We have no names here. You are Happy. This is a Happy valley. All of these people wearing white are your friends. This is not a cult. [Patrick Barron]

Fee Fi Foe Film: Penn State Defense 2020 Comment Count

Seth November 26th, 2020 at 3:54 PM

Previously: Offense, Last Year. Resources: My charting, PSU game notes, PSU roster, CFBstats

The Penn State defensive staff has been recruiting as well as any school in the country on defense. The blue-chip talent is evident everywhere, including and especially the spot that had a darkhorse Heisman candidate opt out of the season. That one's because Brent Pry didn't really change the defense's structure when Micah Parsons decided not to play. When the poor guy asked to take Parson's place isn't yelling "Oh COME ON!" at being asked to be on both sides of a blocker, the structure works pretty well. Nebraska has a clever offensive coach and managed to find the pressure points early in the game, but Penn State has a few clever defenders of their own. It would be a good defense if it wasn't put in such crummy situations by its offense. And if they didn't have the kind of record that makes blue chips' thoughts turn to the next thing in their lives. One sympathizes.

The film: Sticking with Scott Frost Day. Penn State gave up two TD drives of 75 and 65 yards, field goal drives of 63, 35, and 10 yards, two 3-and-outs, a 4-and-out, a 7-play drive that petered out after 28 yards, and a late interception, for a total of just 323 yards and 17 first downs on 62 offensive plays (the official 298 counts a bunch of special teams penalties). That's 5.21 YPP; not a bad mark but the Huskers were at 8 YPP while jumping to a 27-6 lead, and steadily fell off as they salted away the game.

Personnel: My diagram:

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PDF Version, full-size version (or click on the image). McNamara at QB because I have eyes and was conscious last week. Calling Haskins RB1 doesn't mean the rotation's over.

[After THE JUMP: A cult.]

Yes, a shield. Strongside end #18 Shaka Toney (+13.5/-5) is having a breakout year after splitting time his career thus far with non-3* versions of himself. It helps to be playing against another breakout DL, #97 PJ Mustipher (+15/-7), who's getting justifiable appreciation at PFF. They also adore NT #55 Antonio Shelton (+7/-3) though that's explainable by PFF's love for DTs who just go upfield, other stuff be damned. Shelton used to be the responsible one so that's a style thing. The backside edge is #28 Jayson Oweh, who's Josh Uche if he was a top-75 recruit who got away from Partridge/Campanile. The rarely used (except for Hansard) backups include former 5-star #34 Shane Simmons (DNC), planetoid NT #53 Fred Hansard (+1/-1), not-quite-ready-for-doubles freshman DT #51 Hakeem Beamon (+2/-2), and bendy linebacker-sized SDE #20 Adisa Isaac (+1/-0), a top-100 guy last year.

The job of filling in for Parsons went to WLB #40 Jesse Luketa (+6/-10, +2/-2 coverage). Luketa can play; he's just asked to do Parsons things and isn't Parsons, except when he is:

#40 the one LB

Middle linebacker #13 Ellis Brooks (+12/-8, +0/-2 cov) has been rotating in for years as the exciting backup to the walk-on starter who finally graduated. Brooks is kind of a Jonas Mouton, if Mouton wasn't playing for a terrible defense and didn't try to do things that weren't his job. He still rotates with a less athletic do-your-job type in #45 Charlie Katshir, who managed not to chart by just doing his job a lot. The SAM #12 Brandon Smith (+8/-4, no cov grades) was the #18 player in the 2019 class because he moves like a safety at almost 250 pounds. He's still a true sophomore and his recognition needs work, but I think he'll be quite a weapon by next year, and already can really mess with your screen games. Occasionally they'll try true freshman #23 Curtis Jacobs (+1/-2) out there; he was the #36 composite recruit this year.

The secondary features another pair of extreme athletes in FS #38 Lamont Wade (+2/-0, +3/-0 coverage) and SS #1 Jaquan Brisker (+4/-3, +1/-3 coverage). PSU flips the meaning of the positions so Brisker, the rare PSU JuCo, is usually the high guy while Wade follows the slots. Wade is tiny but dependable; Brisker is an NFL ideal if you're looking at him, but he plays hesitantly. Backups #0 Jonathan Sutherland (+0/-3 cover), and #16 Ji'Ayir Brown (+1/-1, +0/-2 cover) were both a step down. That's disappointing after both were the subjects of endless offseason articles, Brown because was another highly rated recruit, and Sutherland because he's two-time team captain.

