New post up here:
http://calfootballstrategy.blogspot.com/2014/10/cals-coverage-problems.html

This one's about the intricacies of some of our coverage packages, the ways that they're supposed to work, and the ways that they can get messed up. The takeaway is that good coverage isn't just about tight, man-on-man coverage, but also involves multiple defenders working in combination to affect throws and make it easier to make plays on the ball. There're also more videos than usual, so hopefully this'll give you some useful things to watch for during Saturday's game. Let me know if you have any questions!

thx berk for the breakdown ..

have you see any progression from the defense for game 1 to game 5 ?

what grade would you give the defense thus far?

I'd have to chart the games to quantify any improvement or lack there of. If there is improvement, it's kind of like we're trying to bail water out of a boat while it's still leaking, because over the last three weeks each opponent has found a new weakness to exploit, so even if we're getting better at some of the old problems we keep finding new ones. It'll be hard to talk about improvement until that stops. It's also tough to say because we've had different coverage gameplans each of the last three games, so we haven't seen the exact same schemes week after week. I think that our gameplans have done an OK job of addressing our old weaknesses, though. The slant has never been as huge of a problem since the UA game, and we were quicker to react to the out in the WSU game (although it didn't go away entirely). The WSU game was also the first time I saw combination coverages and coverage disguises, so I think we're still adding packages to the defense.

As for a grade, it'd have to be a D+. I considered a C- because we've played more solid quarters of defense than people might think, but at the end of the day it's hard to call our defense anything close to average. They're also clearly not an F though, because they have showed grit in getting a few huge stops, and until WSU the big play wasn't a big issue like last year. It wouldn't take a lot to get them to a C level (no new problems and just a few more key incompletions here and there), so my hope is that we're there by the end of the season.

ok thx berk.. that is fair imo

berk18;842379416 said:

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I'd have to chart the games to quantify any improvement or lack there of. If there is improvement, it's kind of like we're trying to bail water out of a boat while it's still leaking, because over the last three weeks each opponent has found a new weakness to exploit, so even if we're getting better at some of the old problems we keep finding new ones. It'll be hard to talk about improvement until that stops. It's also tough to say because we've had different coverage gameplans each of the last three games, so we haven't seen the exact same schemes week after week. I think that our gameplans have done an OK job of addressing our old weaknesses, though. The slant has never been as huge of a problem since the UA game, and we were quicker to react to the out in the WSU game (although it didn't go away entirely). The WSU game was also the first time I saw combination coverages and coverage disguises, so I think we're still adding packages to the defense.

As for a grade, it'd have to be a D+. I considered a C- because we've played more solid quarters of defense than people might think, but at the end of the day it's hard to call our defense anything close to average. They're also clearly not an F though, because they have showed grit in getting a few huge stops, and until WSU the big play wasn't a big issue like last year. It wouldn't take a lot to get them to a C level (no new problems and just a few more key incompletions here and there), so my hope is that we're there by the end of the season.

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It's still nothing that more experience and depth can't fix.

C6Bear;842379452 said:

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It's still nothing that more experience and depth can't fix.

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Very true. Like with our offense last year, it's a step from which to improve, not a finished product. We have to find where we're weak if we're going to get strong.

Berk18, you are killing it this season with these great posts

berk18;842379460 said:

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Very true. Like with our offense last year, it's a step from which to improve, not a finished product. We have to find where we're weak if we're going to get strong.

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Berk - what are your thoughts about how our defense matches up with uw?

Do you think miles is good enough to exploit our weaknesses?

How much depth does it take to rush more than 3 or 4? When the opposing QB has an eternity to throw how does coverage improve the outcome?

I read all of this post. Thanks for putting a lot of thought and effort into it.

I did not see you analyze where our particular breakdowns are happening only where they COULD happen. If we could recruit a 5-star guy on defense to replace the current starter what would help us the most right now? LB, CB, or safety? Based on your analysis it seems a lot of the blame is on the safety and we need a safety with more athleticism. Is that right?

Like always your posts are the single most informative on this board
Thank you very much

berk18;842379322 said:

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New post up here:
http://calfootballstrategy.blogspot.com/2014/10/cals-coverage-problems.html

This one's about the intricacies of some of our coverage packages, the ways that they're supposed to work, and the ways that they can get messed up. The takeaway is that good coverage isn't just about tight, man-on-man coverage, but also involves multiple defenders working in combination to affect throws and make it easier to make plays on the ball. There're also more videos than usual, so hopefully this'll give you some useful things to watch for during Saturday's game. Let me know if you have any questions!

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ducky23;842379469 said:

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Berk - what are your thoughts about how our defense matches up with uw?

Do you think miles is good enough to exploit our weaknesses?

