[Film Study] Breakdown of Saban's Match 3 Rip/Liz

[AUEngineer2016 407]

A little bit of background here before getting into the video: Vance Joseph took over as the DC for the Arizona Cardinals in 2019, and attempted to blend techniques from some of the best defensive minds in football history: Bill Belicheck, Wade Phillips, Mike Zimmer, and Nick Saban (yes, we don't like him, but yes he's one of the best defensive minds the game has ever seen)

Pay specific attention in this video to the breakdown of Saban's "Match 3 Rip/Liz" coverage, as well as the section towards the end that breaks down some of Isaiah Simmon's Clemson film. Kevin Steele is a Saban Disciple and was the DC at Clemson before Venebles, so a lot of the concepts that are used in the video can and do apply to our own defense. 

 

[meh130 1,043]

Chris Brown, in his book "Smart Football", talks about the origin of this hybrid, pattern-matching man-zone coverage.

Many leading Power 5 schools use defensive secondary schemes like this today. But Saban and Smart are two of the best at it.

It requires very talented cornerbacks, who have to make the decision to either stay with their outside WR in man coverage, or let the WR go past and take up their zone responsibility.

These hybrid man-zone coverages are why you have seen an RB on a wheel route out of the backfield be wide open and gain 20 yards, if the #1 WR takes the top off of the defense.

I am curious at how Joe Burrow was able to pick apart so many good defenses last year. Did Joe Brady bring in some new concepts to exploit these hybrid defensive schemes?

Another interesting thing is how 3-4 defensive front teams are taking up 4-3 concepts, with one DE playing a 3-Technique. Bama likes to play its NT and one DT in 2-Technique positions 2-gapping over the OGs, but plays a lot of defensive snaps with its Jack OLB hand-down like a DE. Most 4-3 teams use a hybrid DE/OLB like our "Buck". Smart uses 4-3 terminology in his depth chart at UGA (DE, NT, DT) instead of 3-4 terminology (DE, NT, DE). Kevin Steele has described our defense as a 3-4. It is hard to say what is what any more when it comes to defensive fronts.

I think we are back at a detente between spread offenses (both Air Raid and Spread Option) and defenses. The 4-man defensive front with a dedicated EDGE player, and permanent Nickel defenses with hybrid/pattern matching coverages seem to be a standard now in the Power 5.

[fredst 9,064]

Man, just when I think I kinda know football I watch something like this and realize that I’m a complete dumba**, lol

[AUEngineer2016 407]

6 hours ago, fredst said:

Man, just when I think I kinda know football I watch something like this and realize that I’m a complete dumba**, lol

That content creator (named Brett Kollman) is VERY active on Reddit, and in my experience has been really willing to answer DMs. He's got a TON of great videos out there, but I think my favorites are "The Ballad of Baker" (because I see a lot of the same mannerisms in terms of throwing style as Baker and Bo)  and "Kittle over the Middle" (because the Shanahan offense is a thing of beauty)

Ballad of Baker: 

Kittle over the Middle: