Fee Fi Foe Film: Air Force Defense
Previously: Air Force Offense
LB Grant Ross is Air Force's only returning defensive starter.
Under Troy Calhoun and defensive coordinator Steve Russ, Air Force has devised a defense intended to turn opponents into the polar opposite of Air Force. The Falcon offense, as covered yesterday, is designed to be as efficient as possible, moving the ball in chunks on the ground with only the occasional big-play attempt through the air.
To complement that offense, AF fields a hyper-aggressive defense hell-bent on stopping the run, generating sacks and turnovers, and forcing the offense to rely on big passing plays while under heavy duress.
This makes for some crazy numbers. The Falcons had the #9 rush defense and #99 pass defense by S&P+ last year. They ranked 26th in success rate (a measure of efficiency) and 124th in isoPPP (a measure of explosive plays). They were 15th in preventing plays of 10+ yards (152) and 119th in preventing plays of 20+ yards (76).
I revisited last year's game against Boise State for this post, and BSU's drive chart is a good demonstration of what can happen when this defense is clicking. After BSU broke a big run on their opening drive to set up a short touchdown, AF loaded up the box, brought a ton of heat, and knocked the Broncos off schedule. Their drives:
- 2 plays, 60 yards (56 on one run), touchdown
- 6 plays, 20 yards, punt
- 3 plays, 2 yards, punt
- 3 plays, 5 yards, punt
- 3 plays, 0 yards, punt (blocked for AF TD)
- 4 plays, 10 yards, punt
- 8 plays, 59 yards (43 on one pass), field goal
- 3 plays, 6 yards, punt
- 11 plays, 78 yards (57 on one pass), field goal
- 3 plays, -4 yards, punt
- 1 play, 75-yard touchdown pass
- 6 plays, 89 yards (passes of 39 and 47 yards), fumble on 4th-and-goal
Air Force successfully made Boise State into a big-play-or-bust outfit, and while it got a little hairy at the end, it resulted in a 27-20 upset win.
Personnel: Seth's diagram [click to embiggen]:
Yes, that's one returning starter. There's a reason this post focuses entirely on scheme. Since I watched a game from last season and Air Force's week one opponent this year was a very overmatched VMI squad, we didn't hand out any stars or sore spots.
Base Set? Air Force lists themselves as a 3-4 but this is really a 3-3-5, what with the 263-pound nose tackle and 205-pound outside linebacker. They make up for their lack of size by loading the box with eight or nine guys on most snaps:
That's a safety lined up two yards off the LOS to the top of the screen and the free safety is creeping within seven yards at the snap even though he's responsible for the deep middle.
[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the breakdown.]
Man or zone coverage? Mostly cover one, with man across the board and a deep safety in the middle of the field. They played quite a bit of press in this game, which threw off Boise State's timing enough that they missed some open receivers. Their goal is to speed the quarterback up with pressure and force quick, tough throws. This puts a lot of pressure on their corners to hold up in coverage and also asks a lot of their safeties. Watch #8, lined up as essentially an extra linebacker on the near hash, hang in there for the run fake before bailing into his zone just in time to get under an otherwise open route:
They got into trouble when playing off coverage, most notably on the 75-yard second-half touchdown. The corner to the bottom of the screen fakes a blitz, backs out, and gets burned to a crisp on a simple post route:
There will be times when Wilton Speight doesn't have an open receiver before the blitz hits home; there will also be times when he has a touchdown handed to him so long as he gets through his progression in time. Taking advantage of those opportunities is the key to keeping this from being a hold-onto-your-butts experience.
Pressure: GERG or Greg? You can guess by now. Air Force isn't going to fool you much on the back end, but they'll make life hard for the guys up front with myriad blitzes from their linebackers and safeties. This is a typical passing down:
Cover one, five rushers attacking at the snap, one more coming on a delay when the back stays in to block. The Falcons like to send delayed blitzers when their assigned man doesn't go into a route, so their pressure often comes in waves—that won't give Speight much time to shake off a rusher, reset, and still get a throw off downfield. The offensive line and backs will need to pick up a lot of different blitz looks; last week's twists that initially befuddled the right side of the line was good practice.
OVERVIEW
This defense is dead simple: man across the board with a deep safety who may not be very deep at all, aggressively stop the run, gun for sacks and turnovers to even out the inevitable big plays.
