DEFENSIVE RECAP: 2023 Illinois
Goalline stand, sacks, turnovers: Fun defensive game!
Glossary of Terms1
Link to Charting Sheet2
Drive 1
14 Plays, 5.3 Yards Per Play Allowed
50% Success Rate
0 Havoc Plays, 1 Explosive Play Allowed
Nebraska lets Illinois get some rhythm early, giving up 44 yards on the first four snaps of the game. But the Blackshirts would dominate the rest of the first half, with a 78.9% success rate on the rest of this drive and the next three drives.
Coordinator Tony White was active to begin the game, with tons of pre-snap motion and flourishes from NU’s usual setup on the opening drive. NU shifted its front pre-snap on 6 of 14 plays on the first series (42.9%), compared to a season average of 11.35% of snaps entering the game, brought a line stunt on five of the snaps (35.7%, season average: 12%), rotated its safeties on four snaps (28.6%, season average: 22.8%), and played press coverage on 12 of the snaps3 (85.7%, season average: 16.67%). I don’t know if White got a mandate to start playing more aggressively after a largely static gameplan got 8-yard-gained to death by Michigan, but he came out hyper Friday.
One thing NU introduced for this game was a pre-snap shift widening its linebackers to the flats. It did this on the first and sixth snaps of this drive:
Illinois is a big RPO team (13.43% of its snaps against Nebraska were RPOs), and it utilized a lot of arrow routes in the passing game and fly sweeps to get to defenses’ edges. I would guess this shift was put in as a way to combat that tendency. NU used this shift 13 times Saturday; it was successful seven times and caused three havoc plays.
Illinois gets inside the 20 using mostly short passes to the flats off RPOs and misdirection, with NU dropping into deeper zone coverages on 4 of the first 6 plays. White does bring some pressure after the opening salvo, eschewing any pressure for the first four snaps but then bringing blitzes on 4 of the next 5 after Illinois is able to hit some gains. Once Illinois cracks the 20, though, White calls his biggest pressure yet as coordinator, bringing two of NU’s linebackers and Rover Isaac Gifford off the edge of a four-man front for a seven-player pressure:
With seven blitzing, that means one receiving option was left uncovered. He had blitzed six players plenty (12.4% of Nebraska’s snaps this season), but he had yet to bring seven
Then we get to the goalline stand: Sick! One of the more memorable Nebraska defensive moments in years? It also gave us this hilarious image:
I’m not sure there’s any strategy to evaluate in keeping a team out from the inches line; it’s mostly just who on the line is stronger and better at football. But NU’s d-line is legitimately good; Nash Hutmacher and Ty Robinson are actual dudes who are giving Big Ten offensive linemen lots of trouble. It’s nice to have those now.
Drive 2
3 Plays, 1.3 Yards Per Play Allowed
100% Success Rate
0 Havoc Plays, 0 Explosive Plays Allowed
Drive 3
3 Plays, 0.6 Yards Per Play Allowed
100% Success Rate
1 Havoc Play, 0 Explosive Plays Allowed
Drive 4
3 Plays, 0.0 Yards Per Play Allowed
100% Success Rate
1 Havoc Play, 0 Explosive Plays Allowed
The Blackshirts lock in for these possessions, allowing 6 total yards.
After an aggressive and active first series, White tones it down on Drive 2, dropping eight into coverage with only three rushers on the first two snaps, then lining up in the five-player front linebacker-mugged Diamond blitz look on third down, but it’s a disguise as NU drops into deep coverage. Illinois is basically only attacking with quick passes and horizontal RPOs over this stretch, and NU rallies to the runs or flat routes/screens well over these nine plays. On the third down of the first drive, NU takes its base personnel off the field to bring on its nickel package, with a slight change, moving corner Malcolm Hartzog (green arrow) to the slot role:
Outside corner Quinton Newsome had previously moved into the slot player spot when NU went nickel, but now stays on the outside (blue arrow) with Tommi Hill (purple arrow). One big pregame storyline would be how the Huskers adapted to the loss of boundary safety DeShon Singleton. NU went to a season-high usage of nickel personnel last week after the injury (53.7%), but started in base personnel and then switched to nickel for Drives 3, 6, 9, 10, 11, and 12. Overall, NU played nickel for 51.5% of its snaps, compared to 13.3% usage pregame, with a success rate of 61.8% when the three corners were on the field.
