Purdue Football: An Overview of the UNLV Defense

No guarantee that this is the defense Coach Odom runs at Purdue, but this what he ran at UNLV.

I’m not sure if this is the defense Coach Odom is going to deploy next season. He’s yet to hire a staff but I like the odds of him bringing defensive coordinator/protegee Mike Scherer with him to West Lafayette.

Even if Scherer doesn’t jump on the train to West Lafayette, I think Odom will deploy something similar in concept at Purdue. I don’t want to get too far into the details until everything is settled, but I expect to see something close to this next season.

Base Defense: 4-2-5

Yello Circle – Down Linemen – 3

Red Circle – Stand Up Defensive End – 1

Green Triangle- Linebacker – 2

Blue Square – Corner – 2

Orange Square – Safety – 3

The Basics

U.N.L.V. ran a base 4-2-5 defense under Mike Scherer. What you need to know about this defense is that it changes. I’m calling the 4-2-5 the “base” because that’s what I mostly see on 1st and 10 outside of the red zone. I’ll get into the “alternate” looks later, but to start things off, let’s talk about the base.

Pressure From Everywhere

Shockingly enough, the overall goal of this defense isn’t that much different from what Purdue ran under Ryan Walters. It wants to pressure the quarterback and put defenders in unexpected places. Unlike Walters’ defense, the pass rush comes from all over the field instead of being mostly limited to the edge rushers. No player on the U.N.L.V. defense had more than five sacks, but they still finished 19th in the nation with 37 sacks. That’s mainly due to the structure of the defense.

The only thing constant about the defensive front is the three linemen with their hands in the dirt, and even that occasionally shifts to two down linemen. Defensive ends Antonio Doyle and Fisher Camac led the team in sacks with a combined 9.5, but the next two guys on U.N.L.V.’s sack list are linebackers Jackson Woodard and Mani Powell. Woodard and Powell combined for seven sacks, only two off the pace of the defensive ends. Scherer doesn’t limit his pressure strictly to players in the front six; defensive backs also get into the action. Nickel back Jonathan Baldwin (essentially a safety) put up three sacks, and free safety Jalen Catalon brought the quarterback down twice.

Zone Blitz

What I liked in the U.N.L.V. games I watched was the constant shifting of the defense. Offensive coordinators will struggle to find a rhythm against this defense because, as soon as they find something that works against one look, the defense changes slightly.

Like Walters’ defense, you’ll often see five or even six guys loitering around the defensive line. It’s usually the three down linemen in a stance and then the stand-up defensive end and two linebackers, but they rarely bring more than four players on the blitz. That doesn’t keep them from getting pressure because one of those three players often comes from an unexpected location. Sometimes they drop the stand-up end into coverage and bring a linebacker. Sometimes they drop out a defensive tackle and bring a safety off the edge. You never know who might show up to blitz. At the same time, they don’t over-extend because they like to utilize the zone blitz.

I’ll get more into that in a future article, but the general idea is to show five or six guys on the line to confuse the offensive line and then drop two or three of them into coverage. The middle linebackers, in particular, show up all over the field. Most of the time, Scherer lines them up in the A-Gaps and then drops them out into an underneath zone. They want to mess with the pre-snap read of the quarterback by showing him one thing and then giving him something else.

When teams get comfortable with the linebackers dropping out, Scherer will fire a linebacker through the A-Gap and drop the stand-up end into an underneath zone. By making the quarterback’s first read difficult, it gives the pass rush time to work.

Interceptions

This defense is designed to mess with the quarterback’s head. Guys show up where they’re not supposed to, and the opposing quarterback throws them the ball.

Free safety Jalen Catalon led the team in interceptions with five, which is expected, but linebacker Jackson Woodard was second on the team in interceptions with four, which isn’t expected. Woodard kept getting in the way of the other team’s crossing routes because the quarterback wouldn’t account for him being there. He started on the defensive line and essentially mirrored the quarterback’s drop.

Quarterbacks have the same issues with the U.N.L.V. safeties. Catalon and nickel back Jonathan Baldwin combined for eight interceptions. Baldwin, the nickel back, might blitz on first down, be in man coverage on second down, and drop into zone coverage on third down.

The majority of the U.N.L.V. interceptions I’ve seen on film occur when a secondary, unaccounted-for defender makes a play on the ball. The defense is geared to make the quarterback think he’s got the look he wants right until he lets it go. Then a safety appears out of nowhere and picks it off.

Rush Defense

Despite U.N.L.V. playing more safeties than linebackers, they finished 17th in the nation in rush defense, giving up 109 yards a game on the ground. They disrupt the run game the same way they disrupt the passing game—guys show up where the offensive line doesn’t expect them.

If you go back and watch any U.N.L.V. games, you’ll notice linebacker Jackson Woodard all over the field. He finished the season with 124 tackles, including 17 tackles for loss. At 6’3”, 230 pounds, the former Arkansas walk-on (he came with Odom to U.N.L.V. after two seasons of not playing for the Hogs) isn’t what you would consider a traditional run-stuffing linebacker, but he was almost impossible for the offense to find and block. I watched him dart past offensive linemen before they even realized they were supposed to block him.

In total, they recorded 90 tackles for loss on the season, good for 21st in the nation. Woodard’s 17 tackles behind the line were good for 12th individually.

Pass Defense

While not as dominant as other aspects of their defense, U.N.L.V. was still a respectable 31st in the nation in defensive passing efficiency. They were, however, 105th in the nation in passing yards allowed. The gulf between 31st in most efficient passing and 105th in yards allowed is a matter of volume. They faced 478 passes last season.

Teams were able to move the ball through the air against U.N.L.V., but a good bit of that can be attributed to either teams not being able to run the ball or being behind against them. If someone mentions the passing defense as a liability, remember, efficiency is more important than total numbers.

Also, the more passes the other team attempts, the more prone they are to sacks and interceptions. Teams had to put the ball in jeopardy to beat U.N.L.V., which led to a bunch of sacks and interceptions.

Overall

I’m excited to get into the nuts and bolts of this defense. I think it will play into some of Purdue’s strengths in terms of the players they typically have through high school and transfer portal recruiting.

That’s my ultimate takeaway after watching a couple of U.N.L.V. games: when the defense is working, it looks like there are more than 11 guys on the field. I’m interested to see how it works in the Big 10, but after years of coaching in the SEC, I’m pretty sure Coach Odom knows what he’s up against.