I'm expecting Jim Harbaugh to try to overpower a small Air Force front, at least initially. That may not be so easy despite M's physical advantage, however, as AF will throw as many bodies as necessary into the box to keep their opponent from establishing the run. Sometimes they'll get caught in the wash or overpursue and open up cutback lanes, which happened on Boise's very first carry of the game:
The issue for Boise was sustaining that success. Their running back covered 56 yards on that carry; his other 21 carries netted 32 yards. Air Force played very sound, aggressive run defense, daring Boise to try shots over top.
Those weren't particularly easy to hit because Boise couldn't consistently keep the pocket clean; while BSU didn't allow a sack, pressure impacted several throws. It didn't help that either the QB or WR was slightly off on a few quick-hitting slants that could've gone for big plays; one throw was flat missed, while another couple were dropped.
Michigan should be in better position to hit those big plays. Here's an instance when Air Force overcommitted to a play-action fake and had to take an obvious holding call to prevent a tight end from running free up the seam for a probable touchdown:
You can see the whole dang defense step up on the run fake. That isn't an accident, that's how Air Force plays; their safeties were usually pretty good at stepping up and then bailing out if it was a pass. The safety's second false step here is what opens up the seam. Notably, Air Force has an entirely new secondary and lost a couple quality safeties in Brodie Hicks and WESTON STEELHAMMER. There will be busts.
This matchup is a little tough to predict since Air Force turns over almost literally their entire defense, but this can go three ways.
- Despite Air Force's best efforts, Michigan grinds out a decent running game anyway. If this happens, it'll be a blowout.
- Air Force successfully slows the run by overcommitting but in doing so allows a series of big plays through the air. Michigan wins comfortably.
- Air Force successfully slows the run by overcommitting and Michigan fans tear their hair out as Speight isn't accurate enough to take advantage and/or the line is overwhelmed by the constant pressure. Hold onto your butts.
Given Michigan's sheer size and talent advantage, I'm inclined to think the first two possibilities are the most likely, but we unfortunately can't rule out #3 given Speight's (and the OL's) uneven start to the season. Even if Speight is off, however, I believe Harbaugh and Co. will scheme up enough quick-hitters to M's superior athletes to put a healthy number of points on the board. Air Force plays with fire by design; that's a tough way to live against a coach who can adjust as well as Harbaugh.
September 14th, 2017 at 2:09 PM ^
Michigan's WR's are going to be running by these defensive backs all game long.
September 14th, 2017 at 2:19 PM ^
+1 Black Crawford and Peoples-Jones will run right past the defense if they play up like that
September 14th, 2017 at 7:43 PM ^
"Black Crawford" is one of my favorite pirates.
September 14th, 2017 at 2:24 PM ^
but Speight still has to get the ball to them, and by his own admission, most of his isues this season have been when he's been facing pressure and he forgets his footwork and doesn't keep his base correct.
AF's D-line could be just the type of pressure to cause him to have an off-game unless they've been really working with him to correct.
Not to mention AF has had two full weeks to prep for us.
Fucking Dave Brandon.....*bites fingernails*
September 14th, 2017 at 2:14 PM ^
I can picture Perry and Schonele/Martin carving up this defense with quick cut routes and ample space behind the LBs
September 14th, 2017 at 2:41 PM ^
September 14th, 2017 at 2:14 PM ^
Kind of sounds like UCF's strategy last year.
Pray they don't outhit us in this one too!
September 14th, 2017 at 3:06 PM ^
Thats exactly what it is, but they do it against everyone. Better than the old, bend but don't break and hope for a mistake strategy they employed earlier.
September 14th, 2017 at 2:15 PM ^
This is the game for Speight to start hitting some fade routes. With our massive talent advantage at WR and Air Force's aggressive secondary play, they'll be open all day.
September 14th, 2017 at 2:21 PM ^
Yep. I say we just have him hit that 45 yard deep shot TD all game long. It seems to be the play the likes to start the scoring off with this year. Let's just keep it rolling through the entire game this time. We can switch up the WRs, even. 1st one to DPJ, next up Perry, then Zack Gentry and so on.
September 14th, 2017 at 2:17 PM ^
with linebackers named Ross?
September 14th, 2017 at 2:20 PM ^
Seems like this type of defense would be a good one for the offense to face, given they see Don Brown's aggressive scheme every day in practice. Hopefully the passing game is clicking on Saturday.