Drive 3 goes back to being a bit more aggressive, with press-coverage blitzes on first and third downs, with a Drop 8 call in the middle. The blitz on third down — again out of the Diamond A-gap mug look — is especially aggressive, again bringing seven rushers, including outside corner Newsome:
That and the call from the first drive are the only two seven-man pressures I’ve recorded from NU this year, and one of only a couple corner blitzes so far this season. The last staff blitzed corners frequently, but White prefers to bring almost all of his pressures from the linebackers and (occasionally) safeties in the spine of the defense. Overall, NU blitzed slightly less than average this game — 31.8% of snaps compared to a 38.2% — preferring instead to up its pre-snap activity, but when it did blitz, it recorded a successful play on 80.9% of its blitzes, by far a season high. The Blackshirts were especially effective bringing extra heat from the outside — like the Newsome play above — with all nine of their plays with a blitzer coming through the C gap (between the tackle and tight end) or D gap (outside the tight end) being successful.
For Drive 4, White switches back to base personnel using the widen front-shift again on first down, with Illinois getting 4 yards on the light box then doing nothing on second down. On third-and-6, NU lines up in the Diamond mug alignment for the third straight third down, but again drops out after bringing the seven-man pressure from it last time.
Drive 5
5 Plays, 15.2 Yards Per Play Allowed
20% Success Rate
1 Havoc Play, 2 Explosive Plays Allowed
Illinois scores its only points of the game off a couple big plays right before the half. NU plays it pretty safe, playing Cover 3 or Cover 4 to protect deep on the three middle plays of the drive, but plays tight-man Cover 1 on the first and last plays, getting burned both times.
The initial Cover 1 call comes on a nice backshoulder throw and catch into good coverage; nothing you can really do about that. The second Cover 1 explosive comes on the 46-yard touchdown to receiver Pat Bryant on just a straight vertical route:
With Cover 1, everyone underneath is manned up, but there is also a deep safety over the top to hopefully put a top on vertical routes, in this case Omar Brown, bracketed:
Newsome is playing press coverage tight at the line to take away short routes, but he also is expecting help over the top of the route from Brown from the coverage structure. Instead, Brown stands flat-footed at the snap and never drops over the top of the route as he should, leaving Newsome one-one-one down the field with a receiver he was at even depth with on the stem of the route. Illinois quarterback Luke Altmyer sees it a lofts a good pass for the long score. NU ran uncharacteristically little Cover 1 on Friday, at just 20% usage; it’s season average entering was over 30%. It entered at about a 60-40 zone to man coverage this season, but would play about 75-25 on Friday, largely in the second half after Bryant burned them in single coverage a few times.
Drive 6
6 plays, 4.8 Yards Per Play Allowed
50% Success Rate
1 Havoc Play, 1 Explosive Play Allowed
With time running low in the half and expecting pass, the Blackshirts switch back into nickel personnel for this drive. NU gives up a long gain on the first play while in Drop 8 coverage. In addition to the three rushers, NU has true freshman Princewill Umanmielen acting as a spy on Altmyer, a good athlete who has hurt teams with his legs at times this year:
Umanmielen follows him well initially, but when Altmyer breaks the pocket, Umanmielen should trigger on him and fly to try to make the tackle. He instead hesitates, letting Altmyer get a pass off as he runs toward the line for a 20-yard gain. Umanmielen has been playing on the defensive line and is only playing some cross-training reps at NU’s hybrid Jack linebacker spot and is just a true freshman, so I’m going to give him a pass on struggling to play in space.
For the final five plays of the half, NU switches to a new pressure package look for all of the snaps as it tries to keep Illinois out of field goal range:
It’s a four-player front, with NU’s defensive tackles spread wide to vacate the A gaps. Widening the DTs is key because it gives them less ground to cover because they’re coming on an ET stunt, with both tackles looping around the penetrating defensive ends to the outside:
In the secondary, White switched the plays off between Cover 2 and Cover 6, but always out of a single-high-safety pre-snap alignment (the diagram above is Cover 2). A single-high alignment would indicate Cover 1 or Cover 3 to the quarterback pre-snap, but the picture always changed out of this package, with the deep safety coming down to play in the middle of the field and the two mid-depth safeties dropping deep, with the corners playing tight on the flats. White also changes up the rush on the final two plays, not using the stunt and just bringing straight rush. Illinois struggled to block this, with the five final plays of the half resulting in a sack and only two short completions, making the Illinois field-goal attempt longer, which it misses.
