Break Down of the Week: Rutgers Goes Old School to Stop Cincy

Rutgers has been a defense first time for quite a few years now. Greg Schiano was one of the top defensive minds in college football, and he used his fast, attacking style of defense to stifle opponents on his way to building Rutgers into a respectable program. He has moved on to the NFL, but the Scarlet Knights have kept that style of defense in place under Kyle Flood and new defensive coordinator Robb Smith. During Saturday's telecast of the Pitt game, analyst Joey Galloway mentioned one particular tactic they utilize to attack offensive fronts, defensive line slanting.

Before we go in depth with this slant technique  let's cover the basics. All defenses, no matter the front, assign a player to defend a gap. Some defenses ask their defensive lineman to defend 2 gaps, but most of the time, every lineman and linebacker is assigned to one specific gap. The area between the center and guard is the "A gap" on both sides. The gap between the guard and tackle is the "B gap" on both sides, and the gap between the tackle and tight end is the "C gap." The area outside of the tight end is the "D gap". In a base 4-3 defense like the one Rutgers plays, you will normally see the nose tackle play one of the A gaps with the middle linebacker playing the other, the three technique tackle in one B gap with an outside linebacker in the other B gap, and the defensive ends playing in the C gap on one side and the D gap on the other, and an OLB guarding the other C gap to the tight end side. It looks something like this:

Against Cincinnati two weeks ago, Rutgers played an outstanding game defensively. They shut the Bearcats down most of the day, but early in the third quarter, Cincy marched down the field to Rutgers' 6 yard line, where they were faced with a 4th and 1. Butch Jones decided to go for it, and Robb Smith dialed up something a bit different to confuse the Bearcats. He called for a throw back defense that that was prominent in '60's and 70's, the 5-2 monster with a defensive line slant. (Click to enlarge)

On the 4th down play, Cincinnati brings their 12 personnel onto the field (1 RB 2 TE), and Rutgers counters with their base (4-3) personnel. Cincy lines up with both TE's to the left out of their shot gun set and the Scarlet Knight defensive line shifts to the weak side of the formation. In the obvious run situation near the end zone, Rutgers brings both safeties up into the box, with Duron Harmon lining up in an outside shade of the tight end, assigned to the D gap and serving as the 5th defensive lineman for all intents and purposes. Lorenzo Waters is down in the box as an extra run supporter as well, playing on the weak side. Jamal Merrell is also lined up to weak side, acting as the monster in this front to the outside. Scott Vallone appears to be assigned to the play side A gap, while Steve Beauharnais is over the weak side A gap. Darius Hamilton (weak side) and Khaseem Greene (strong side) are over the B gaps. Marcus Thompson (weak) and Ka'Lial Glaud (strong) are over the C gaps, while Harmon is over the D gap, and Merrell and Waters are roaming free on the weak side. With this defensive alignment, Cincinnati thinks they have numbers to the strong side (left side in this case) of their formation, with 5 blockers (2 TE, 3 OL) against only 4 Rutgers defenders. They decide to run to the strong side of the formation, and they think if they are able to get a hat on a hat and a double team at the point of attack, they will easily pick up the first down with the basic inside zone run they call.

This defensive alignment is only window dressing, however, intended to throw off Cincinnati's blocking assignments. Vallone, Hamilton, and Thompson all crash down to fill the gap to their right (rather than the one they were lined up over) while firing out of their stances, and this screws the Bearcats' blocking assignments up. Vallone was now defending the strong side B gap, Hamilton in the backside A, Thompson on the backside B, and Merrell in the backside C. Beauharnais takes on the play side A gap responsibility, making him the fifth defender on the play side after the slanting. This is what the gap assignments actually looked like with this play called.

When Darius Hamilton slants down, he totally blows the play up at the line of scrimmage. He takes out one of the play side blockers, the center, as well as the backside guard, creating a pile up the middle to prevent any thoughts Cincy RB George Winn may have had about cutting back. That leaves 4 blockers against 5 defenders with the center taken out. Cincy TE Travis Kelce is lined up as the H-back on the strong side, and he blocks the backside C gap in case there is a cut back, taking another blocker out of the picture, making it 3 against 5. Winn is looking to run through the A gap (between the center and guard), and Vallone, who is slanting towards the B gap, must fight back through the block,back towards the hole. He doesn't fully get back to the hole, but he does stand his ground and fall down (intentionally) to create another pile, creating "trash" to both sides of the hole. Winn has very limited space to run.

Beauharnais is unblocked, and he makes a great read and immediately fills the hole. Winn has nowhere to go, and Greene eventually bursts through the line to make the play in the backfield, forcing the turnover on downs.

Rutgers played a phenomenal game defensively against the Bearcats, thanks in large part to their run defense totally shutting things down against one of the better run offenses in the nation. This fourth down stop was probably the biggest play of the game, as it kept Cincy off the board in a tight game when Rutgers' offense had problems scoring points and the Bearcats had limited opportunities. The 5-2 monster front is very strong against the run, and Robb Smith dialed it up on this play in a run situation, and his defense executed their assignments and came up with a stop. The slant play was yet another example of Rutgers playing their fast, aggressive style of defense, and it payed off big time.

Additional Information
You can read more about the 5-2 monster defense at Smart Football. If you are more interested in the history of this defense, you can check out Wikipedia.

I also found a Youtube video of Bo Schembechler teaching the slant play out of the 5-2 monster, going over each specific defender's responsibilities and what they should do to counteract every block an offensive player can possibly deliver. It's old, but the techniques still hold true today.