Film Preview: Breaking through the Commodore Defense
In part one of my preview we looked at Vandy’s stats in the 2018 season relative to other power teams who played their opponents. In part two we took a look at the Commodore offense personnel and scheme.
Defense
The Commodore Defensive Coordinator is Jason Tarver who was the DC at Stanford in 2011 the year before Mason took over that role. Tarver has a ton of NFL jobs on his resume including a run as the DC for the Oakland Raiders from 2012-2014 and two stints with the San Francisco 49ers on both sides of the ball. He’s a capable coach with a multiple scheme.
Scheme
This defense is a base 3-4 scheme but will use a variety of three and four man fronts. They mix things up but it’s all consistent with what they usually ask specific positions to do.
Usually they will line up like we’ve seen from teams like Texas Tech or Oklahoma with a 3 man front and an edge Outside Linebacker in alignments that would usually belong in a typical over or under front. Against 11 personnel teams like Baylor they will replace their field side (wide side) Outside Linebacker with a Nickel defender which is usually a backup cornerback.
However when they want to get more pass rushers on the field they will take out their Nose Tackle instead. The result is their larger DE’s sliding inside like defensive tackles and their Edge Outside Linebackers lining up as you would expect DE’s in a 4-3 scheme to line up. It’s a lighter and more pass rush oriented setup that mimics most of the over & under fronts that you see from their first group.
From either look they will occasionally move both interior linemen out to B gaps and walk one of their Linebackers over the Center. This is effectively a 5 man front which can create some issues for blitz pickup.
They will use some classic 3 man fronts like the tite front (Nose over the center, both DE’s in a 4i alignment inside the Tackle) which they used to help limit Kansas State’s running game last year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81Q-xZCTNTk
This isn’t a comprehensive list but they will mix things up and bring different blitz packages with each look. Baylor needs to be prepared for all of it.
In coverage they love to use Cover 1, Cover 3, and Quarters for a lot of their looks. Their Quarters variations will rarely press their corners but will often mix in Cover 2 on half the field and quarters on the other. Here you see their best Corner intercept Ole Miss out of Cover 1 (One deep, man under) where one of the Linebackers is the “rat in the hole” and doesn’t have a specific man but is rather looking to read the QB’s eyes and try to help deny things underneath.
This defense is assignment sound and here does a good job limiting a Razorback screen play as the Cornerback is very quick to react.
One of their favorite conservative blitz calls that I saw them do a lot of is to bring either a rolled down Safety or a Nickel defender off the edge from the wide side of the field. Here it helps limit a running play against them.
They will mix in different pressure looks. This team will give you a little of everything and is unafraid to rush six defenders but is also willing to drop eight defenders in coverage. They do a good job preventing big plays. The Commodore defense is pretty similar to Tech & OU up front and is similar to Oklahoma State, Duke, and UTSA in coverage when we take a look at what they like to run. It will be a lot to prepare for.
Personnel
As they are based on the 3-4 scheme that Harbaugh and Shaw established at Stanford they tend to have prototype 3-4 bodies at most spots which means their DE’s and OLB’s can play multiple roles when they go to their 4 man fronts as 3-4 personnel tends to have tweeners at these spots.
At Nose Tackle they will feature either #91 Drew Birchmeier (6-4 295 R-So.) who is usually going to be an A gap player instead of the true 3-4 nose that they had last year. He’s a solid player against the run.
At Defensive End they will use a trio of players who will alll line up in both the B and C gaps. Brothers #34 Dare Odeyingbo (6-2 282 Sr.) and #10 Dayo Odeyingbo (6-6 265 So.) are the starters with the heavier Dare more often lining up as a B gap player and with the lighter Dayo tending to be the equivalent of a strongside DE in a 4 man front. Also seeing heavy time is Ivy League (Penn) transfer #29 Louis Vecchio. (6-5 270 5th) who adds another very capable lineman to their rotation. Both Vecchio and Dare Odeyingbo have interceptions this season. Vecchio has three sacks this fall and Dayo Odeyinbo has 2.5.
At Outside Linebacker the Commodores will feature #25 Josh Smith (6-4 240 Sr.) who leads the team with 3.5 sacks and 9 tackles for loss. The other two who see time are #11 Charles Wright (6-3 240 R-Sr.) and #9 Caleb Peart (6-1 235 R-Jr.) and all three are capable as edge defenders and can drop into coverage.
At their two inside linebacker spots they’ll feature leading tackler #40 Jordan Griffin (6-1 223 Sr.) and standout freshman #7 Dimitri Moore (6-3 225 R-Fr.) who is second on the team in tackles. Both of them run well and do a good job in coverage although Moore is not as far along as Griffin in the finer points of his drops as is typical for a Senior and Freshman comparison.
At Corner they have one of the best ones in the SEC in #8 Joejuan Williams (6-3 208 Jr.) who has drawn obvious comparisons to Richard Sherman who thrived in this scheme at Stanford as big corner. Williams is very capable and often matches up against an opponent’s best receiver. He’ll likely draw Denzel Mims in the bowl game. Williams has 4 interceptions and 10 pass breakups. The other starter is #21 Donovan Sheffield (6-1 190 Sr.) who is solid. Vandy will rotate in a lot of guys however at the second spot and at Nickel.