Star cornerback Tariq Castro-Fields hasn't played the last two weeks; when healthy he's a fantastic run defender who rotated with underrated now-Lion Amani Oruwariye and John "Hermione" Reid for years. When not healthy he's replaced by a deep bench of four-stars, starting with #2 Keaton Ellis (+2/-2 coverage). The other side was won by redshirt freshman #9 Joey Porter Jr. (+0/-3, no cov grade). Nebraska only tried them when Ellis or their backup #8 Marquis Wilson (+0/-2, +0/-3 cover) were playing so far back that a WR stop route was a gimme 8+ yards.

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Base Set:

Penn State is a mixed front 4-3 that will stay in 4-3 personnel basically the whole game. They'll switch off between a three-high shell and two-high look, which just disguises which way they're going to cover the three-high shell. Their idea of something exotic is to split the DTs over the guards, which can widen further into a true Eagle look.

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2020 PSU vs Nebraska D Shift   Safeties   Rushers
Situation Over Over2 Even Under 1-high 2-high 3 4 5 6+
Normal Downs (44) 36% 27% 20% 16% 44% 56% - 64% 33% 2%
Passing Downs (16) 19% 38% 19% 25% 63% 38% - 38% 56% 6%
Total (60) 19 18 12 11 29 30 - 33 23 2

Over2 just means the nose tackle is over the guard's inside shoulder (2i-Tech) instead of the center's shoulder (1-Tech). I tracked it for lack of a fourth thing to track, and because Michigan does the same thing, moving the nose over the guard against spread stuff. The two-high/one-high split was interesting but not that irregular for a base Cover 3 team, which Penn State has become this year. From a two-high look they will roll a safety down to a curl/flat zone and roll the other high. They're much jauntier at it that the professional Rip/Liz action from Alabama, but it's the same idea.

They're also a Rush 4 or Rush 5 team. Their front is a lot like Michigan's: they put a DE inside the tight end to delay that guy's release, and protect an outside linebacker. Unlike Michigan they'll often fling the backside DE off the edge to generate pressure. There's seldom need to rush more than five, and when they do there's usually a peel-back guy reading the backfield. They trust those DEs to get to the quarterback, and send their nose upfield in a hurry to ensure there's an anvil when the twin hammers arrive.

What Shall We Call the Hybrid Today? They've done away with the "Star" and play two "Outside Linebacker"s. They're all linebacker-sized—about 240 pounds—but the 5-star does a lot of Viper things while the "SERIOUSLY, I'M NOT MICAH PARSONS HALP!" guy has to play inside linebacker in addition to the curl-flat duties.

Man or zone coverage: Of those I could tell I counted 12 instances of Cover 3, ten instances of Cover 1, and three Cover 2s. Nebraska did a lot of running so this is probably biased to Cover 1, which you can tell when the cornerbacks turn with their receivers and there's a safety in the parking lot. I'd say their base (and the estimated majority of the 33 uncharted plays), is Cover 3.

Quick Cover 3 refresher: the coverage is all about the path your players take to their zones, which makes up for spacing concerns on the middle levels by having players on the move while they're being attacked.

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Flip it and you have the same coverage.

The danger areas between zones are covered as the curl/flat defenders travel through them, an innovation made at Penn State in the middle/late 20th century. They don't quite trust their cornerbacks to run a full Saban Pattern Match with it yet, but I bet that's where they're going with it.

For now, that means modern Penn State gets caught with their cornerbacks way off all the time, and Nebraska had success racing Luke McCaffery against the Curl/Flat defenders. It takes a lot of speed but when you can do this there isn't a good defense for it.

They will occasionally trust their backside DE to go into a Curl/Flat zone and hard slant the rest of the line his direction to screw with the looks. They also like to send the four DL into B and C gaps, then delay blitz the MLB.

Pressure: GERG or DR BLITZ: They bring four or five.

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The passing down blitzes are exotics from the base formation. A safety coming down early is usually a sign that they're coming from wherever he's replacing. They'll send safeties off the corners and slant the line sometimes but their favorite blitz is the delayed MLB whenever they suspect an RB is vacating the backfield.

Giving Jayson Oweh and Shaka Toney that route to the quarterback is a guaranteed pressure in two seconds, and Nebraska's center constantly went looking to help with the DTs instead of watching the guy you point at before every play for a reason. Speaking of that dangerous line.

Dangerman:

The guy rushing from the left side in the clip above is Shaka Toney. Nebraska, and everyone else since Week 1, purposely avoided giving Toney many opportunities because he's Chase Winovich reincarnate out there. By that I don't just mean he's a relentless pass rusher who can DUCK UNDER A PUNCH BLOCK AND REMAIN STANDING. Nebraska had this tunnel screen set up and saved for just this occasion, only for Toney to stop, redirect, and cut off the entrance to the damn tunnel.

