We are about to face Oregon, the team that seems to have perfected the zone-read option and plays it at a very fast pace. (it does help that the returned their entire O-line from last season).

Of course the question is how do you stop it.

I'm not a coach, but watching it over the season and looking back at other option teams in the past you start to notice things. In Oregon's case, the entire option starts with the "zone-read". The simple explanation is that the Oregon QB is going to watch the DE or OLB on one side of the field after the snap. If the player looks like he's not going to support the middle of the D-line, the ball is handed to the TB, who is usually running a dive play. If the DE is playing to stop the ball carrier, the QB keeps the ball and goes to his second and sometimes third options. This is usually an outside run of some kind or a quick pass.

So there are three things that have to be a concern for a Defensive coach. First, how do you make the read's the QB makes wrong or at least not matter. Second, how to you work to have a defense that is stopping both inside and outside runs at hte same time. and third, how do you stop the quick passes.

I think the first thing to be considered, is to abandon having a deep safety. Admittedly most coaches want a safety back there to protect against the long pass and/or the big play, but Oregon like most option teams rarely throws the ball more than 15 yards. The idea is quick passes, not long ones. Also Oregon has proved many times that James and Barner can and will go for 6 if they get past the LB's, even if there is a deep safety, so the goal needs to be to keep the RBs from breaking free of the LBs.

Therefore I have an idea, although one I expect no D coach will use.

First, go to a pure man coverage on all WR's and have those be your only DBs in the game. No free safety or strong safety. You'll be covering the TE with your best pass defending LB.

Second, Have at least a 5 man and if possible a 6 man front. You'll be playing a 5-3-3 or a 4-4-3 with the 2 OLBs playing wide on the LOS. All of the down linemen would have specific zones to play and your inside LBs are watching the dive. This eliminates the read 2 ways. First with 5-6 lineman/LBs the read is pushed outside the tackles and doesn't really determine if the dive play is going to work. You have 5-6 players in the middle before you get to the man the QB is tryign to "read" and that man's whole purpose is playing the QB or the reverse. There is no real "read" to make.

Now this defense does have some dangers. First you are going with man coverage, so a complete pass and broken tackle is a big play. you are actually almost begging the other team to try to beat you by passing. I think Oregon might be capable of that right now.

but the defense does do what any good defense does and that is takes away options and plays from the offense forcing them to play differently than normal. I think if you try to play a straight 4-3 or 3-4 against Oregon right now you concede too much to the zone-read. You have to take the read away and get aggresively into the face of the QB and RB. Make them fight for yardage and slow them down.

You also have to be able to score with Oregon right now. Even if my defense works perfectly Oregon is going to score several times, so you can allow your offense to be stopped if you want to beat them.

Canard;413318 said:

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Something tells me you must think Masoli is still playing for us or something.

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Canard, I've actually watched four Oregon games so far this year. I didn't say that Thomas can't throw long. He can, and he has on occasion, but the long pass is not the usual option. Oregon's passing offense is primarily made up of screen passes and quick hitting slants and crossing patterns set up in the 10-15 yard range. They are good passes as the patterns are short and fast so the defense really doesn't get much if a chance to get into pass rush mode.

the_purple_drank;413370 said:

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The main reason why Oregon's offense is so explosive is because of that thinking. When they get to running the ball well, they simply go play action and go deep. That accounted for at least 3 TDs against USC a couple of weeks ago.

Gregory-- with the exception of last year-- had good success defending that spread attack. My guess is speed will be the emphasis-- meaning more DBs on the field-- and a greater emphasis on properly wrapping players up this week.

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Ah, but play-action is more to freeze the LBs and safeties. Its an anti-zone trick because in a zone defense the players don't drop into zones until they first see if its a run or pass. If you are in man coverage against the WR's the DB's shouldn't be paying that much attention to the QB/RB exchange, which limits the power of the play-action. The only receiver who might end up open would be a TE if the LB falls for the play action.

USC doesn't have the DBs to play man coverage so play-action can victimize them easily. I've watched Oregon this season and they don't have burners as their WRs. Their WR's are reliable and run precise routes, but they aren't going to run away from most DBs. I think Hagan and Anthony can cover 1v1 against them and do relatively well.

With how strong the Oregon O-line is teams ahve to take chances. Gregory's read/react defense sounds nice, but if Oregon manages to average 4+ yards on first down, they are going to get lots of long drives, and right now their offense is doing that with the running game. The run has to be stopped if Cal is going to make a game out of tit.

Also the defense I suggest is going to put 8 players in the box and set it up so that the zone-blocking of Oregon can't blast open easy holes since they actually spread the blocking into 2 zones to allow the reads. The goal is to take away pretty much all running plays and force the offense to pass. Yes, you are going with man coverage, but you also should have a pretty good pass rush limiting the time the QB has to throw and taking away the long pass anyways.

the_purple_drank;413370 said:

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Gregory-- with the exception of last year-- had good success defending that spread attack.