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I meant to watch more of them this week but haven't been able to. I caught the first half of the Stanford game and parts of the Illinois game, and my impulse is that we're easily the second best defense they've faced this season. I wouldn't take the Illinois game as indicative of anything about UW's offense, because that defense was crazy slow and unathletic. I've toyed with doing a post on spread vs. "traditional" formations, but for now the weaknesses I've addressed in my posts are all about defending spread passing games. A lot of things get much easier when you convert a WR back into a TE or second RB, so it's not clear to me that most of the problems I've discussed should still exist when UW is in more traditional sets. Other than that, I've seen a lot of zone running, which we're pretty good against as long as we don't get hit with the cut-back. They'll also do weird stuff with formations, so this will be a good test for our coaching staff and their ability to prepare the defense. My guess is that this game could look more like the Northwestern game when we're on defense. Things will be open, but Miles will help us out a few times and we'll get off the field.

BBBGOBEARS;842379483 said:

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How much depth does it take to rush more than 3 or 4? When the opposing QB has an eternity to throw how does coverage improve the outcome?

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I don't know if depth is what's stopping us from getting pressure right now so much as a combination of scheme and ability. What you might be getting at is something I agree with, though, and that's that our coverage isn't good enough to hold when we can't get pressure. The problem is twofold: When the other team is in a spread formation, we have at most 6 men in the box. This limits your blitz possibilities tremendously compared to, say, an 8-man box, and hurts your ability to overload, so you really have to scheme protections to get a free rusher. We haven't done a great job of doing that, at least in our zone blitzes. Our man-blitzes have been reasonably effective, so maybe we'll head more in that direction, although everyone knows the risk there. Another problem is that your players have to have a certain amount of explosiveness for a blitz to work. The OL and QB ultimately have an X's and O's answer to every blitz you can throw at them. The slower your players are, the more time the offense has to work out that correct answer. This is a problem most of the time when we do blitz. We're in a bad spot, because pressure is the only thing that can help our coverage, but we don't generate pressure when we blitz, and so the blitz just makes our coverage weaker.

In a completely different way than MB most informative posts!

;-)

dimitrig;842379527 said:

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I read all of this post. Thanks for putting a lot of thought and effort into it.

I did not see you analyze where our particular breakdowns are happening only where they COULD happen. If we could recruit a 5-star guy on defense to replace the current starter what would help us the most right now? LB, CB, or safety? Based on your analysis it seems a lot of the blame is on the safety and we need a safety with more athleticism. Is that right?

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Ah, I should've pointed that out more. This post and the one on our defense against UA identified a lot of problems that I've seen, so the potential problems I've ID'd are also our real issues. A lot of the difficulties our safeties are having (though not all of them, like the long TD against Piatt) can be connected to the CB's and LB's leaving them on an island when they should be working in combination with them (or the other way around sometimes). We're having a number of problems at the seams in between assignments, which is what the videos in this most recent post are showing (the seam between the CB on the sideline/in the flat and the safety inside and behind him, the seam between the LB underneath and the safety over the top, the seam between the LB inside and the CB outside). This is a common problem with inexperienced defenses. They aren't expert in passing off receivers from one zone to the next and sorting out route combinations, so the windows are too big.

If I had to pick one 5-star guy to fix our defense (I actually really like this question), it would be a CB. I don't like to call out individual players in the blog posts themselves, but it is striking that as I look for good examples and bad examples for the videos, most of the good examples are coming from one side of the field. We have one CB who gets beat in tight coverage more than you'd like, but who affects a lot of throws and generally plays with good technique, leading to fewer targets on his side of the field. Some of his best work is done when no one sees it, because it makes the QB throw somewhere else. The other guy does some good things in his own right, especially in the screen game, but doesn't affect many throws at all. Our defense would look a lot better if we could just reduce opponent completion % by 3-5%, even with our pass rush the way it is. A crazy athletic safety would definitely help, but a dominant CB can protect a safety (or even make him unnecessary) a lot better than the other way around.

A very, very close second place would go to any front-7 player. It could be an explosive, decisive, hard hitting, blitzing MLB (Barton's not there yet), a speedy edge rusher (Scarlett's not quite there yet), or a DT who can collapse the pocket. Anything that could hurry throws would also get us that 3-5% reduction right now. I definitely wouldn't argue with anyone who wants this over a dominant CB.

