Vanderbilt Defensive Pressure Coverage
First things first. Vanderbilt is a very good college football defense. They are fast and physical and play with a reckless abandonment all coaches like to see on that side of the ball. The thing that really stands out though, if you take some time to break them down a little, is that they are very well coached. Today, FirstDown PlayBook wants to look at one of the Vanderbilt defensive pressure coverages they are running.
They give an offense a lot of different looks. For the most part they are on the same page and are sound while at the same time being aggressive. I had a coaching friend mention something to me the other week that intrigued me. It was about something that the Vanderbilt defense was doing that seemed pretty novel. It pertained to their pressure packages and Vanderbilt does love to bring pressure.
The pressure he described was essentially this. Vanderbilt was bringing one more to the quarterback in passing situations than could be blocked. Although it takes a lot of courage to call this in some situations, I did not find anything special about this. Here at FirstDown PlayBook, we have plenty of those in our playbook.
It Did Not Take Long For This Vanderbilt Defensive Pressure Coverage To Show Up
It was the coverage he described that got me to take a closer look. This past Saturday against Tennessee, it did not take long to see it show up in the game. On the very first Tennessee possession Vanderbilt got them in a 3rd and 11. It was an obvious passing situation and Vandy showed all out pressure.
As I looked at the four remaining Vanderbilt secondary players, they were not necessarily lined up in position to play man coverage. In fact their all four players had their eyes on the quarterback when the ball was snapped. When you watch it on tape, it is obvious.
Their thinking and scheme here is that the ball obviously has to come out of the quarterbacks hand immediately. The offense does not have enough players to protect. With all of the defensive backs lined up just in front of the 3rd down yardage marker, they were totally focused on seeing the ball leave the quarterback’s hand. Their job is to rally to the ball and make the play short of the sticks.
Check Out The Vanderbilt Secondary & Where Their Eyes Are.
On this particular play, that is exactly what happened. Tennessee actually had a good plan for it and leaked the back out opposite of where he had lined up. The receivers to the three man side blocked on a pseudo type screen but it did not get the needed yardage.
I would love to show you a video of the play but it was one of those plays that goes mostly unnoticed in the game. There is no youtube highlight to be found of it. However, if you have the game recorded it is on the very first Tennessee possession. Here’s another important point I want to make to bring this full circle. Vanderbilt runs this and a lot of other pressures that look similar prior to the snap.
Some times those linebackers mugged up in the A gaps drop out and the coverage is a cover 2 or cover 4 look At other times the outside linebackers drop out and the safeties scream down in the box to stop the run or short passing game.
So before you install this for your defense, you might want to schedule a trip this offseason to Nashville, to see if they will clinic you on this Vanderbilt defensive pressure coverage!
