Breaking down the USC defensive breakdowns: Colorado’s first three touchdowns
Just so I wouldn’t be accused of making vague allegations of defensive coordinator malpractice without doing my homework, I decided to break down Colorado’s first three touchdown plays scored against USC.
It was every bit as fun as you might guess it was.
Let’s start with the first Colorado touchdown.
Colorado is in an 11 package, so one back and one tight end. They have twins to the right and a lone receiver to the left. They also have a tight end to the left. USC is running a loose man coverage against the wide receivers. You would think that either the nickel, Jaylin Smith, or the safety, Calen Bullock, has the tight end, but being that both the back and tight end stay in to block, it’s not entirely clear to me what those assignments are.
That’s right. Colorado has had difficulty protecting Sanders, so they’re leaving two extra blockers in and only running three pass routes.
First, look at how many USC defenders are doing nothing. They’re not helping cover the wideouts, and they’re not rushing the passer. Calen Bullock, Smith, Raesjon Davis, and Tackett Curtis are all in no man’s land. They’re not pressuring Sanders. They’re not helping cover anybody. (On pass plays, I’d like my defenders to be doing one or the other.) They’re watching the game—just like me!—and contributing about as much as I was. Now, two of these guys likely have man responsibility on the right end and running back, and they can’t be too quick to bail out or rush the passer, because then a delayed route from their guy could be a huge gain. But the other two guys? They’re not doing anything useful at all. They’re guarding grass.
Now look at Bryson Shaw, who has the slot receiver. Now keep in mind that a safety against a slot receiver is usually something of a mismatch, and Shaw isn’t the best cover guy on the team. So defensive coordinator Alex Grinch is giving him a very difficult assignment. More on that in a second. But if you’re playing a loose man coverage against a guy who is almost certainly faster than you are – I’ve been there many times – you must maintain strong inside leverage. Especially if you don’t have deep inside help from the safety. You can’t let that guy get inside leverage and across your face. But that is exactly what Shaw does. I’m not even sure he lines up with inside leverage, but it’s clear very early on that Shaw is beat. By the above photo, he has both lost inside leverage and has his hips turned to the sideline. There’s no way he can make a play on the ball. If I could start at that position against him, I would catch the pass. I’m not kidding.
Now, if Calen Bullock is playing centerfield here, USC is still in a good spot. But he’s not. If USC were blitzing Sanders and forcing him to get rid of the ball quickly, USC might still be in a good spot. But USC is not.
This is the third time in six games that I’ve complained about Alex Grinch asking his safeties to play loose man coverage on a wide receiver without safety help and without blitzing. That’s an unbelievably tough assignment. Grinch knows. He played safety in college! But he consistently asks his guys to do something they’re not equipped to do.
Now maybe this isn’t a scheme thing. Maybe Grinch didn’t want three guys guarding grass and doing nothing. But it’s extremely unlikely that Bullock was supposed to be providing deep help on this play. Not only is he not doing that, but it’s not likely he was pulled up by a crossing route or a slant and abandoned his responsibilities for that reason. Nothing pulled him up, in other words. He’s just sitting in no man’s land as the other safety tries to cover a guy that he can’t cover while USC only rushes four against a team that is using two extra pass blockers. USC is playing with eight guys. The other three aren’t contributing. Mater Dei’s offense would score against USC under these circumstances.
Now let’s look at the second touchdown.
Colorado has twins to both sides and one back. USC is showing a little bit of a cover two shell, although with Bryson Shaw that far outside the hash and only ten yards off the line of scrimmage, I think Sanders knows that USC is playing man.
But does USC know that?
I want you to notice a few things.
Romello Height, who is the edge defender at the bottom of the screen, drops back into coverage against grass. I think he believes the call is a zone blitz. But if so, where is the blitz? USC is rushing only three.
If this were supposed to be a zone blitz, I’d expect the blitz might be coming from Christian Roland-Wallace. But he sprints across the field with that slot receiver from the bottom of the screen, so he clearly thinks he’s in man coverage.
Raesjon Davis thinks he has man coverage on the running back. So does Jaylin Smith. Smith stays with the back. Davis stops in no man’s land and doesn’t do anything. So there you have two guys covering one. Or two guys that were covering one, and one that stops and doesn’t do anything.
Jaylin Smith, by the way, lets the slot receiver run past him and he eventually gets picked up by Shaw. But look at where Shaw starts this play—he’s on the left hash. That slot guy is on the right hash. Are you telling me that USC has a defense where a safety is supposed to have man coverage on a slot receiver that is on the other hash? That doesn’t make sense. I suspect Shaw just picks him up because he sees that guy running across the middle of the field unguarded and it seems like the right thing to do. It probably was.
USC is rushing three guys against five offensive linemen. Not surprisingly, they don’t get close to Sanders. In fact, things are so under control that two of the offensive linemen are just standing there bored for most of the play. USC has the two corners and Shaw and Roland-Wallace playing man against the four wideouts. (Without deep help, of course.) So that’s seven guys doing something. I’ll give Jaylin Smith credit for covering the back. So that’s eight guys doing something. And it has one edge player standing in the flats at the bottom of the screen, and two guys (Davis and Bullock) standing in the flats at the top of the screen. Which, by my calculations, means you have eight guys playing defense and three guys guarding grass.
Now I suppose Bullock and Height might be doubling the outside guys with the corners being tasked with staying over the top, and Bullock and Height being tasked with staying underneath and getting in the passing lane. That still wouldn’t explain what Raesjon Davis is doing, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why having Bryson Shaw cover the slot on the opposite hash without deep help makes any sense to anybody.
So I’m not really sure what’s going on. But it looks like USC is once again trying to play defense with eight guys. Once again it doesn’t work. Hell, even Notre Dame uses ten guys.
And let’s remember, this is the half when USC was playing well.
Let’s go to touchdown number three.
Colorado comes out in an unbalanced set with three running backs. (Or maybe two backs and an H-back, which is basically a fullback anyway.) Colorado has three offensive linemen on the line of scrimmage outside of their right tackle. Then they have two backs on the right side of the formation. By my count, that’s five extra blockers on the right side of the formation. USC counters by having a down lineman in the A gap on the right-hand side, a down lineman in the B-gap on the right hand side, and four guys standing up off the line on that side, three of them defensive backs.
The most remarkable thing about this play is not that Colorado scored. If you run an Oklahoma drill with five lineman/fullback/H-back types against one freshman edge players and three defensive backs, I’m putting my money on the offense every time. I don’t even care who the players are. No, the remarkable thing is that the running back barely scored. This might have been the best USC defensive effort of the day. Colorado should have walked into the end zone.
I saw that only half tongue-in-cheek. I guess up 41-14, the USC coaching staff was willing to concede the touchdown instead of burning a timeout to get lined up in a way that made sense. I don’t know. I’m not sure of that logic, but I don’t get millions a year to coach college football. I’m just a guy who played so-so football 30 years ago at a program nobody has ever heard of. That’s not much of a resume.
But I know this. On each of Colorado’s first three touchdowns, USC was either in a defense that made absolutely no sense, had a bunch of guys who didn’t know their assignments, or—my guess—both.
Do you want to know why USC continues to play bad defense while teams like Oregon State and Utah—teams can’t recruit in the same universe as USC—play pretty good defense almost every week? Because their guys know where to line up, know their assignments, and are playing in a scheme that has all 11 guys trying to do something beneficial. They don’t often have three guys standing around who are not rushing the passer, not covering anybody, and therefore not making a contribution. They play sound football using 11 guys. USC often doesn’t.
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