Michigan Defensive Coordinator Scott Shafer may be one of the least popular men in Ann Arbor right now, as the Wolverines' defense is reaching historically bad levels. Though I defended the play of the defensive unit last week, the performance against Purdue was bordering on inexcusable. However, the main recipient of much (often idiotic) blame has been Scott Shafer. Much of the knowledge form this post comes from the all-knowing gsimmons85, without whom I'd know even less about football than I currently do. I assume he'll be here to comment on this post, so if you have any specific questions that I can't answer, fire away.

Playing Only 3 Defensive Linemen
The argument is as follows: Michigan has good defensive linemen and bad linebackers/safeties, so you should want to get as many d-linemen on the field as you can, and minimize the number of linebackers and saefties. Au contraire, mon ami. If you have bad defensive backs, you should actually want to play more of them. Why is this? You're expecting bad players to make mistakes. Therefore, there is somebody to step in and cover for, say, Stevie Brown's mistake if there are three safeties playing. In most games this year (and the Purdue game in particular - more on that in a second), Michigan would get the same amount of pressure on the quarterback whether there were 3 or 4 defensive linemen in the game. In that instance, why "waste" a player on the field by putting in another end who won't increase the pressure at all, at the expense of allowing the secondary to be exposed.

Completely Switching Defensive Schemes against Purdue
I still don't believe that this was all Shafer's decision, as he's never really run the 3-3-5 extensively. However, what the headman says goes, and the base defense was indeed changed in the Purdue contest. This was also to get the most help possible for the secondary, as they would presumably need it against a pass-heavy team. One final factor to take into account in this game was the base offense of Purdue. As a spread team, their blocking assignments are much easier when facing an odd front.

Playing Soft Coverage on the Corners
Michigan doesn't have the cornerbacks to play tight man coverage. End of story. If they were trying to do this (despite their inability), we;d see teams going deep with much greater frequency and success against this team. If Morgan Trent and Donovan Warren were lined up a yard off the line of scrimmage, they would get blown past by opposing wide receivers a lot of the time. This would leave our questionable safeties to save the play, which we certainly don't want, at least this year. In the future, when Shafer has more of his recruits in position, tight man coverage with a reliance on the safties to prevent big plays will be much more of an option.

Too Much Zone Coverage
This is a similar reasoning: Michigan can't really cover that many teams in man. Boubacar Cissoko and Donovan Warren are the only ones on the team that are even particularly close to being able to do so. As much of a liability as John Thompson can be in pass coverage, do you really want to see him lined up in man coverage with a tight end or running back? If your answer to that question is anything other than "no," you are wrong. Unless you are a fan of the opposing team, in which case your answer is "Yes, yes, a thousand times yes."

Lack of Player Fundamentals
This may be one of the few legitimate gripes against the defense this year. Many of the players lack fundamentals, particularly in the "tackling" department. However, how much of this is the fault of the coordinator? Next to none. Some of the players (i.e. Brandon Graham) are trying to do more than they should to make plays, since they know that their teammates can't necessarily be counted on. This causes them to miss their assignments. Other players are simply not good physical matches for the positions they are playing at the Division-I level (i.e. Charles Stewart). Even if the coaching is poor, how much of that is on Shafer, and how much rests at the feet of their position coaches? Nearly all. Bruce Tall hasn't been a defensive line coach since 2002. Jay Hopson spent the last three seasons coaching DBs. With the linebackers and safeties the primary liabilities on Michigan's defense, they may be at least as culpable as Shafer.

The future is brighter for the defense, however. With such a quick transition to a new offense, little time in the spring was spent working fundamentals with the defense. Rather, they were often acting as a scout team for offensive execution drills, which hindered their learning. With an entire year of learning out of the way for the offense, even the defense should benefit (aside from the offense no longer harming the defense in game situations). Also, Shafer's second year has been a coming-out party at each of his stops, and next year should be no different. An influx of talent at key positions and a year of coaching up should mean vast improvements for Scott Shafer's defense next year.

Labels: coaching, football, scott shafer

The part with the videos.

Now that we've familiarized ourselves with some of Shafer's credential's, let's delve into some tape from last year's Cardinal and take a look at his schemes (spoiler alert: lots of blitzing).

Shafer runs a multiple-front defense, with a base 4-3. Against spread-type offenses, he'll use a package called the "3-4 Okie" which, as the name implies, is a 3-4 scheme. The purpose of the Okie scheme is to disguise defenses so the offense can never tell who is actually blitzing on a given play. Often, on of the linebacker positions will be manned by a safety (or a LB/S hybrid) for a sort of 3-3-5 look, but with two safeties high.