Here's another example of Football Head. They're getting no safety help and they're caught slanting backwards against a Lead QB Power. He's inside the tight end, with a world of blockers about to arrive for the linebacker help. So what does he do? Spins off of the block and mucks up the whole thing.

You don't see guys do that. It takes an incredible awareness and body control to figure out what's happening with all these bodies going all these directions, and react while they're focused on making sure your body goes elsewhere.

And yes, in his spare time Shaka Toney also kills quarterbacks, because his upper body can go any-damn-where it pleases and the lower body will just carry on.

The other guy putting on a move—and the one who actually affects the pass on the above play—is Jayson Oweh. The way to describe Oweh is what if Josh Uche was a 5-star. Let's see the replay of that again but this time watch the guy on the right. He has one false step inside to get the right tackle to plant the outside foot—the one poor 54 is about to really want to move.

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Then the hands come down.

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Sir, you are fucked sir.

The thing about Uche is Michigan never got to play him as a regular because the pass rush moves don't help you against doubles and the like. Oweh doesn't have the defensive lineman's mentality of burrowing and sticking on blocks and the like. For that reason Penn State uses him as more of an edge SDE, a la the MSU type. There Oweh's athleticism makes up for his tendency to over-shuffle.

You can get away with playing like this if you have a DT who dominates double teams and won't come unstuck from the line of scrimmage. Alas.

[gets thoughtful]

Oh, right. Yes. Penn State does. It's top-100 DT PJ Mustipher.

Blue-chip defensive tackle prospects are some of the most highly valued in recruiting/free agency these days because it's not hard to project a high school guy who can turn back 600 pounds of modern collegiate athletes on the regular.

Mustipher is much more than a slab of beef however. Like Toney, PJ has an extremely high level of awareness, which is another extremely important thing for defensive tackles. Put it all together and you've got a guy it's really hard to run screens against.

 

That's why PSU can keep their DEs out wide instead of spilling everything to the linebackers, why they can shoot the nose tackle into the backfield without repercussions, and why trying to screen them for playing that way never works out. This has been your Seth Thinks Defensive Tackle Recruiting is Important Moment of the Week.

Here's a ridiculous tight end catch against a slot safety who doesn't make mistakes.

OVERVIEW:

Like Michigan, the crumminess of 2020 has taken its toll on morale, and because of it the defense doesn't really play as well as the sum of its parts. There are a lot of minuses spread among the guys I thought were good players, and quite a few just came down to taking the play off or coming in not hot enough. Late in the game when they had a couple of shots to come back you saw them come alive again, particularly the linebackers, who started taking more risks instead of accepting linebackers released when the NT shot upfield.

I clipped this example at about the nadir of the game, because I'd just seen this stuff happen so much I was convinced the next snap would be the perfect one where you could see it too. Watch the right guard, then on your next time through watch the linebacker he got to and ask yourself what that guy's supposed to do. The answer is #40 is supposed to read that and fire into the backfield before the guard can get down to him. If you do that we give a +2 or +3 depending on how much havoc it creates. In Penn State's defense, it's the expectation, so they don't have to delay the NT on his trip to the backfield.

Sucks to Be LBU.

The other thing Penn State just throws their recruiting stars at is the edge. When you've got Jayson Oweh and Micah Parsons you can get away with having the two of them bait the quarterback to keep it then chase his ass down. When you've got Jayson Oweh and a human, you have no edge.

What do other defenses do? Use their safeties. When a normal team sees that receiver go in motion you have #1 roll high and #16 hammer down, and keep your front concerned mostly with what's in front of them. PSU is cheating because the one part of coaching that James Franklin excels at is salesmanship. They get these amazing athletes, stick them in all-white uniforms, lock them away in some mountain valley in the middle of Appalachia, and teach them to worship the cult until such time as NFL parents come to collect them. And the sad thing—the sick, awful, disgusting truth of it all—is that it works.

Comments

AZBlue

November 26th, 2020 at 4:08 PM ^

Seth - you are incorrect on the rankings of the 2 Juco safeties.  The #12 ranking for Brisker was his rank among Jucos for the year he came to PSU.  He was still a 4-star but #355 overall coming out of Highschool.  Pretty sure the other is the same = no Blue chips for them.

Champeen

November 26th, 2020 at 7:01 PM ^

Wait a fricken minute.  With all the stars and shields i see above, am i looking at Alabama or Clemson's defense, or am i looking at a team that is 0-5's defense?

 

Mgotri

November 27th, 2020 at 8:41 AM ^

I too would love to hear the defense of having 4 starred players on an 0-5 team that hasn’t allowed less than 30 points to anyone. 
 

Seth I get that You are trying to note which players are the ones to watch, but you should probably come up with a different term and notation to differentiate between the dudes and guys.