2024 Season Preview: Let's Talk About That Defense

I promised more depth

We published a summary of the e-book here. I encourage you to either download the e-book, which is free for MGN subscribers, or simply buy it outright for the 3.99 or so that it costs you. You could even check it out at a library — like Overdrive or something.

I promised some more depth on the matter of the offense and defense. The e-book format is not great for diagrams and audio/visual links. I tried to keep it high-level, yet informative. Here we will go into deeper detail about the defense.

First, a warning. I am not a defensive coordinator nor am I in the meetings with the team. I have gathered what I will call “knowledge” here from watching a lot of football, listening to coaches, reading so many breakdowns, and also watching a lot of film. The fun part about this game is that there are a great many resources for learning the game. An additional great aspect is that it is taught by some regular dudes. Your average high school football coach has to teach these concepts to a 16-year old kid who just wants to go out and hit somebody. A lot of times they are putting out some film to help some fellow coaches and to also get a job. It is a fun rabbit hole. A shout-out to all the guys grinding out there.

To begin, we have to talk about the 3-3-3. Yes, Iowa State’s John Heacock calls it a 3-3-3. That is because you have three down-lineman, three ‘backers, and three safeties. That is the spine and what differentiates this defense from the other three-stack we had at NT under Reffett and others, is that three-safety look.

3-3-5

The version we had prior to Caponi was something like a traditional 3-4, with a rush end. You saw this called a “Jack” or something. It just meant a “linebacker” that really did more pass rushing than anything. The linebacker were the two in the middle. Those were your “normal” looking linebacker types. Brandon Garner and EJ Ejiya had good seasons in those roles. The Nick safety was a hybrid kind of player who played close to the line, offered run-support but also dropped in coverage. In 2022, this guy was picked on often as he was not the greatest in coverage. There are always weak spots. Reffett’s version of the stack would isolate the corners, and bring heavy pressure. Both NT corners went on to become NFL players so that tells you a little something about Reffett’s eye for talent and also the burden put on those guys.

Before we continue, I am putting the paywall here as both a hint (wink, wink) but also a notice that this post is long and you might want to open it in the app or browser instead of your email client.