blitz the hell out of teams since we cant cover too well anyways. I think it would be a good idea if our LB's were playing well and were good at blitzing. I think we saw that the coaches are getting a little tired of Obi's play by benching him and going with Fitzgerald. It will be interesting to see how much Ezeh plays this week at Illinois.

Ziff72

October 27th, 2009 at 8:08 PM ^

Not sure what you mean, but I'm not proposing we sell out blitz. We do that plenty to varying levels of success. The zone blitz is very safe to huge plays, it's biggest weakness is getting the big guys isolted in space where a quick route can be turned into a 15-20yd gainer vs the 8 man blitz where Moeaki is wide open.

NJWolverine

October 27th, 2009 at 8:16 PM ^

Starting in the Iowa game, where the blitzes were moderately successful, there have been more all out blitzes. Problem last week as that they were total failures. Even with 8 there was hardly any pressure on Clark. The problem with the LBs is that they can't cover or get to the QB. They can only stop power runs.

Double Nickel BG

October 27th, 2009 at 7:55 PM ^

are useful sometimes. If the opponent figures out where to expect the blitz to come from, its easy to exploit for big plays. This also means that when we bring pressure, we absolutely have to get home or the zones we are covering get really wide. Zone blitzing teams usually have alot of very fast players that can cover alot of area in little time, which I'm not sure we can do consistently this year.

Ziff72

October 27th, 2009 at 8:05 PM ^

I agree with most of what you said but RVB and Roh can't be much worse than Obi and Mouton in coverage. The split second of indecision from the qb could help Graham and company get there. We can't give up any bigger plays than we are already doing.

Smelling Roses

October 27th, 2009 at 11:50 PM ^

I'm sure we can add it to our 3rd and long package next to the "Line up all my blitzers off of one edge pre-snap and send the house" blitz package we've mastered. But, you have to be able to tackle in space in order to run these effectively, and effectively blitz. I don't think we meet either criteria.

tybert

October 27th, 2009 at 11:56 PM ^

Watch the 1st wide-open Moeaki TD, you'll see Williams (#40) delays his blitz. He is assigned to cover the TE. The TE delays and waits until the 40 runs by. Better to stay out and look at the TE and go whereever he goes. Brown was free on the blitz and would have got to Stanzi within 2-3 more seconds if Williams stays put.

I'm not sure if Williams was coached to look for the TE delay and blew it or whether our D staff is clueless.

The 2nd TE TD was a massive breakdown by the team. 2 TEs were actually open.

Smelling Roses

October 28th, 2009 at 6:00 PM ^

That was a "Dog Blitz," (Why it needs a name other than man blitz is beyond me) which is basically what you described, a blitz where you're assigned to a defender. The reason Williams blitzed is because he is coached to do so. Say you've sent a blitz with 6 players, you're expecting to run into 5 blockers, but now if a tight end stays in, its back to 6 on 6, and you've given up a deep safety for nothing. He had to keep the numbers advantage, he just got burned because Robinson is predictable, Iowa scouted that tendency on 3rd down.

michiganfanforlife

October 28th, 2009 at 12:20 AM ^

will burn you when you blitz. If that play above was a zone dog, they would have most likely dropped some defensive lineman into the shallow zones. This wouldn't have stopped nfl bound Moeaki streaking down the seam. It looks like a hot read to me, and both QB & TE read blitz bigtime.

There are many instances that fans think the coaches just call bad plays.(I do it too...) Your strategy depends on the players who attempt to excecute it. If the guys don't show the blitz so early, then Iowa doesn't go to the hot read. Players play, and our defense is young and inexperienced. They're still a hell of a lot more fun to watch this year.

**edit** I just watched it again, and Moeaki pretends to block before he releases up the field. It WAS a pre-determined play and not an audible. I was wrong yet again...

michiganfanforlife

October 28th, 2009 at 9:31 AM ^

Steve's breakdown wasn't out last night, and I did watch the game. It actually took me until the 4th or 5th time to see that it was a well designed play. The fact that they called that play against our heavy blitz was fortunate. It still doesn't mean that our defensive playcalling is bad. I would still contend that the youth & inexperience at safety is hurting us just like it did all last year.