DeMarvion Overshown's role in 2021
How Texas uses DeMarvion Overshown is one of the keys to the season and the Steve Sarkisian era. It’s hard to get a new regime up and running if you can’t solve existing problems and make the most of inherited talents.
The major problem, and yet major talent, Kwiatkowski is inheriting? Some uber-athletic but wildly underdeveloped linebackers, particularly DeMarvion Overshown.
As Overshown himself noted,
“Last year, I really didn’t get a chance to learn the linebacker position before fall camp. Basically, getting a full offseason at the position, I feel like what people saw last year was not even close to what they’re going to see this year.”
What’s more, as an offensive-minded head coach Sark necessarily delegates a lot of the development, problem solving, and maximization to his defensive coordinator. How well the new staff maximizes DeMarvion Overshown is a strong reflection on how well Sark hired a staff to cover his weak spots, an essential task for any head coach.
Sark clearly understands all these dynamics and noted of his potential star linebacker,
“The one thing that has helped D-Mo coming out of spring, this summer he was able to get his weight up. But I know I talked about that after the first one. He really looks the part, but the one thing you sometimes don’t appreciate about him until we get into 7-on-7, team, team run periods and things like that is just actually how fast he really is. And he can really run. He’s got tremendous instincts, and I think that helps. Because of his background at safety, he identifies things really well. Obviously, there’s a level of physicality there. That shows up. We’re fortunate to have him. You don’t know what you don’t have until you actually have it. I didn’t know what we had in him in spring because we didn’t get to have him on the field, but now seeing him through four practices, he’s a really good football player.”
At 6-foot-4 and 217 pounds with a background as a joker safety (basically a linebacker in sub-packages) under Todd Orlando and a 4-3 Will linebacker under Chris Ash, Overshown is a unique player. His closest facsimile in college football may be guys like Isaiah Simmons (Clemson) or Jeremiah Owusu-Koromoah (Notre Dame), guys who played as nickel/linebacker hybrids, which made Overshown’s summer reps at Sam linebacker pretty interesting.
But in Kwiatkowski’s 2-4-5 nickel defense, the JOK/Simmons position doesn’t exist. As it turns out, Overshown will remain at Will linebacker. This spot offers minimal adjustment from what DMO was learning under Ash while creating the chance for the senior linebacker to bring major value-add in three phases.
Playing on the edge in the 2-4-5
PK is a big fan of mixing in the 46 defense, which is tough on offensive lines trying to figure who to block or getting good double teams on the best defensive linemen.
PK’s method for playing the 46 from the 2-4-5 nickel is to have the Jack slide inside as a 4i-technique, and then play the Will linebacker off the edge. In the spring game this was David Gbenda, but now it’s DMO. From that alignment he can drop into a normal hook zone as an inside linebacker, blitz the edge, or feint and then loop inside on a stunt.
All of these assignments are simple for DeMarvion Overshown and give him a chance to be a playmaker, using his athleticism and versatility to create uncertainty for the offense.
Coverage vs. crossers
The wider world of football fans is becoming increasingly familiar with an important rule in cover 3 defense thanks to the infamous “Tuf Borland vs. DeVonta Smith” snap in the National Championship game.
The gist of the issue is that the weak inside linebacker (Will) who guards the “weak hook zone” in cover 3 has to carry the number three receiver vertically on a crosser. For instance, against the Y-cross play which is foundational to most Big 12 offenses.
The middle linebacker (strong hook defender) will pass the crosser off to the weak hook defender, who’s gotta be ready to pick it up well enough so the quarterback can’t fit the ball in. The free safety has to stay over the top against the post routes to avoid yielding a touchdown, stopping these layered routes requires the Texas linebackers to drop deep enough to force checkdowns. Tuf Borland had to try and pick up Smith in such an assignment… he wasn’t up for it.
It’s popular on NFL Twitter these days for people to say cover 3 is only popular because Bobby Wagner of the Seattle Seahawks made this assignment look so manageable. This may be true, but Overshown is plenty capable of making the drop and at 6-foot-4 he’s a major problem for quarterbacks who want to fit the over route in under the safety.
Here he is filling this exact role against the hapless Buffaloes.
There’s the cross/over route, there’s Overshown getting under it and picking off the pass. I’d be willing to guess a fair number of his interceptions in practice have looked like this as well. If you can keep the safety over the top of the post and take away the deeper cross with a linebacker drop, you’re cooking with gas on defense.
Making run defense about athleticism for an athletic Overshown
The PK defense has an app for simplifying the run defense for the Will linebacker. Here’s Texas running it poorly in spring practices:
Here’s Washington running it the right way against Oregon in 2019:
When the ball is run back into the boundary on a zone scheme, the Mike linebacker charges into the open gap in front of him (whichever one doesn’t have a D-linemen in it) which helps ensure the ball cuts back because of the penetration.
The Will linebacker makes sure the running back doesn’t go boundary before scraping back to the field to meet the back in the cutback lane. It doesn’t take a speed demon at Will to execute this, but it doesn’t hurt. This is a really useful scheme against zone runs, the quick-hitting Mike linebacker ideally forces a cuback into a predetermined spot while allowing the Will linebacker to be ready. The New England Patriots used a version of this from a 2-4-5 to stop the Seattle Seahawks’ Russell Wilson/Marshawn Lynch zone running game in the Super Bowl.
It’ll be hard for Texas linebackers to master inside linebacker run fits after a single offseason. Between Orlando’s lack of training and the loss of a spring practice in 2020, Texas is behind the eight ball in linebacker development. Kwiatkowski has a few methods though to make use of Overshown’s athletic gifts at Will without exposing his lack of expertise in the finer points of inside linebacker play.
Cover photo by Tim Warner/Getty Images
