Learn from Top Early Season Defensive Performances

Sep 19, 2023 2:46 pm

Coach ,

It’s still early in the 2023 season, but there’s still some things we can learn from the defensive leaders so far.

We have had some top performers on the defensive side of the ball presenting in our clinics. Let’s take a look at some of these early season leaders.

#1 Sacks - Wake Forest

Dave Cohen is the Assistant Head Coach for the Defense and the Defensive Line Coach. The Demon Deacons lead the country with 16 sacks. Coach Cohen likes to utilize line movements, especially on early downs. He shares the advantages of line movements over blitzes in this video:

Video: Advantages of Line Movements

Here is an example of a Wake Forest line movement as a pass rush:

Video: Rush Lanes

#1 Red Zone - Syracuse

Syracuse leads the country in Red Zone Defense at .429. New defensive coordinator Rocky Long employs the 3-3 stack to help the Orange get it done.

An aspect of their defense that helps them is taking care of and canceling every gap with a presentation that can cause confusion. While it may appear at the snap that nothing is taken care of, their games take care of it.

He shows how this works out and explain it on game film with their pinch and wrap stunt and discusses the different coverages and how they use it to equate numbers in the box:

Video: Pinch and Wrap with Mix Coverage

#2 Rush Defense - Nebraska

Holding opponents in the run game is critical to the success of the defense, and the Huskers have something to build upon as the Matt Rhule era begins.

Tony White, a disciple of Rocky Long moved to Lincoln after serving as Syracuse defensive coordinator.

The 3-3 Stack provides a lot of opportunity to be creative. The creativity and fun come in when you start to draw up all of the possibilities. Coach White points out that this type of attack really gets an offensive line thinking because the pressure can come from anywhere. It can allow a coordinator to get a great Blitzer a one-on-one match-up by design. Whether this is against pass protection or run schemes, the movements become an issue for an offensive line.

In this next video, Coach White shows various ways to attack from a balanced look and then shows the results on game film:

Video: Balanced Blitzes

#2 Pass Defense - Pitt

Pitt is holding opponents to just 114 yards per game in the air.

Some of that can be attributed to the play makers on the back end of the defense. Sacks and pressures happen because the QB has to go deeper in a progression, and that comes from sound secondary play behind. Secondary Coach Archie Collins shares the key to making plays in this video (click on image for video):