Film Review: Texas A&M

Garrett Nussmeier is not ready to survive the Mike Elko torture chamber by himself.

Garrett Nussmeier and the (good, but not great) LSU group of pass catchers have had to carry the LSU offense by themselves. With no semblance of a run game, defenses have been able to be exotic and aggressive on every down instead of just third and long. If you have to bring a Safety down in the box, you can only play Cover-1 or Cover-3, if you can keep them both deep (even if they do have a run D responsibility), you can play Cover-2, Quarters (Cover-4), Cover-6, Cover-8, Cover-1, Cover-3…every coverage ever invented and every variation therein with more specialized rules and adjustments than you can access with a loaded box, while it all looks similar pre-snap. This ratchets up the difficulty for the QB, and there is nothing worse for an offense than being in that situation on the road against a Mike Elko defense. LSU had some early success creating explosives out of not much with good route running and YAC by Kyren Lacy and Aaron Anderson, which isn’t surprising as A&M’s DBs, while exceedingly well-coached, aren’t that talented, but the Tigers generated very little down-to-down so it was never sustainable.

As I previewed during the week, A&M’s gameplan was to live in 2-high coverages that allowed them to take the air out of the underneath and intermediate levels of the defense while not opening windows deep.

Without much threat of the run against LSU, Texas A&M was especially able this week to keep both safeties from being tied to the box. There are so many reasons that this makes it easier to defend the pass, but a big one is the flexibility it allows you in your coverage rules on the back end. Here Texas A&M is in 2-Man, which puts a defender in tight man-to-man coverage on each eligible receiver with 2 free deep defenders putting a roof on the offense. Texas A&M however built in an adjustment to this where, if the RB was out quickly into the flat, the RB’s man (the linebacker) passes him to the deep S who is in a better position to drive on it. 2-Man is usually only called in obvious pass situations like 3rd-long and 2-minute because it prevents either S from being available for the box. Texas A&M, with its talented DL and proper front mechanics, isn’t going to honor a run game that isn’t dangerous. Accordingly, the Aggies played 2-Man frequently and in every down and distance. For example, this clip is the first play of the game.

Match Quarters-Cody Alexander

2-Man is a coverage where the defense can have its cake and eat it too, with tight man coverage underneath but limited vulnerability deep. It’s a hard thing to have to see over and over.

Accompanying 2-Man as a main coverage feature was Quarters. Quarters is probably the most complicated/diverse coverage in football so getting into all of the rules and possible variations would take forever, but in short, A&M played it stylistically with the intent of sticking to guys and tightly matching routes underneath, similar to the benefit of 2-man. Particularly, they would use the nickel to bracket the slot with the SS, which allows them to have him tight underneath and capped deep. They also still have the other safety, who can account for the isolated receiver deep to the other side if need be like he does here, or in some versions of Quarters, help out the other side. Either way, they could choke LSU out underneath while capping them deep. LSU had some success at times because their WRs are better than A&M’s DBs and Nussmeier is talented, but not by enough, and he’s not developed enough, for that to carry them for the whole game. The latter point I will get into now. How did his 3 back-breaking INTs happen? And how did Mike Elko bait them?

While 2-Man and Quarters were the backbone of A&M’s coverage plan, they mixed in plenty of curveballs. Here they play Cover-6 (quarter-quarter-half, Quarters to the strongside and Cover-2 to the other side). LSU runs this slot-pivot concept frequently, which is good against 2-Man as the defender has to track Anderson everywhere while staying tight, making it hard to match a route like this. However, a Cover-6 structure allows them to have defenders to either side, cutting the route off. This forces Nussmeier to work to the dagger concept (clearout + dig) to the backside but that’s taken care of by the Safeties. He leaves structure and tries to do too much. This wasn’t as much a processing error as it was a conscious choice that was too aggressive. Those I don’t mind all the time, like if you’re down a few scores, but with a multi-score lead it has to go out of bounds.

Now we get into the processing errors, both of which were baited by Elko. As I mentioned earlier, A&M played a ton of Quarters in this game where the slot was matched by the nickel. Infrequently did they play anything where he buzzes out to the flat as a zone-defender. As a result, Nussmeier thinks he just has a loose 1 on 1 here and tries to take the hitch on free-access, but gets fooled as A&M rotates into Cover-3 (which they barely played Saturday). In a Cover-3 zone, this defender works out to the flat. Nussmeier doesn’t process this and stays with his pre-snap guess. While it’s a bad play, and a good example of why he needs another year in school, the disguise by A&M is really good, with the Weak Safety only subtly drifting down to play the hook from depth and the SS initially pedaling like he would in Quarters instead of turning his shoulders right away and booking it to play the deep middle.

This one’s so diabolical that I don’t even really blame Nussmeier for it. Just like the last play, A&M is rotating into Cover-3, but only rushes 3 and adds the edge rusher as a disguised mirror on the RB. He fakes like he’s in the rush and pops out amidst the mess of bodies to track the RB. At the end of the game with a double-digit deficit, the 2nd level defenders are playing extra deep, so Nussmeier is understandably going to go to the checkdown which should have about 15 free yards. He just never sees the dropper and would honestly have no reason to anticipate he’d be there.

It’s not even the coverage stuff that scares a QB the most about Mike Elko, it’s the exotic pressures. For my money there isn’t anybody in college football better at rigging protection rules to scheme up free rushers. The best way they do it is with these off-ball slot pressures. They force you to account for all the on-ball primary threats, drop one or two of them out (you don’t know which), and send the slot, a safety, or a corner who often ends up free.

On LSU’s final 4th down, they got the Safety free on a similar call and killed the play. When you’re playing Mike Elko, the most important thing you can do is keep them basic and static. If he can get into all of the exotic stuff, front and back, it’s too much for your OC, OL, and Quarterback to handle. There’s a general rule in football that the more multi-dimensional you are on offense, the more basic the defense has to become. If you can force defenses to honor the run, they are bound by specific structures to adequately support the box. If you can’t, they don’t have to be, and there are few defensive play-callers I’d less like to allow to hold the cards than Mike Elko.