4-3
One of Shafer's favorite blitzes from the 4-3 stack is a dual-OLB fire.



There are also several other blitzes where he will send at least one linebacker, but often more.


3-4 Okie
The design of this package is intended to confuse the offense into not knowing who will rush on a given play. For much more on the Okie, read up on it over at 3 and Out, run by an MGoBlog commenter/high school coach who runs the Okie as his base package.


Risks
While an aggressive defense can help generate pressure on the quarterback, there are also disadvantages. For example, if the defense overpursues, they will be vulnerable to misdirection, such as counter runs and screen passes. In addition, if the pressure package doesn't get to the quarterback, there isn't going to be as much help in the secondary. An aggressive blitz scheme can often leave the secondary in man coverage.

When you have the athletes to match up (which Michigan will in most of its games this year), it can work to your advantage. However, it can create mismatches for the offense to exploit.


Losing to the Irish
For those worrying about how Shafer lost to Notre Dame, there is a little bit of reassurance to be had. For one thing, The Irish had a drive that was all of 14 yards, and the other two scoring drives were aided by big plays that were the result of poor execution (or simply not having the talent that Notre Dame boasts), not poor scheming.

Ed. Note: Thanks to Mike Gleeson, Stanford Video Coordinator for the game film, and to VB über-commenter RJ for hooking me up with Gleeson.

Labels: coaching, football, scott shafer, video

Defensive Coordinator Scott Shafer hasn't been discussed nearly as much as OC Calvin Magee, mostly because Magee has always been by Rich Rodriguez's side, and it is a little more obvious to see what he has done in his career.

However, Shafer is an accomplished coordinator himself, known for an aggressive style that calls for blitzes frequently. In fact, Shafer's teams have led the nation in sacks on an occasion or two. Let's take a look at Shafer's years as defensive coordinator.

Northern Illinois
Category	Prev	2000	2001	2002	2003
Run D	190	60	66	38	47
Pass D	17	53	69	103	75
Total D	3	53	70	73	56
Pass Efficiency D	3	90	63	55	37
Scoring D	3	60	68	49	31

After a year as the secondary coach at Illinois (where he coached CB Kelvin Hayden into a second-round draft pick), Shafer returned to the defensive coordinator position, this time at Western Michigan.

Western Michigan
Category	Prev	2005	2006
Run D	108	56	6
Pass D	108	116	57
Total D	115	108	11
Pass Efficiency D	116	87	34
Scoring D	114	93	39
Sacks	-	23	1

Leading Sackers 2006
Player	Pos.	Sacks	Rank
Ameer Ismail	LB	17	1
Zach Davidson	DL	8	44
Matt Buskirk	LB	3.5	-
Nick Varcadipane	DL	2.5	-
Austin Pritchard	LB	2	-

It was at Western Michigan that Shafer worked the most magic. The Broncos improved in every relevant category in Shafer's very first year (the decline in total pass defense can be attributed to more attempts, as the Bronco's run defense was immediately upgraded), often by a very large margin. By his second year in Kalamazoo, Shafer's Western defense was #11 in all the land, despite giving up 39 points in their first game of the season (to Indiana). He turned Ameer Ismail, an OLB who wasn't even sniffed by the NFL, into the nation's leading sacker.

Stanford
Category	Prev	2007
Run D	117	77
Pass D	23	107
Total D	97	98
Pass Efficiency D	60	84
Scoring D	108	65
Sacks	111	11

Leading Sackers 2007
Player	Pos	Sacks	Rank
Clinton Snyder	LB	8	32
Pat Maynor	LB	6	58
Pannel Egboh	DL	6	78
Udeme Udofia	DL	4.5	142
Chike Amajoyi	LB	4.5	156

Stanford was another case of Shafer making an impact in year one. Of course, there is the marquee moment of the Cardinal's upset over USC (they were one of only 3 teams to hold the Trojans to under 24 points), but the team improved overall during the course of the season as well. The big improvement, once more, was in terms of pass sacks. Keep in mind that these improvements took place against teams with far more talent than Stanford (UCLA, Oregon, Notre Dame, Cal), and it's easy to see why people are excited about Shafer wearing the maize and blue. One thing to point out, however, is that his pass efficiency defense has always taken a step back in year one. With returning corners, but new safeties, it should be interesting to monitor how that goes. One would expect, with more pressure on the quarterback, that efficiency would go down.

For those questioning Shafer's "Michigan Man" credentials, there are a few pieces of evidence to the contrary. First, he was an assistant at Western Michigan for two years, and is familiar with the state dynamics. Secondly, there is a rather incredible story linking Shafer to Bo Schembechler since Scott's much younger days. It's a good read, and I recommend checking it out.

Labels: coaching, scott shafer