September 14th, 2017 at 2:23 PM ^
If it's going to be a game that allows Speight to throw several 40+ yard passes downfield, I think our offense will enjoy playing against this aggressive D. Speight's most comfortable throws (by far) have been the longest ones to Black, Eubanks and Crawford.
September 14th, 2017 at 2:22 PM ^
run Gentry on a bunch of Go and Post routes and let him score a couple TD's.
September 14th, 2017 at 2:23 PM ^
I thought that was something you picked up in the tool section at Sears? Hey Honey, for Father's Day I want that new steel hammer by Weston. Or he could be a Marvel Comics superhero. It's one or the other.
September 14th, 2017 at 2:48 PM ^
September 14th, 2017 at 4:44 PM ^
September 14th, 2017 at 2:26 PM ^
Is this where we feature some jet sweeps and screens to take advantage of their compressed-in-the-box attack? Those would seem to take some of the timing issues out of the picture.
Whatever the answer is, I've got a lot of confidence in our coaches to figure out how to exploit Air Force's defense. It's their (literally) crippling offense that has me worried more.
September 14th, 2017 at 2:32 PM ^
Would love to know how AF lines up when an opponent goes 5 wide, as we seem to like to do that lately.
September 14th, 2017 at 3:17 PM ^
This play they had 3 press, 1 play off, and 1 deep safety. Rushed 5 with a LB dropping into coverage.
September 14th, 2017 at 2:39 PM ^
Two tight ends and three receivers in the pattern. Let our athletes get open and max protect Speight. Could be fun.
September 14th, 2017 at 2:44 PM ^
will be used at least once this week. along with a double reverse. count on it.
September 14th, 2017 at 4:07 PM ^
I hope you're right because those are fun to watch, but do you have any particular reason why? Both are long developing plays and from what I just read AF tries to bring extra guys pretty quickly.
September 14th, 2017 at 4:43 PM ^
September 14th, 2017 at 2:46 PM ^
This would be a good time to work on the quick passing game with all our WRs and TEs. Might also be a good time to throw to Evans out in the flat against one-on-one coverage.
September 14th, 2017 at 3:11 PM ^
September 14th, 2017 at 3:26 PM ^
If he keeps this up, swap Hill's star for him. I love the hammering Panda, but he splits snaps evenly with Poggi, and he has barely touched the ball on O.
September 14th, 2017 at 3:14 PM ^
Paging Mr. Gentry. Mr. Gentry please.
You are wanted at aisle 6' 7".
September 14th, 2017 at 3:20 PM ^
September 14th, 2017 at 5:21 PM ^
of 2 reasons.
Mind your footwork Wilton, step up and throw TDs all day!
September 14th, 2017 at 3:20 PM ^
September 14th, 2017 at 3:38 PM ^
Doesn't, like, every successful offensive game plan depend on the QB to be an accurate passer? At least to some degree?
September 14th, 2017 at 3:56 PM ^
September 14th, 2017 at 7:17 PM ^
September 14th, 2017 at 3:30 PM ^
Maybe I am just a flippant butt anus man but I can't fathom our running game being shut down when Khalid Hill is larger than their entire front seven. They are going to need a ton of +3 RPS plays on those blitzes.
September 14th, 2017 at 4:45 PM ^
September 14th, 2017 at 4:43 PM ^
September 14th, 2017 at 7:15 PM ^
September 14th, 2017 at 4:44 PM ^
This game will see Speight put up numbers and the haters will still fall back on the fact that he hasn't done it against a good defense. #navarresyndrome
September 14th, 2017 at 5:07 PM ^
September 14th, 2017 at 7:05 PM ^
The sky is blue, and even though it has been rainy and cloudy lately, hopefully eventually the weather will warm up and the sun will shine through. Also, water is wet.
September 14th, 2017 at 7:21 PM ^
Might be a good game to get our stable of TE's out into the crease. I have trouble believing an AF defender is going to be able to jam the likes of Gentry, Woolfolk.
September 14th, 2017 at 9:09 PM ^
Can we borrow Cincinnatti's successful plays against our aggressive man press defense?
September 14th, 2017 at 10:10 PM ^
and the opponent is a well-regarded semi-national program based not far away from Colorado Springs, the attendance at that BSU game really sucked.
September 15th, 2017 at 4:56 AM ^
September 14th, 2017 at 11:53 PM ^
It is the cut/chop blocks that worry me.
Knee braces for everyone.
September 15th, 2017 at 7:28 AM ^
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