Anybody notice when we blitzed...

BSpringsteen

Well-Known Member
They never once burned us deep and was when we were undeniably the most disruptive.

The thing is, we didn't ever send more than 1 player, and they came from different places. Which was great because it didn't make the blitz predictable and for those of you doing math at home, that means we still had 6 people in coverage against 5 receivers.

Conversely, when we didn't blitz, we had ZERO pass rush and Gabbert was able to find holes in our zone 20 yards down the field.

Our defensive philosophy, I actually enjoy and agree with, but the thing is, it relies on a QB to make mistakes, and you have to force that issue and force them to make quick decisions. With the pass rush we had without blitzing we could have made Christensen look like an All-American.
 


Defensively it was all about "bend, but don't break". I have NEVER seen a better example of this all year. The stats looked horrendous, but the result wasn't what you might think it would be. Yes, the defense gave up yardage....big time. But they also made the plays when it counted and stopped Mizzou several times when it could have gotten ugly.
 






but remember, on one of the blitzes, Missouri ran right past our D for a 10 yard TD run.

They definitely caught us on that one...we blitzed from the wide side and they took it short side and simply beat us.

The only qualm I had with our blitz packages was that I don't remember seeing any pressure up the middle. Our strength is our DL, yet we continued to give those guys up (having them slant inside to occupy blockers) in an effort to free up a blitzer (Morris usually) coming off the edge. I can see an alternative viewpoint that says that the DE's get attention and thus there is a possibility they could free up an outside blitzer, but here's more along the lines of what I was thinking...

If you bring pressure up the middle, even if it doesn't get there but gets a push in the pocket, Gabbert isn't able to step into some of those throws. If we get a good push, he is going to have to leave the pocket, pushing him both into Ballard and Clayborn's territory as well as putting him in situations where he was definitely less comfortable last night.
 


Excellent points. It is defense on the edge of your seat for we Hawk fans! I liked our blitzes from the outside as that is where he was targeting most of his passes and we could disrupt his lane of sight if we couldn't get there. But I agree that we are counting on mistakes happening and luckily they did. That INT at the end of the first half was very fortunate. So were a few dropped passes and missed throws. With such a strong DL I just don't understand why we don't put more pressure on our opponents.
 


I have NO qualms with anything our defense does in WINS. They were a HUGe part in that win, stepping up when they had to.
 


I have NO qualms with anything our defense does in WINS. They were a HUGe part in that win, stepping up when they had to.

Something we sorely missed during the regular season. With the rest of it I'm just picking nits at this point...
 


Spot on OP.
Not blitzing even occasionally is akin to not running the ball ever....even if you're down to only Sam Brownlee in the backfield.

Or not actually even pretending to rush the punter ever...especially when you're up by 6 on the number 11 team in the country.
 


I have NO qualms with anything our defense does in WINS. They were a HUGe part in that win, stepping up when they had to.

We still need more aggressive schemes. I can't really say they 'stepped up' when they had to. Honestly other than a couple Morris blitzes which were highly effective the defense only managed to not let it get out of hand. We did what we always do.. keep it in front of you and hope they shoot themselves.

The Hyde interception was completely stupid throw by Gabbert... he doesn't throw that ball and very likely we go down. Hyde made a fantastic return.. have to give him tons of credit for being smart with the ball... maybe he should be returning kicks?
 


I loved to see the D blitzing more, really hope this keeps up into next year. Now, Im not saying we turn into the Steelers or anything but last night was a good start.
 


Hawkeye pass rush was almost non-existant. No push. AC was dancing with his man most of the night and made some tackles down field after 8-10 yard gains. He is going to need to be taught some moves to shed blockers if he is going to be a force in the NFL. Seemed like other than Klug, the Dline was taking one step and then retreating into middle coverage. Mike Daniels even play? Never heard his name...not once.
 


We finally have a LBer who CAN blitz and get to the QB. Morris may be better than Angerer and Edds, IMO. Shot out of a cannon. Greenway wasn't the best and still is not the best.

Morris has a feel, great speed and physicality that makes him effective.
 


They scored two TDs against blitzes. The 10 yard run on the left side, and the WR screen on the left side near the goal line. In both cases, they had greater numbers at the point of attack and there wasn't anything the Hawks could do.

I'm not criticizing the calls at all. But I just want the complainers to understand that there are consequences to blitzes.
 


Hawkeye pass rush was almost non-existant. No push. AC was dancing with his man most of the night and made some tackles down field after 8-10 yard gains. He is going to need to be taught some moves to shed blockers if he is going to be a force in the NFL. Seemed like other than Klug, the Dline was taking one step and then retreating into middle coverage. Mike Daniels even play? Never heard his name...not once.

