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Question for Hulk, others re: Washington DL vs. Stanford DL - Printable Version

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Question for Hulk, others re: Washington DL vs. Stanford DL - OutsiderFan - 09-06-2016

Last night I looked at the Washington Depth Chart and was basically stunned.  They play a 3-4 and all their starting DL are over 300 pounds.  In fact, though not as tall, they are heavier than the Niners' starting DL.  They go 332, 321, 318.

Stanford, OTOH:  273, 261, 285 (and will be even smaller with Watkins' 275 replacing Phillips' 285)

One thing I saw on Friday is how incredibly fast/agile Solomon Thomas and Jordan Watkins are for being big guys, so Stanford's DL probably runs much better than Washington's.  But still, Alabama shut down Southern Cal with six DL over 300.  Stanford has nobody even 290, and Watkins is now playing NT at 275.  Can someone break down why Stanford's lack of size on the DL shouldn't be a worry, when these other contending programs are so much bigger?

Re: Question for Hulk, others re: Washington DL vs. Stanford DL - dabigv13 - 09-06-2016

1) Didn't seem to be a problem in previous years. We've rarely had multiple guys over 290 on the line, and our run defense has been usually very good.
2) Those numbers should be taken with multiple grains of salt. There is no independent way of verifying them.

Re: Question for Hulk, others re: Washington DL vs. Stanford DL - stupac2 - 09-06-2016

(09-06-2016, 07:28 AM)dabigv link Wrote:2) Those numbers should be taken with multiple grains of salt. There is no independent way of verifying them.

This is worth repeating. It's really amazing how, come combine time, seemingly every college player is an inch or two shorter and either missing 20 lbs good weight or gained 20 lbs bad weight. College rosters are always, always wrong.

Also: NFL rosters don't typically update from combine numbers, so those are also garbage.

Re: Question for Hulk, others re: Washington DL vs. Stanford DL - Hulk01 - 09-06-2016

Washington uses a 4-3 with both a different scheme and a different philosophy that goes with it.

Washington tries to plug the run with its defensive linemen--two very bigs and then two edge guys not much bigger than Kevin Palma. 

Stanford's scheme is for our defensive linemen to neutralize their blocks and funnel the runs to the inside linebacker assigned to the gap.  So Washington's linebackers, for several years, have seemed more like big safeties (at least one of them was a converted safety).  Meanwhile, everyone here sounds stunned how little Bobby Okereke is to play linebacker for us, especally inside.  But he's as big as the Huskie's biggest linebacker, alongside of whom Palma and Davis appear massive. 

Our approach explains why our linebackers--Murphy, Chase, Skov, Tarpley, and Martinez--amass the  statistics and one ILB ends up with over 100 tackles on the season, while our nose tackle manages to end each game with a stat line that makes you wonder if he left the game early with an injury. 

You might think of our whole approach as a funnel: Funnel the runs to the inside linebacker and the passes to the middle of the field, and recruit safeties like Reid and Edwards that make receivers wary of going into the funnel.  An added reason, of course, is that most college quarterbacks don't have the arm to throw the hard and long throw to the edge, so daring them to try makes added sense. 

And i don't think Anderson would ridicule me for adding to the funnel and describing the last element as "the canopy."  Whatever else you do in college football--well, pros perhaps more so--you cannot allow the big play.  You want to maintain the top of your defense and keep the plays inside it.  You will willingly trade a series of seven-yard slant completions if it protects you against a 25 yarder over the top, not least of all because if you make an offense work its way down a field, it almost always will find a way to stop itself eventually.  This isn't pure bend, don't break, but you allow some bend to avoid the breaks. 

You saw this last year when we were without Harris and, in one game, without both Harris and Holder.  We basically tried to minimize the damage, make the offense work its way to the red zone, then capitalize on the 12th defender you get from the back of the end zone and the more restricted area and playbook your opponent can use in it, to surrender a field goal.  Agonizing to watch, but if you have a good red zone defense and an offense with Mac et all that can get you seven after you surrender three, it's a risk worth taking in that extreme event.