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Isn't this a bit like saying "President Lincoln, other than his last visit to the theater, really enjoyed the performances".

I'm not sure how they are going to game plan against Oregon, but I vote right now against the game plan from last year which was to leave Ed Dickson unguarded as he ran up the field. That didn't seem to work out too well ...

Canard;413409 said:

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If you load the box, Oregon will go to their wide passing game to force you out of it. Gregory loaded the box last year and dared Masoli to beat you passing, which was a reasonable gamble given Masoli's erratic consistency.

Loading the box against Darron Thomas has been suicidal this season. He will count you up and throw it automatically to where you are not. And he will consistently complete those throws at 60%+

Man is a bad defense against the read option where you could be turning 3-5 defenders' backs to the play on each snap. Chip will just call plays to occupy as many pass defenders as he can and run Thomas to the edge all day or throw simple swing passes to Barner and James like long hand-offs.

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So the defense should just lie down and not bother?

And notice I changed the D-line to make the read much more difficult in my original post. The read is against a player who usually is playing just over the offensive tackle on that side. Now if Oregon starts to go with 4 WR's the defense I suggested might have trouble because it would have to be a 5-2-4 and the middle might get a bit weaker, but in the standard Oregon formation appears to be 3 WRs, 1 TE and 1 RB, against that the formation would most likely have a 6 man front with 2 OLBs lining up outside the O-line completely which eliminates the outside run and limits the time Thomas would have to pass since those OLBs would be looking to meet at the QB on every play.

It's actually not a classical "load the box" since loading the box usually means that the men are between the tackles, and again, what I'm suggesting is that you bring up the safeties to the LOS as LBs and take away anything wide iwth them.

As for Darren completing 60+% of his passes, any decent QB should do that, its going to happen.

The goal against Oregon isn't to stop them completely, you aren't going to. Its to stop them a few times while your offense manages to not be stopped. I don't expect Cal to do that this year, the Cal O-line is a sieve and couldn't block a charging poodle right now.

And Gregory's defense last season was a joke. He didn't man up the WRs and completely ignored defending the TE all through the first half. It was a classic example of not understanding how to defend the spread/read option.

northendbear;413419 said:

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Isn't this a bit like saying "President Lincoln, other than his last visit to the theater, really enjoyed the performances".

I'm not sure how they are going to game plan against Oregon, but I vote right now against the game plan from last year which was to leave Ed Dickson unguarded as he ran up the field. That didn't seem to work out too well ...

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Gregory's game plan from 2004-2008 against Oregon was actually great (the one game we lost was a low scoring one in 2005 and we went to OT; Ayoob couldn't complete a 10 yard pitch and catch to take it to 2 OTs). And the game plan in 2006 was quite brilliant. The wheels fell off last season.

Listen to Canard. Kelly has an attack plan for every possible defense.
Cal should play them as advantageously as possible. What are Cal's advantages? Speed. Depth. Guyton.

Cal must have a strict rotational plan to keep DB's fresh because they are going to need every one of them plus our fastest LB's. As we saw the last several weeks, the Bears are most likely to play nickle. I would have two complete DB packages, one headed by Catthouse, and one Headed by Conte. They should be on the sidelines together, ready to alternate in as a unit every couple of plays.
Oregon's game is two pronged: get as much out of the offense early as they can, but mainly rely on a high fatigue factor late in the game where they usually just break the defenses wide open because they are tired.

Second, we must, must, must hit the QB each and every play. Hit him hard, even if it costs a penalty or two. The Ducks will be running a lot of plays, and that is a lot of hits for one player to absorb. I think we want them to run because the QB is in the play longer, in fact we probably want to make him option to run, and take hits. Perhaps we can tire him out a little, or even see Costa subbed in.

Finally of course, the Bears must keep the ball, sustain drives, and score. Maybe we get a special teams turnover or score. WE must use short passes: slants and swings to the RB. The WR's must block downfield. An actual draw would be nice. Forget the miserable screen passes especially on long yardage. Nobody has been fooled on those passes we have thrown all year. Once again poor downfield blocking has causes screens to be blown up for losses many times. Keeping our own offense up tempo might help.

Last but not least: fingers crossed. We could always use some luck.
If we have a home blowout like Oregon is capable of laying on us, perhaps Tedford will take things back to the drawing board in the off season. Bring in a running JuCo QB and switch to Kelly's offense to give the Bears a chance to compete.

GBMARIN;413466 said:

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Second, we must, must, must hit the QB each and every play. Hit him hard, even if it costs a penalty or two. The Ducks will be running a lot of plays, and that is a lot of hits for one player to absorb. I think we want them to run because the QB is in the play longer, in fact we probably want to make him option to run, and take hits. Perhaps we can tire him out a little, or even see Costa subbed in.

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I'll second that point. There are three rules the outside linemen must follow when defending an Option QB:

If he hands the ball to the fullback, hammer the quarterback.
If he fakes a handoff, hammer the quarterback.
If he is coming at you with an option to pitch to a trailing back, hammer the quarterback.

Make it a pain game. The QB must get hit on evert single sneaky play where he pretends to have the ball. The QB will get pretty gun shy by the 3rd quarter, that is if he is still in the game.

:chainsaw

mvargus;413308 said:

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We are about to face Oregon, the team that seems to have perfected the zone-read option and plays it at a very fast pace. (it does help that the returned their entire O-line from last season).

Of course the question is how do you stop it.

I'm not a coach, but watching it over the season and looking back at other option teams in the past you start to notice things. In Oregon's case, the entire option starts with the "zone-read". The simple explanation is that the Oregon QB is going to watch the DE or OLB on one side of the field after the snap. If the player looks like he's not going to support the middle of the D-line, the ball is handed to the TB, who is usually running a dive play. If the DE is playing to stop the ball carrier, the QB keeps the ball and goes to his second and sometimes third options. This is usually an outside run of some kind or a quick pass.

So there are three things that have to be a concern for a Defensive coach. First, how do you make the read's the QB makes wrong or at least not matter. Second, how to you work to have a defense that is stopping both inside and outside runs at hte same time. and third, how do you stop the quick passes.

I think the first thing to be considered, is to abandon having a deep safety. Admittedly most coaches want a safety back there to protect against the long pass and/or the big play, but Oregon like most option teams rarely throws the ball more than 15 yards. The idea is quick passes, not long ones. Also Oregon has proved many times that James and Barner can and will go for 6 if they get past the LB's, even if there is a deep safety, so the goal needs to be to keep the RBs from breaking free of the LBs.

Therefore I have an idea, although one I expect no D coach will use.

First, go to a pure man coverage on all WR's and have those be your only DBs in the game. No free safety or strong safety. You'll be covering the TE with your best pass defending LB.

Second, Have at least a 5 man and if possible a 6 man front. You'll be playing a 5-3-3 or a 4-4-3 with the 2 OLBs playing wide on the LOS. All of the down linemen would have specific zones to play and your inside LBs are watching the dive. This eliminates the read 2 ways. First with 5-6 lineman/LBs the read is pushed outside the tackles and doesn't really determine if the dive play is going to work. You have 5-6 players in the middle before you get to the man the QB is tryign to "read" and that man's whole purpose is playing the QB or the reverse. There is no real "read" to make.

Now this defense does have some dangers. First you are going with man coverage, so a complete pass and broken tackle is a big play. you are actually almost begging the other team to try to beat you by passing. I think Oregon might be capable of that right now.

but the defense does do what any good defense does and that is takes away options and plays from the offense forcing them to play differently than normal. I think if you try to play a straight 4-3 or 3-4 against Oregon right now you concede too much to the zone-read. You have to take the read away and get aggresively into the face of the QB and RB. Make them fight for yardage and slow them down.

You also have to be able to score with Oregon right now. Even if my defense works perfectly Oregon is going to score several times, so you can allow your offense to be stopped if you want to beat them.

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This strategy sounds as good as any. No one else has stopped them so we need to try something different. We already know Oregon will run down your throat all day if you try to play five in the box with two high safeties. Or for that matter six in the box with one high. Might as well make Thomas throw it and see if we can't get him to make some mistakes. Deep routes take time and our pass rush has been pretty good. Confuse him by disguising coverages (and keep them disguised until AFTER the OU picture card is shown). The other possible advantage of playing the safeties up is that it will be easier to disguise safety blitzes. I'm also for the "fake pinch" by our edge defenders on the zone read. Fake the pinch, let Thomas pull the ball out and be ready to string him out to the sideline.

Quote:

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Oregon's spread-option offense averaged 42 points and 485 yards per game in 2008. Only two defenses stopped the Ducks last fall: USC and California.

Cal, which had switched from a 4-3 scheme to a 3-4 during the 2008 offseason, held the Ducks to just 290 yards in a 26-16 victory.

One of the reasons to be high on Cal this year is eight starters are back from that defense.

But, considering the Bears also held Dennis Dixon & Co. to just 24 points in Autzen Stadium in 2007, it seemed appropriate to check in with defensive coordinator Bob Gregory and see if he'd share some insights into slowing the spread-option.

Does it help that you guys have incorporated some spread elements into your offense so you get to practice against it?