Great stuff.. Haven't seen this type of good work since the "Bear Will Not Quit" site guy did just that... quit. 3 year hibernation


SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2011
Vacation
On sabbatical until further notice. Go Bears.



http://thebearwillnotquit.blogspot.com/

GoBears58;842379581 said:

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Great stuff.. Haven't seen this type of good work since the "Bear Will Not Quit" site guy did just that... quit. 3 year hibernation


SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2011
Vacation
On sabbatical until further notice. Go Bears.



http://thebearwillnotquit.blogspot.com/

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Man, I loved that blog. That guy and Hydrotech (when he still posted a lot on CGB, especially back before they switched to the new site) had a lot to do with me getting started.

berk18;842379554 said:

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I meant to watch more of them this week but haven't been able to. I caught the first half of the Stanford game and parts of the Illinois game, and my impulse is that we're easily the second best defense they've faced this season. I wouldn't take the Illinois game as indicative of anything about UW's offense, because that defense was crazy slow and unathletic. I've toyed with doing a post on spread vs. "traditional" formations, but for now the weaknesses I've addressed in my posts are all about defending spread passing games. A lot of things get much easier when you convert a WR back into a TE or second RB, so it's not clear to me that most of the problems I've discussed should still exist when UW is in more traditional sets. Other than that, I've seen a lot of zone running, which we're pretty good against as long as we don't get hit with the cut-back. They'll also do weird stuff with formations, so this will be a good test for our coaching staff and their ability to prepare the defense. My guess is that this game could look more like the Northwestern game when we're on defense. Things will be open, but Miles will help us out a few times and we'll get off the field.

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This is what I've been suspecting as well; that we are going to have a lot of trouble against spread offenses, but we might be ok against more traditional offenses. It's only a guess, cause I haven't actually broken down film like you have.

But it only makes intuitive sense since we are so thin in the secondary.

Well we are going to find out Saturday.

Thanks Berk: Real information is at a premium here.
And thanks to those that asked the questions. Those were some of my questions as well.

For me, my 5 star guy would be another Scarlett type on the other side. I wish that McCain had worked out and had developed into that guy. I think we could be pretty good with McCain and Scarlett both playing at once.

I think McCain had the burst to be successful on pass rushes.

Berk, is my memory incorrect or do we not stunt very much on the d-line? It seemed to me Stanfurd was able to get pressure on WSU tonight partly because their front is better than ours and partly because they seemed to stunt quite a bit. What's your take on this?

82gradDLSdad;842380027 said:

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Berk, is my memory incorrect or do we not stunt very much on the d-line? It seemed to me Stanfurd was able to get pressure on WSU tonight partly because their front is better than ours and partly because they seemed to stunt quite a bit. What's your take on this?

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That seems right to me. When I've looked close I've seen some gap exchanges, but not the more complex stunts and twists you'll see teams running. I wonder how much of Stanford's confusion gets generated from running so much 3-4, so that they can stunt and twist while technically only rushing four guys. I know a number of our blitzes come from our 3-3 nickel, but except for our WSU gameplan, that's mostly a situational package.

Thanks Berk. I really don't know how complicated it is for a defense to run a lot of stunts and to have a lot of blitzes coming from different positions. While I think that Cal did blitz quite a few times last week they all seemed to come up the middle and from just the LBs. When they did finally blitz a S on the last drive we almost got to Haliday and did hit him hard. That was the most disappointing part of last week's defensive effort. When your basic defensive packages fail (all game long) you turn to other tactics. Maybe Coach K just hasn't had the time to install the more complicated defensive schemes. I get that and look forward to better (and more complicated) play as the season goes on. Thanks again for all your analysis. It is really appreciated.

berk18;842380043 said:

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That seems right to me. When I've looked close I've seen some gap exchanges, but not the more complex stunts and twists you'll see teams running. I wonder how much of Stanford's confusion gets generated from running so much 3-4, so that they can stunt and twist while technically only rushing four guys. I know a number of our blitzes come from our 3-3 nickel, but except for our WSU gameplan, that's mostly a situational package.

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I think coverage problems are profoundly compounded by a horrible pass rush. Through last week the Bears ranked 118 out of 125 FBS schools in sacks per pass attempt. Why was Connor Halliday not able to repeat his record breaking performance last night? He said it was the Stanford pass rush...he said he simply did not have the time to burn the Stanford secondary. So then why do the Bears have a problem generating a pass rush? Is it because of a lack of technique or lack of stunts? Maybe. But what I see is a lack of speed off of the edge. The Bears could play more 3-4 to get a faster edge rusher on the field in passing situations. However playing a 3-4 against spread teams is problematic because the Bears currently lack enough quality linebackers to play a 3-4 all the time.

So what is the answer? Against pass happy spread teams the cornerbacks have got to play up and jam the receivers at the line. I rarely see Bear CB's do this. Arizona, Colorado and WSU killed the Bears with slants and short crosses. These are essentially timing plays and the best way to defend timing plays is to destroy the timing of the routes. Jamming a receiver at the LOS does just that. Jamming a receiver also gives the safeties an extra second or so to provide coverage over the top on long routes. That extra second also can help the pass rush do some damage.

Today will be interesting. UW tanks 10 out of 125 FBS schools on sacks per pass attempts (10.6%). If the Bears need to out score UW to win they will have to protect Goff.