And at the risk of making a too long post seem interminable, and to make clear, the third down lineman for the Huskies is a Big.  The last I read, he was--again--about Palma's size (6'3, 255). 

And the new defenses are getting harder to characterize with numbers.  You could argue  there are a lot of 2-2-2-4-1''s  in operation these days, with two linemen with their hands down, two on the edge and standing up, two ILBS, four DBs at around 5-6 yards, and a safety covering the top of the canopy.  And then they line up again, in a 3-4-3-1.  Iowa sometimes lines up, as many here recall, with no one with his hands on the ground. 


Re: Question for Hulk, others re: Washington DL vs. Stanford DL - stupac2 - 09-06-2016

Hulk, how would you attack Washington's defense with our offensive pieces? It seems like the standard power runs with McCaffrey might have some issues.

Re: Question for Hulk, others re: Washington DL vs. Stanford DL - Hulk01 - 09-06-2016

I haven't seen Washington play this year, so I'm not sure where they might be vulnerable, other than to know it's not at defensive back.  I'd be surprised, however, if their defense is stronger without Feeney and Littleton at linebacker and Tupou up front.  And given the quality of their DBs, we want to establish the run and stay far away from 3rds and lots. 

I guess my strong sense is that whomever we play, we play our game on offense.  Make Washington defend the entire field, wide and deep.  Keep their safeties honest, and fearful of strong bursts to the LOS a la Barnett against us Saturday, with play action.

Show we are willing to throw on first down and other apparent running downs.  Do it early. 

Exploit our size advantage at receiver and tight end (Budda Baker is outstanding, but he's 5'10 and Jones, also outstanding, is only 6'.)  UCLA had outstanding DBs, too, and we big receivered them to death last year.

But most of all, make them think about both of our brobdingnagian play threats, Love and Mac.  Use each one to take pressure off, and open the field up for, the other.

We have a lot of weapons--more than ever.  The more we make a defense worry about, the easier our task on offense gets: to just get the right play and get it in the right guy's hands.

Re: Question for Hulk, others re: Washington DL vs. Stanford DL - OutsiderFan - 09-06-2016

I admittedly didn't look to see if UW had a fourth DL on its depth chart.  I just saw three 310+ pounders and assumed in was a 3-4. 
Interesting that none of their 2nd team DL are over 290. 

When Stanford played Southern Cal last year, I was extremely skeptical that Scarlett, Shittu, and Thomas could hold their ground against the likes of Mama and Banner.  They didn't early, but they sure did late.  This punctured a whole in my belief that a defense must have 300 pounders to be effective, but it's going to take doing it one more year to remove all of my skepticism.




Re: Question for Hulk, others re: Washington DL vs. Stanford DL - CTcard - 09-06-2016

(09-06-2016, 10:14 AM)Hulk01 link Wrote:I guess my strong sense is that whomever we play, we play our game on offense.  Make Washington defend the entire field, wide and deep.  Keep their safeties honest, and fearful of strong bursts to the LOS a la Barnett against us Saturday, with play action.

Show we are willing to throw on first down and other apparent running downs.  Do it early. 

Aye, there's the rub.

KSU's safeties were crashing hard, and occasionally paid for it, but not enough.

By my count,* we passed on 4 of 20 first down plays (not counting run out the clock plays).
Those were mostly successful - the 40 yard bomb to Rector for a TD, Chryst's first play for 11 yards to McCaffrey, a play action pass to Rector for 13 right after the Lloyd INT, and an incomplete deep sideline pass to Irwin right after the Meeks INT. There was also one sack (-1 yd) and one Burns run on a first down (+4 yds, a scramble?).

For the most part, our brain trust either didn't feel the need or didn't have confidence to attack those charging safeties. I suspect we will have that opportunity/necessity a lot as the season plays out.



* Before they completely destroyed the official site this summer, they used to have a very cool feature in the official box scores where they broke down every play by down and distance based on run/pass and formation. That is one of many things that has now disappeared with the horrendous new "mobile friendly" format. Thus I did the count myself here - it might not be completely reliable.