Bob Gregory: No question. Anytime you see it a little bit more it helps you. We're a little bit fortunate in the Pac-10 in that, unless it's out of league, we only have one team that is true spread -- Oregon. But anytime you see it in practice, it helps for sure.

I remember in high school preparing for wishbone teams: It was pure assignment football. Is it like that preparing for a spread-option vs. a typical pro-style, multiple offense?

BG: Yeah, it definitely is. In the old days, you had three backs in the backfield and everybody was doing option defensive assignments and concerns. It's the same kind of deal. The quarterback can carry the ball. He can hand off. He can motion a guy around to be the pitch guy. It really is the same idea. You've really got to make sure you stop all those elements. And then they throw in the no-huddle with it, which most of them have, and that can slow you down a little bit more. So we talk about that with our guys -- it's assignment football. You can't be quite as reckless, unless it's third-and-long and then you can get into your normal blitz stuff.

More than a few defensive coordinators have said that when you have a running quarterback, it stresses a defense and makes it difficult to match up. Is the spread not effective when the quarterback is not a good runner?

BG: I don't think it is as effective. I think when you've got a guy like [Jeremiah] Masoli at Oregon -- or a Dennis Dixon -- man, that makes it even harder. If a quarterback is not a great runner, you don't have to worry about him keeping it. And even if he does keep it, he's not going to gain a lot of yards. You can kind of load up in the one aspect, whether it's defending the ball inside or the pitch guy coming around, you don't have to worry about the quarterback. But if the guy can run, it adds a whole different dimension to it and makes it more difficult.

Obviously you never tell your players to hurt somebody, but I'd guess you remind your players to bring the lumber if a quarterback decides he wants to be a running back. Does it up the ante a little bit when your defense is going to get some shots on the quarterback in the open field?

BG: Yes and no. Whoever is carrying the ball, the defensive player is always going to try and tackle hard. And a lot of those guys now are like running backs, so you've got to tackle them hard because they're used to carrying the football. They protect it better than some quarterbacks who are just scrambling. A lot of those guys are just built differently. You better tackle them hard because they're used to breaking tackles and running in space. You've got to tackle them hard, that's for sure, and hopefully we'll make them think about it.

How different is receiver play in a spread offense?

BG: I'm not sure if it is. I think it depends on the offensive coordinator's philosophy -- if they like to run the ball more than pass the football. They're still going to try to recruit as good of receivers as they can. I think part of what makes [a spread] so effective is if there really is a threat of throwing the football. Because they do spread you out, and if there are good receivers and a quarterback to get them the ball, that creates a whole other dimension that you've got to think about and work on during the week. If a team is really run-oriented, you might be able to take a chance there loading up the box.

How about blocking assignments: Is that an adjustment also?

BG: Yeah, because so much of it is lateral. You really don't see the downhill, power running game that you see with most two-back teams -- power with pulling [linemen], lead plays, that kind of thing. So much of it is lateral, with guys moving in one direction and the back has the ability to really cut back and wind it back. You've really got to be conscious of not running so far out with the offensive line -- the term we use is "getting washed." Sometimes you see a back cutting all the way back and part of that is a defensive line over-pursuing and getting washed past the holes and the gaps up front so a back can stick it back. It's tough stuff and it is different. A good offensive line, like Oregon, that is big and strong and moves well, can really work guys past that initial point of attack and a good back can just break it back against the pursuit of the defense.

You've run a 4-3 defense versus the spread. And you've run a 3-4 against it. Is the 3-4 better or is it just different?

BG: I don't know what the best thing is against it -- I'm still trying to figure that out. I don't know. I think it's just different. I think you'll see defenses do well and not do well with a four-man and a three-man front. Good players -- that's the key. That makes my calls a lot easier.

You guys really stumped them last year at Berkeley. Was the rain a factor or did you just execute like you wanted to?

BG: I think we executed well. I don't think the rain affected them -- I was a coach at Oregon, so I know they're used to the rain. They play in it. We played well and they turned the ball over a couple of times. They moved the ball well at times. They went down that first series and scored on us. We came up with a couple of big plays that helped us. I think our guys played well and we got some key turnovers that helped, which is unlike those guys. They don't normally turn the ball over very much.

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Also, more DC Interviews re Defending Against the Spread.

There is an oft forgotten 4th rule which one should follow as well:

If the play has started, HAMMER THE QUARTERBACK.

Al Groh, defensive guru at UVA.
Defends the spread with total bull****.

How about replacing a safety with an extra linebacker? Then play the best run-defense linebacker on the team by cheating that linebacker forward from the safety position and using him as a bandit against LaMichael James?

Ideally that strategy takes away the opportunity of using James up the middle in the dive option and puts an extra defender on him if he goes wide.

We can't let Oregon dictate down and distance by running James on first down and winding up with 2nd and short, or we will be in for a long afternoon.