Drive 7
3 Plays, 6.0 Yards Per Play Allowed
100% Success Rate
1 Havoc Play, 0 Explosive Plays Allowed
Drive 8
3 Plays, -3.3 Yards Per Play Allowed
100% Success Rate
2 Havoc Plays, 0 Explosive Plays Allowed
The Blackshirts go on another run of dominance here, with an 89.5% success rate over the next five drives.
They get consecutive three-play drives after halftime, with White keeping it pretty vanilla, with only one blitz over the six plays and Cover 2, Cover 4, or Cover 6 on every snap to prevent big plays. His rate of pre-snap chaos stays up, though, with front shifts on half the plays. Remember that the season average entering was 11%; the front shift percentage would finish at 45.5% usage for the game, with a 70% success rate.
On the final snap of Drive 7, White calls the spy with Umanmielen again, who again lets Altmyer get off another pass at the line while scrambling, but a fumble luckily bounces right to Hill to end the drive.
Drive 9
6 Plays, 5.0 Yards Per Play Allowed
80% Success Rate
0 Havoc Plays, 1 Explosive Play Allowed
After two largely deep-shell drives, White gets aggressive again, committing more players to the box and bringing more pressure. NU had been pretty much playing in standard or light boxes against Illinois’ spread RPO system, but aligns with seven or more players in the box on three of the plays this drive. This game overall was NU’s highest usage of light boxes so far this year, at 24.2%.
White also started bringing pressure again, bringing extra rushers on three plays this series and dropping out into a sim pressure on another. Though the pressures all have deep coverage behind them; he’s not being too risky with the lead still pretty tenuous.
Illinois gets one good play here, a 21-yard completion to Isaiah Williams on a swing route that should have been tackled for no gain, but Williams breaks two tackles. Otherwise the Blackshirts are on a streak of 14 straight successful plays, dating back to the first half.
Drive 10
3 Plays, 1.6 Yards Per Play Allowed
66% Success Rate
1 Havoc Play, 0 Explosive Plays Allowed
While Nebraska’s offense is busy doing everything it can to blow the game at this point, the defense ensures it doesn’t happen with another three-and-out, its sixth of the game.
White switches back to nickel personnel for the rest of the game, expecting pass now that we’re in the fourth quarter, and Illinois drops back all three plays. He also plays coverage this drive, rushing only three on first and second down, then lining up in the wide no-A gap pressure package again with the stunt and Cover 2 behind it, getting a deflection at the line. Overall, NU ran that package 10 snaps Friday for a success rate of 60%.
Drive 11
5 Plays, 3.0 Yards Per Play Allowed
80% Success Rate
2 Havoc Plays, 0 Explosive Plays Allowed
Drive 12
12 Plays, 5.6 Yards Per Play Allowed
58.3% Success Rate
0 Havoc Plays, 2 Explosive Plays Allowed
The final two drives are largely White playing deep zone coverage to prevent a quick score while mixing up fronts and occasionally bringing a blitz. He plays man coverage just twice on the final 19 snaps, and switches up the structure on all but two occasions. Illinois is able to hit on a few nice completions early, mostly off nice second-reaction plays from Altmyer, but otherwise doesn’t do much.
Newsome gets his first career interception to end Drive 11, coming off Cover 2 out of the wide pressure package when Altmyer throws short on a scramble drill but his receiver goes long:
NU ran Cover 2 at a higher than normal rate Friday, at about 26% usage. Its season average entering had been about 10.5%. It also ran Cover 6 (half of the field in Cover 2) at about 10% usage, about double what it had been used on average this year. That was largely a factor of wanting to get more players toward the flats to combat the RPOs and arrow routes from Illinois.
I’ve got a few pieces of content planned for the bye week: I’ll do the first tendency posts for the offense and defense, with charts showing what NU has been running and how successful it’s been through the first half of the season. I’ll also have the next round of game previews. Thanks for reading!
Yards Per Play measures how many non-penalty yards NU allowed on a possession divided by its non-penalty snaps. Success Rate measures how often NU prevented a gain of 50% or more of the yards its opponent needed to convert on a first down, 70% or more of the yards its opponent needed on second down, or 100% or more of the yards its opponent needed on third or fourth down. An Explosive Play is any designed run that gains more than 12 yards and any designed pass that gains more than 16 yards. A Havoc Play Allowed is any tackle for loss, sack, fumble, interception, pass break-up or batted ball.
The press coverage figure on this drive is high, in part, because NU faced four snaps on the goalline this drive, slightly inflating the numbers. But they still ran it a lot.
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