AC was owned by his man all night long. I will miss Clayborn, but he did not have a good game, IMO. He saw his share of double teams this year, but last night he was beat one on one most of the night.
 


Did anyone else think the announcers were over playing the "tired defense" mantra last night?

The D has looked gassed in previous games like NW & OSU, but I didn't think they looked that tired last night.
 


We MUST get more pressure on these QBs. They don't screw up unless they are under duress. You don't have to blitz every down but you've got to mix it up because a three man rush on third and 19 is not going to get you off the field. You cannot give the QB time to sit back there and scan the field, it puts the secondary at a huge disadvantage. You can get away with it sometimes if you have a shutdown corner and super athletic linebackers, but you're still gonna get burned.
 




They scored two TDs against blitzes. The 10 yard run on the left side, and the WR screen on the left side near the goal line. In both cases, they had greater numbers at the point of attack and there wasn't anything the Hawks could do.

That's because the two plays invented to stop the blitz were the draw and the screen pass. They allow the defense to overrun the play whilst creating a mismatch in the number of blockers to defenders. Mizzou either recognized that the blitz was coming and checked down to those plays, or noticed a tendency for us to send an extra guy inside the red zone in tight game situations and made the right call.

As for those who say that the defense only kept it from getting out of hand, the Hawks held the lead through three quarters. I'd say that is doing your job.

As for AC being "owned" by his man, if you re-watch the game, you'll notice that both he and Ballard were running a contain defense to prevent Gabbert from getting the running yards he was picking up late in the B12 season. Our defense knew he(Gabbert) had a quick release and that Mizzou rarely throws deep. No reason to run themselves out of every play only for Gabbert to have thrown the ball two seconds before he got there.

On plays where the ends stunted in, the LB's were playing in the shallow flat to prevent sweeps and short outs. However, Mizzou's possession wideouts ran excellent slant routes and their timing was perfect. It was obvious that the game plan was to pick on the young Iowa Linebacking corps with quick slants inside and outside from the slot.

Iowa recognized this at half and baited Gabbert into making the bad throw that Hyde intercepted by disguising their coverage as man, rotating the LB covering the flat into a hook zone over the middle, and pushing Hyde into the flat where he hadn't been all night long. Gabbert made a pre-snap read that the Hawks were in Man-Cover 2. He was right about the Cover-2, as the safety rotated over the top of Hyde to guard against the deep ball, but was wrong about the Man underneath. Hyde and Iowa knew where the ball was going before the snap and Hyde jumped the route. The rest is history.

The idea behind the spread is to a). spread out the defense so defenders have to make isolation plays in space, b). create mismatches between athletic tight-ends and slot receivers on linebackers, and c). make the reads and throws easier for the quarterback. Iowa's D is built to stop deep threats and force a team to execute perfectly time and time again to march down the field. The only way to successfully attack it is to be excellent at the point of attack on runs, or throw dink and dunk passes near the sidelines. Once you get into the red-zone, Iowa can start bringing its safeties closer to the line of scrimmage because the vertical space to defend is only 20 yards long. This makes the gaps in the zone coverage very small and often forces teams to try to throw deep fades into double coverage, make risky throws towards the sidelines where corners can jump routes and break up passes, or pound the ball inside to gain ground. It reduces the amount of "space" and allows the defense to function more as a team tackling unit, nullifying the concept behind the spread. Consequently, teams often end up kicking field goals rather than scoring TDs. If a team executes perfectly they will gain many yards between the twenties, only to get frustrated inside the red zone.

Norm's D may be vanilla to some eyes, but in reality it is a carefully thought out strategy that forces opponents to be very patient moving the ball, and limits risk. It also can cause opponents to lull themselves into a false sense of security, where they make prejudiced judgements about the defensive formation instead of looking closer to pick up subtle clues that the defensive alignment has changed–often leading to turnovers like the one by Hyde last night.

In short, rack up all the yards you want, but you will make a mistake and Iowa will probably capitalize on that mistake.

The only thing about this philosophy that is a problem is that it forces the defense to be on the field for long stretches of time against well-tuned offenses. Consequently the defense gets tired. There are two ways of combatting this: 1). The offense executes well and keeps the defense off of the field long enough to catch their breath and maintain their stamina throughout the game, or 2). Have great depth on defense. Iowa's injuries through the Big Ten season prevented #2, and in the games they lost Iowa usually lost the TOP battle as well.

Last night the run game was working so the defense had just enough left in the tank to execute well, and they won.
 






Top