Other things now completely gone from the official site are all previous seasons cumulative stats. As of today those seem to be completely gone, which doesn't seem much worse than two weeks ago when the links existed but were all broken.

It appears to be that they have used "mobile friendly" as a synonym for "mostly useless".

Re: Question for Hulk, others re: Washington DL vs. Stanford DL - OutsiderFan - 09-06-2016

Words don't exist to describe how awful the official sites of the Pac-12 schools are now.  At least Southern Cal's hasn't been totally ruined.  Look, a sortable roster in grid form! http://www.usctrojans.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/usc-m-footbl-mtt.html

Anyway, CT, as for stats, perhaps they ditched all of them because they can be accessed here? http://www.cfbstats.com



Re: Question for Hulk, others re: Washington DL vs. Stanford DL - CTcard - 09-06-2016

(09-06-2016, 11:47 AM)OutsiderFan link Wrote:Words don't exist to describe how awful the official sites of the Pac-12 schools are now.  At least Southern ןɐɔ's hasn't been totally ruined.  Look, a sortable roster in grid form! http://www.usctrojans.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/University of Seventh Choice-m-footbl-mtt.html

Anyway, CT, as for stats, perhaps they ditched all of them because they can be accessed here? http://www.cfbstats.com

cfbstats.com is a great site. I use it a lot. But it doesn't have everything that the official site used to have on old statistics.

It only goes back to 2008.

It's conference compilations of individual stats only go down to #50 in conference, #100 nationally. Sometimes I am interested in either what obscure players did, or what well known guys did when they started out.

And of course the play by plays are not available there.
I don't know anywhere now that does a down-distance-run/pass-formation break down of the entire game.

And mobile-friendly is generally a pain in the a$# on a laptop.

Re: Question for Hulk, others re: Washington DL vs. Stanford DL - fullmetal - 09-06-2016

(09-06-2016, 10:14 AM)Hulk01 link Wrote:UCLA had outstanding DBs, too, and we big receivered them to death last year.

RIP Wadood.

Stanford's trended lighter on the DL because 1) there aren't that many 300lb DL with grades to recruit and get admitted, and 2) Oregon's spread offense will kill you if you can't get DL who can run and stay fit on their feet through 4Q of play.  I don't think UW's 300lb-ers will have a very fun game vs. Oregon's up-tempo, no-huddle offense.  In fact, I would love to see Stanford run a no-huddle offense against a DL like that.  Get the opposing DL tired, and then run McCaffrey through the holes.

It's more likely that you can find 250lb linemen with the grades who can beef up via Turley magic.  Those guys can probably keep up.

Re: Question for Hulk, others re: Washington DL vs. Stanford DL - winflop - 09-07-2016

(09-06-2016, 09:16 AM)Hulk01 link Wrote:Washington uses a 4-3 with both a different scheme and a different philosophy that goes with it.

Washington tries to plug the run with its defensive linemen--three bigs and then a fourth not much bigger than Kevin Palma. 

Stanford's scheme is for our defensive linemen to neutralize their block and funnel the run to the inside linebacker assigned to the gap.  So Washington's linebackers, for several years, have seemed more like big safeties (at least one of them was a converted safety).  Meanwhile, Everyone here sounds stunned how little Bobby Okereke is to play linebacker for us, especally inside.  But he's as big as the Huskie's biggest linebacker, alongside of whom Palma and Davis appear massive. 

Our approach explains why our linebackers--Murphy, Chase, Skov, Tarpley, and Martinez--tend to amass the spectacular statistics and one ILb ends up with over 100 tackles on the season, while our nose tackles manage to end each game with a stat line that makes you wonder if he left the game early with an injury. 

You might think of our whole approach as a funnel: Funnel the runs to the inside linebacker and the passes to the middle of the field, and recruit safeties like Reid and Edwards that make receivers wary of going into the funnel.  An added reason, of course, is that most college quarterbacks don't have the arm to throw the hard and long throw to the edge, so daring them to try makes added sense. 

