Defensive Philosophy

Honest question: Have we been dropping 8 and rushing 3 as our standard defense for each of our first three games or was that really a game plan specific to USC to thwart their Air Raid?

That has been standard.

I'm curious if they have stayed with it primarily because of Khyris Tonga. You don't have a "good" rush from the 3, and the defense loses one of its 3 legs and topples because while the other two (on the defensive line) have done well, they're not performing to Tonga's level.

hawkwing wrote:

That has been standard.

Thanks. That's what I was thinking, but on BYU SN yesterday they kept going on and on about how Tuiaki made a great game plan for USC and that he was the MVP of the game. And the entire time I'm thinking, "Uh, isn't that our base defense and it just kinda worked against USC?" Thanks for clarifying. Sometimes those SN have no clue what they're talking about. I'm glad that we have some dedicated sports programming on TV, but I can only stand so much of it.

It worked because they were able to get pressure with the 3. In years past, his 3 man rushes have resulted in big pass completions on 3rd and long plays.

It was amazing how USC failed to double team Tonga, even on the few times they did, it really didn't help. He was destroying the pocket. Other teams have not had nearly as much trouble with the 3 man rush as USC did.

I honestly hope that our genius gameplan is more than "let's drop 8 and just hope our front three (read Tonga) can get pressure."



If I remember correctly last game the first series or two after HT we did bring 4 and do some blitzes (maybe run blitzes?). Let's at least mix it up and try to be a bit unpredictable.



Also, was our pass defense switching between man and zone? Was there anything special that made our pass defense effictive other than we were dropping 8?

I think it's as simple as "Khyiris Tonga is tailor-made to go against a wide-gap Air Raid offensive line."

Yes, we play a 3-man front, but we did rush 4 several times--more in the USC game than in other games to my memory. One of the benefits of the 3-4 versus the 4-3 is that you can bring in an extra rusher from anywhere without compromising your backfield coverage or telegraphing pre-snap where the blitz is coming from or if it's coming at all. And BYU tends to do better at recruiting linebackers than D-Linemen. So I like it so long as we have the horses to get pressure on the QB and not give him all day.

And while Khyris is absolutely blowing up the middle, Devin Kaufusi has done a respectable job on the end--he just wasn't available the last half of the Tennessee game or the first half of the USC game because of the targeting penalty at TN.

Several of the pressures and sacks against USC were generated by the good coverage by the backfield and the fact that the offenses in our first three games see much more man defense than zone, which may have caused some confusion and hesitation by the quarterbacks--especially when they started throwing passes that were broken up or picked. So yeah, Tuiaki's base defense worked well against TN and USC, and really against Utah, too. Doesn't mean the embodied embarrassments at Sports Nation know what they're talking about, though.