I’m not sure I understand a word of that.

Similar story about how Bob Stoops offered Demarco Murray.

Yeah, there are always tradeoffs. There is no perfect scheme and it is always about the matchups.

In the Groh scheme, the interior LBs are optimized for run stopping inside the box (what he calls the bubble) and there exist two outside LBs to deal with the run outside (I actually focused more on the responsibilities of the inside LBs in the article since it was a meaty article so I’m not totally up on the outside LB responsibilities in the Groh scheme).

I assume, if Muschamp actually takes the Groh approach with his 2 LBs when deploying the nickel, DBs (I hope safeties) are going to have to support the run on wide runs.

Re: the 3-5-3, it seems to me that it would have problems against pass oriented teams (i.e. almost all of the big 12). I don’t believe that LBs play pass D anywhere near as well as DBs. Obviously you could play some safeties as LBs and that might solve that problem.

When Muschamp plays a nickel, he will deploy two really great pass rushers at end with Sergio and Orakpo. Besides Miller, everybody else on the horn D line could play DE or even LB (in the Groh scheme stressing powerful LBs). They are probably going to be able to zone blitz very effectively.

IIRC, the aggies played a nickel last year and the LBs had to deal with OL a bunch. What approach did they take? did they take the Groh approach and just blast into the OL as fast as they can as soon as they read run (i.e. defeat the block head on, not run around the block) or did they do something else? How did it work out?

Chris:

Speed kills and, you’re right, you are not bigger than somebody you can’t contact. For most big football players there is nothing scarier than having to deal with a fast guy in space.

Let’s use the Groh article HenryJames cited as the context of this conversation (because it provides an explicitly defined explanation/reference for this philosophy of LBs attacking OL). The Groh approach is that LBs attack OL directly with as much speed as possible to generate as much momentum as possible to stop the OL guy in his tracks. the LB then stays and fights the block until he knows where the ball is going (i.e. “no creases”).

You are correct that this collision also may give a good opportunity for the LB to separate a bit from the OL guy. It is not a given however that the LB will be able to separate from the OL guy after the collision. There is a definite risk that the collison may put the LB in the OL guy’s world. Leverage is no magic solution because the OL guys know about leverage, too. They live in a world of leverage and are used to fighting DTs and DEs (the badasses of the football world).

In Groh’ scheme, the LB actually stays in there and defeats the block (i.e. he does not run away from the blocker after the initial contact). This is why, in Groh’s scheme, the LBs are so big and powerful.

When dealing with zone blocking/running schemes that are so popular now, a lot of patience is required by both the O and the D. The OL stays with its blocks a long time. The runner may take quite a while to pick his crease. The D has to maintain its zone responsibility (according to the Groh scheme where LBs attack OL) for quite awhile. this means the LB does not get to hit OL and run, the LB has to stay there and fight the block directly.

If you ask a 210 pound LB to get in the pits (where men are men) and fight a roided up 300 pounder for 60 minutes, it is going to be a long day for the 210 pounder. Even defensive linemen can get exhausted by the 4th quarter after dealing with huge OL guys all game long.

Even for Sergio, a 240 pound monster who is super strong, it might be a lot to ask for him to attack OL guys directly all game long. More likely Muschamp will be multiple and this approach of LBs attacking OL directly will be something that will be used in an unpredictable way when the right personnel are out there to do it.

a 300 pound OL doesn’t care if the LB is 210 or 240, he’s still going to be stronger. All you need from a LB is to be able to outrun an OL, and if it comes to it, be able to get under his pad level and bounce off. Don’t underestimate how much leverage matters.

Having said that, size matters. When somebody tells you that its not the mass, its the motion, they’re just being nice.

At the instant of collision you have two masses that have a certain momentum. The one that has more momentum is going to very briefly push back the mass with less momentum. There is very little “stunning” on the line, immediately after the collision the offensive lineman is going to resume pushing. The OL guy will be quite difficult to control for long if the LB is much smaller/weaker.

When defending a zone running scheme, the LB may have to maintain gap control for quite a while (while the runner is trying to figure out where to cut) without the advantage of that initial momentum (which is a product of half the mass times the velocity squared). So for the initial instant of contact, the velocity can dominate. After that, mass (and strength) become very important. At that point the LB needs to be big enough to deal with the offensive lineman. It is hand to hand combat and there is a reason there are weight classes in martial arts.

A coach can take this approach only if he has the personnel that can do it (i.e. smaller LBs need not apply).

I don’t know if you read Groh’s article that was linked to by HenryJames but I highly recommend it. He explains why he wants big LBs in this scheme and that the primary responsibility of his interior LBs is to defeat blocks and stop the run. So these LBs are optimized to stop the run and have much less responsibility to stop the pass. I think this is exactly what Muschamp will do when lined up in a nickel with 2 LBs.

We have all seen plenty of Ds where small LBs avoid contact with offensive linemen and fly to the ball. The trend toward small LBs was not because these guys are better at dealing with offensive linemen.

defending the zone is different from other schemes, just like one-gap defenses are different from two-gap. They both force every defender to be able to handle himself. We haven’t had a LB that could do that in awhile. Not even DJ, I’d say. A coach that addresses it will instantly win a spot in my heart.

That is actually a great article (now that I’ve had a chance to read it). Groh employs a 3-4 but it looks like he uses his 2 interior LBs like Muschamp is going to use his two LBs in the nickel.

As I suspected, this scheme requires enormous LBs. Groh does use enormous LBs (250 lbs) who, indeed, attack OL men head on. The approach they use is to get downhill as quick as possible (i.e. run as fast as they can toward the particlar lineman they will attack) to generate momentum.

Groh does not explain how this works, so I will. Momentum = .5 * mass * velocity squared so the 250 pound LB can match the momentum of the 300 pound offensive lineman if the LB speed is about 10% greater than the speed of the OL. This is because if the velocity of the LB is 1.1 of the OL man, then V squared is 1.21 (relative to the OL guy), which makes up for the 20% more mass the OL guy has compared to the LB.

Thanks, good stuff. I’ve started reading it but have not yet completed it.

What intrigues me is whether Muschamp, by reducing the number of LBs and increasing the number of DBs, has made pass coverage much simpler for LBs (no deep stuff, just a shallow zone) so that they now can focus more on the run.

This would mean that you can afford to play bigger LBs who can actually deal head on with some OL guys and commit to the run more quickly. This would counter the trend toward smaller/faster LBs.

It is usually not that difficult for an LB to get out of the way of an OL guy in space but the difficult thing is to first engage that OL guy head on, neutralize his push, maintain your space (both with respect to gap resonsibility and between you and the OL guy), and not go to the left or the right until you know which way the runner is breaking. This approach is more like how they do it in the NFL where the LBs are big guys. Obviously, if you can do it, it is a more fundamentally sound way of playing D (i.e. much less guessing about where the ball will end up).