Filling gaps: How Strong will rebuild UT's linebacker tradition

Texas had a poor linebacker tradition in the Mack Brown era with only a few notable bright spots. Derrick Johnson was an electric player but was typically surrounded by players who wouldn’t have seen the field at Oklahoma. 
Muschamp built up an amazing linebacker corp in three years and left Diaz with a nickel trio of Vaccaro-Robinson-Acho that was the best Mack had ever seen.

Then they all graduated and left Texas even weaker than it’d been before.

Strong inherits a group that had to be protected with man coverage defenses that kept them in the box and free from having to cover a lot of ground or think, often even having a safety drop down to lend a helping hand in stopping the run.

Despite these favorable alignments, and the best DL in the conference (if not the nation), Texas finished 48th in rushing defense by the S&P adjusted rankings.

We’ve gone over how Strong’s defense works, and it’s a pretty good system to linebackers. The ideal Strong linebacker has the vision to read backs and the line for play keys and then fast twitch muscles to react and reach his rungap or match his coverage assignment.

The job of reading plays won’t be terribly difficult when a DL comprised of Malcom Brown, Cedric Reed, Hassan Ridgeway, and Desmond Jackson is tying up blockers so there’s some grace for Texas’ linebackers to grow.

The late take of Edwin Freeman suggests Strong knows what he’s doing in refilling the roster with his own guys. The question is whether Texas’ current crop of linebackers will be able to maximize the opportunities provided by Strong’s D and become playmakers.

Filling against the run:

In Strong’s scheme, the linebackers will read their coverage assignment first to avoid being exploited by run/pass plays that can make all defensive choices wrong. Typically for the inside linebackers at Mike and Will, this is a running back or tight end who will give them a quick run or pass read.

Next, they need to position themselves to stay leveraged against the back and look to the OL flow for clues on blocking schemes and determining whether gaps are “open” or “cloudy,” filling the open ones and creating a solid wall.

Ideally they can position themselves and then explode to the ball at the decision point and meet any blockers or ball carriers as close to the line as possible:

http://www.tubechop.com/watch/2126266

In this clip you see Mike backer Preston Brown read the H-back moving across the formation and then moves his eyes to the handoff to his new potential coverage assignment, the running back. He creeps up into the open gap to prevent the back from using that open space, and then shoots it to make the tackle.

The players:

Due to their experience, Dalton Santos and Peter Jinkens have to be considered favorites to find major roles on the team. Jordan Hicks has shown the ability to be one of the best linebackers in the league if he can stay healthy for the first time in two years.

Steve Edmond is likely to find a new home as a Buck linebacker and not be asked to cover ground in the Big 12 as often as he was in the past. Tevin Jackson may see some opportunity as well, if he can get healthy. Kendall Thompson is also rehabbing but has shown little instinct or skill at the position thus far.

Hicks has the most overall potential against the run. He has the explosive power to fill hard inside against the run as well as the ability to use his eyes to quickly absorb and process information around him.

http://www.tubechop.com/watch/2135326

You can see him track the runner here and he has the suddenness and body control to break down or explode into contact as needed. It’s difficult to find open creases running towards Hicks.

Another example of Hicks’ brilliance:

http://www.tubechop.com/watch/2135384

Jinkens is the next best fit for the Big 12 due to his ability to run sideline to sideline and scrape in short areas.

http://www.tubechop.com/watch/2126742

Here’s an example where the ball gets away from his initial gap but you see him close laterally and drag down Glasco Martin, who is the same size, without allowing him to get up to speed in the open field.

Jinkens needs a lot of work on making reads and getting into the right gaps but his short area explosiveness makes him valuable for preventing big runs and potentially a game changer with more seasoning.

http://www.tubechop.com/watch/2135079

In this clip, Baylor caught Texas in an unsound front. Santos is concerned with matching the H-back in coverage, leaving six gaps in the run game to be filled by five defenders. Jinkens appropriately fills the playside gap and then has to scrape over when Martin cuts into the B-gap opened by Santos vacating the box and the safeties playing Cover-2 with no help in the box.

Again you see the kind of lateral speed that will make Jinkens a valuable contributor against the run, particularly when he’s deployed in sound anti-option defenses.

Santos’ tape is a never-ending parade of good and bad. Credit to him for cutting weight in the offseason and playing through injuries but his change of direction was poor in 2013.

http://www.tubechop.com/watch/2126673

In this instance he gets outside to force the run back in but after biting on the outside run fake can’t turn back inside to make the tackle when Martin cuts back. He was quick in a straight line but unable to turn if he got in bad position.

Hopefully better health and Moorer’s workouts help him grow more fluid for 2014, but better positioning and understanding of good leverage and positioning combined with his existing athleticism would serve to make him a very effective linebacker.