At Safety #5 LaDarius Wiley (6-1 210 5th) is a stout run defender who is third on the team in tackles and only trails Moore by one. The other safety tends to be either #2 Frank Coppet (5-11 185 R-So.) or #3 Tae Daley (6-1 190 So.) who both are solid.
Special Teams
At Kicker they feature #98 Ryley Guay (5-10 190 Jr.) who is 12 of 20 on the year with a long of 53. He’s 5 of 9 from outside of 40 yards and he’s 7 of 11 inside of that range. He also handles kickoffs and has 45 touchbacks on 63 attempts. Their Punter is #93 Parker Thome (6-4 215 5th) who averages 45 per punt.
Punt returns are usually handled by #36 Trey Ellis (5-9 170 5th) who averages 9.8 per return. Their kickoff returner is usually #32 Jamauri Wakefield (6-1 220 R-So.) who is averaging 21.8 yards per return.
Questions & Answers
How have teams hurt this defense?
Their opponents have been able to run on them all year. Vanderbilt’s run defense is not performing well this fall and the kind of running success that Baylor found against Texas Tech and Kansas State would not shock me. Arkansas really struggled on offense this fall but even without their two longest carries found plenty of room to run. They did take advantage of their QB’s running ability and Baylor needs to do so as well.
The Bears need to take advantage of single coverage when it presents itself. Vandy struggles to get pressure without blitzing and teams like Tennessee State burned them for touchdowns when they came after them. South Carolina matched slot receivers on their safeties and scored as well.
I also think the RPO game needs to be utilized. If Baylor gets the ground game going Vandy will need to move more bodies into the box and I saw several plays that look right at home for Baylor do some significant damage in my film study.
Baylor’s offense has been able to move the ball all year outside of two games and is faced with a defense that is far from dominant. Bears just need to go out and execute their game. Vandy wants to deny the big play and the Bears have made a living this season off of consistently hitting medium plays and should continue to do so in Houston,
Who gets more bowl practice snaps, McClendon or Bohannon? Do you think we will see Gerry get significant playing time in the bowl game?
I think Gerry will get more practice snaps than usual but I don’t think Gerry will get much in the way of playing time unless two injuries happen. Most of what you’d bring him in for is the QB run game and Charlie & Jalan can run that effectively without letting everyone in the stadium know what’s coming.
What offensive strategies from today's game vs Tech can we build on and gain momentum from for our bowl game? In other words, did we do some things better today than we have all season that we should replicate in the bowl?
Baylor did a better job on winning the turnover battle which will be critical against a Vanderbilt team that lives and dies with that margin. I saw a couple of other offensive scheme tweaks with a couple of the plays to Chris Platt and the misdirection in some of Charlie’s speed option plays that I liked and I may break them down in a future article.
Where do you see Jalen Hurd’s absence hurting Baylor the most?
The best asset for this offense is their ability to keep drives alive. Baylor is 12th nationally with almost 74% of their drives lasting 4 plays or more. Jalen Hurd was a good contributor with that so the backup receivers will need to step up. I like what I saw from Pooh Stricklin at the end of the season and I think the Bears should be ok here. Jalen was also a huge help in short yardage but I expect Lovett to be effective there.
Vanderbilt completely shut down Tennessee and Kentucky holding them to 14 and 13 points. What happened there?
Part of it was good play by Vandy but part of it was who they played and where they played them. Both offenses average below 90% of the yards per drive other P5’s get against power opponents other than Vandy so it’s not exactly the toughest offenses on the schedule. Furthermore Tennessee is a disaster on the offensive line (127th in advanced stats line yards vs 39 for BU) and the weather when they played Kentucky gave both defenses a huge advantage with very bad conditions. They are a well coached group but they allowed an average of 44 yards per drive in their other P5 games (25% more than other P5’s) and allowed 34 to FCS Tennessee State. They’re defense is the weaker part of their team and the Bears need to play their game.
What is one stat that you haven’t seen mentioned much that will have a big impact on this game?
Everyone talks about their turnover margin but I haven’t seen much discussion of third down. Vandy only converts 31% and allows 47% against Power 5 teams or Notre Dame. Baylor’s defense struggles in a similar fashion but offensively is over 40% in every P5 game except TCU and WVU. This should translate into Baylor being able to mount consistent drives against a defense that won’t get off the field very often.
Prediction?
The Commodores narrowly lost to Notre Dame, Missouri, and only lost to Florida by 10. They also had to have a 4th down stand to hold off FCS Tennessee State. Conversely Baylor barely won against KSU & OSU but were within a score of Texas and TCU. Neither team is dominant, neither team is terrible, and it should be a good matchup. Charlie Brewer and his line have seen similar schemes this fall and I don’t think Vandy’s front is anything better than they’ve seen although they have a great corner on the back end.
My biggest concerns on this matchup are assignment discipline on defense and turnover margin. If Baylor handles their business on each I think the rest of what I have seen points to a Baylor win. Everyone is hyping Vandy off of who they ALMOST beat. Well add one more almost to the list...
Baylor 31, Vanderbilt 24
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