And i don't think Anderson would ridicule me for adding to the funnel and describing the last element as "the canopy."  Whatever else you do in college football--well, pros perhaps more so--is to allow the big play.  You want to maintain the top of your defense and keep the plays inside it.  You will willingly trade a series of seven yard slant completions if it protects you against a 25 yarder over the top, not least of all because if you make an offense work its way down a field, it almost always will find a way to stop itself.  This isn't pure bend, don't break, but you do allow some bend to avoid the break. 

You saw this last year in our defenses when we were without Harris and, in one game, without both Harris and Holder.  We basically tried to minimize the damage, make the offense work its way to the red zone, then capitalize on the 12th defender you get from the back of the end zone, and the more restricted area and playbook your opponent can use in it, to surrender a field goal.  Agonizing to watch, but if you have a good red zone defense and an offense with Mac et all that can get you seven after you surrender three, it's a risk worth taking.

And at the risk of making a too long post seem interminable, I don't think the fourth down lineman for the Huskies is a Big.  The last I read, he was--again--about Palma's size (6'3, 255).  But even having three 300 pounders in a defensive front is unusual, maybe a wrinkle that is the Huskies alone.

Re- funnel & canopy approach.  I love the analysis Hulk.  Mrs. Winflop & I were watching the K-State game and she kept complaining about how K-State was moving the ball up the middle in 2Q/3Q.  I kept saying, "yeah but let's see what happens when they get inside our 25."  The only TD came on a perfect pass against some pretty damn good coverage.  Every other time we shut them down, yielding 3 FGs.

This seems to be how Shaw & Anderson want it to be, and I'm very, very on board with it.

Re: Question for Hulk, others re: Washington DL vs. Stanford DL - Hulk01 - 09-07-2016

Your wife's agonizing over our defense hints at how awful a good game can look when you care deeply about the outcome: every few yards surrendered looks like ten yards.

And if she was agonizing in the second half, that illustrates it even more vividly.  On its first six possessions of the second half, the Wildcats gained only 100 yards and averaged only 3.03 yards per play.  And if you take out their scoring drive for their field goal--which took 15 plays to get 68 yards, their five drives gained a total of 32 yards in 18 plays--an average "drive" of 3.6 plays, 6.4 yards.  That might be horrific offense--K State fans probably think so--but our funnel and canopy more resembled, for most of that game, a vise.


Re: Question for Hulk, others re: Washington DL vs. Stanford DL - fullmetal - 09-07-2016

Would the funnel be severely compromised if we rushed four DL instead of three?  I did notice that we sometimes got pressure with three, but many times the KSU QB had plenty of time to throw. 

Re: Question for Hulk, others re: Washington DL vs. Stanford DL - BostonCard - 09-08-2016

(09-07-2016, 12:03 PM)fullmetal link Wrote:Would the funnel be severely compromised if we rushed four DL instead of three?  I did notice that we sometimes got pressure with three, but many times the KSU QB had plenty of time to throw.

I assume you mean rushing a linebacker in addition to our DL, right?  Since we line up 3 D-linemen, we can't rush 4 without incurring some sort of substitution penalty.

BC

Re: Question for Hulk, others re: Washington DL vs. Stanford DL - Hulk01 - 09-09-2016

Against KSU and compared to last season's approach, it appeared we brought fewer four- and five-man pass rushes.  Kalambayi was in on a lot of apparent blitzes, but he was coming off the edge with Thomas and a second defensive linemen.  Without totaling the snaps, it appeared we were in the nickel at least 80% of the time in the second half.

Re: Question for Hulk, others re: Washington DL vs. Stanford DL - fullmetal - 09-09-2016

Right, 3-4.  Do we have enough LB talent to cover the field in thirds?

I wonder if KSU was lining up with multiple WRs to soften up the defense for the run.  I was impressed with Stanford's DL play, forcing back double-teams, making plays out of double-teams, etc.  I wasn't as pleased with the overpursuit and loss of containment (see Ertz's first run for first down, green grass for days).