Pattern-matching in coverage

The key to this task is in sliding your feet into the positionwhere the receiver is heading rather than where they already are. Frequently you see linebackers show bad positioning taking away inside routes because they lunge at the receiver and get burned by a quick cut or they drop into a spot and watch the QB’s eyes which are too trained at the college level to give away where the ball is going.

Strong’s pattern matching techniques take away the QB’s options so he can’t freeze players with his eyes and then turn and hit open receivers running into soft spots of the defense.

The best linebackers for pattern matching understand how passing concepts work and are quick in short areas, incidentally the same skills that translate to successful run defense in the Strong D.

http://www.tubechop.com/watch/2126771

Observe here on this Fire Zone, the underneath defenders use their eyes to lead them to the receivers and move their feet to take away the potentially dangerous routes by the receivers. Then they close on the ball when the QB fires and have a chance to deflect or quickly wrap up.

The players:

Texas played an exceptionally simplistic style of underneath coverage in 2013, arguably wasting the talent on campus. Fortunately Strong’s coverage schemes are simple in principle for linebackers because they’ll need all of spring and fall to get coached up to an acceptable level.

For the most part, the Texas linebackers were free to either matchup with the running back or drop into the middle and look for work:

http://www.tubechop.com/watch/2126816

You can see that both Santos and Jinkens get great depth on their drops here against Baylor and Santos is even able to widen out against Baylor’s absurd splits. Jinkens doesn’t use his eyes well and misses a chance to use his athleticism to take away the in-breaking slants Baylor loves to utilize from their wide alignments.

Santos actually does a good job finding the crosser and has great ability to move in space for a player of his size and power. His upside with conditioning, health, and time spent understanding Strong’s system is much higher than what we’ve seen so far.

Hicks is, of course, a natural in coverage and even played out at SAM some for Diaz in 2011. Here you can see his ability to keep his eyes moving from QB to coverage assignment:

http://www.tubechop.com/watch/2135395

Between the three of them there’s a lot of talent and potential for erasing some of the easy candy over the middle that Big 12 offenses often subsist on.

Blitzing:

Again, you want suddenness and power in the first few steps to have great success here, which we’ve already covered. It’s also important to be able to “get small” and burst through openings in the protection.

An underrated element to blitzing is the disguise. As a team, the defense wants to show one look before rotating into another. That means that the disguise has to be fairly uniform across the board or the QB will catch on that something’s amiss.

http://www.tubechop.com/watch/2126985

While FS Calvin Pryor sneaks down on the weakside the strongside safety stays positioned in C2 before dropping into the deep middle at the last moment. The nickel also threatens an edge blitz before Pryor is ultimately freed up to come on the other edge. As it happens, UCF is running outside zone away from the pressure but the Cardinals still execute the play.

All that disguise and chemistry really adds up in preventing spread teams from getting clear reads and teeing off on sitting duck targets in the defensive backfield.

The players:

Texas’ evolution under Strong into a team capable of showing complicated looks and confusing an offense may take some time, even with returning starters across the defense. They’re going to want to start by focusing on mastering Strong’s basic defensive structures along with some fundamentals that the team has not yet grasped such as leveraging runs, understanding run fits, and pattern-matching underneath coverage.

When they do blitz, they have the athleticism to beeffective even before they master all of the potential ways of disguising their coverages and blitz paths. Hicks is great at getting small and bursting through creases. He has a frame and skillset that encompasses some of the best traits of Acho and Robinson, a devastating Fire Zone tandem.

Santos can cause major problems for offensive linemen when he’s moving aggressively and confidently to fulfill his assignments.

http://www.tubechop.com/watch/2135146

In this instance he beats Cyril Richardson inside and bulldozes the Baylor center into the backfield, freeing up the safety blitz to add great pressure on Petty.

He can also make plays in the backfield when set up to run free by an effective blitz:

http://www.tubechop.com/watch/2135166

Jinkens’ is perhaps most valuable on blitzes as a player with the lateral speed to clean up anything that gets through the five-man zone pressures, as evidenced by his plays against the run in the above section.

When he does blitz, he’s more effective on the edge where he can avoid tangling with guards in a broom closet where his small size can become problematic.

http://www.tubechop.com/watch/2135432

Overall:

Texas’ best bet is to rely on a rotation of Hicks, Jinkens, and Santos. Hicks’ ability to play either Will or Mike linebacker allows the Longhorns to match strength with Big 12 offenses and either field a bigger run stopping duo of Hicks-Santos or erase throwing windows with Jinkens-Hicks.

Should Jinkens grow enough in coverage it’s possible Texas could keep all three of them on the field even against three receiver sets and have a physical trio. However, Texas absolutely needs Santos and Jinkens to grow in the basics of linebacker play and all three need to remain healthy while Strong rebuilds the Texas linebacker roster with more players that have the quickness to thrive in these schemes and this league.