2007 Game 2 USC Versus Nebraska - Defense Notes Date - September 15, 2007 Location - Lincoln, Nebraska Result - USC 49  Nebraska 31 Well we learned a few things about the USC defense versus Nebraska and a few areas for improvement came into shaper focus. I'll look at both the positive and the negative aspects.  The numbers are going to be skewed for a couple of weeks as it takes a couple of games for averages to settle down. It looked like Nebraska kept their starters in the game though the 4th quarter while USC went with a lot of second string players on defense for the majority of the 4th quarter. Nebraska put up offense early in the first quarter as well as in the 4th. I think the fourth quarter numbers have to be taken with a grain of salt so I'll look at the passing game in particular through 3 quarters and also with all 4 quarters complete. Given the lofty hype put on this defense in the off season by the media I think it makes sense to keep reviewing USC's performance week to week versus some of the previous years for comparison.  The data is all from the NCAA's CFB web site for Division I football statistics. Here is how things now look after just two games. Category 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 YTD Rush Yards Per Game 83.2 60.2 79.4 130.5 91.1 64.5 Rush Yards Per Carry 2.8 1.8 2.6 3.8 3.0 2.1 Pass Yards Per Game 201.8 276.2 199.9 230.4 204.7 272.0 Pass Yards Per Completion 11.6 11.5 10.6 11.1 11.1 10.5 Pass Completion % Allowed 49.8% 55.0% 53.8% 59.7% 54.6% 58.4% Total Yardage Defense 284.9 336.4 279.3 360.9 295.8 336.5 Scoring Defense 18.5 18.4 13.0 22.8 15.2 20.3 Sacks 43 55 50 32 35 4 (26) Tackles For Loss 96 126 120 73 87 14 (91) Fumbles Recovered 19 20 16 16 11 1 (6.5) Interceptions 17 22 22 22 11 2 (12) 3rd Down Defense % 27.6% 38.8% 28.0% 36.5% 38.7% 35.5% Note: The 2007 total is obviously just year to date. Figures inside ( ) indicate simple projections over a 13 game season. The Trojan rush defense is holding up very nicely after two games. I had some initial doubts but it may yet stack up to be the equal of the 2003 and 2004 squads in this respect. The pass defense however is another matter and I'll look at that in more detail below. It currently matches the 2003 squad for the lowest ranking of the Pete Carroll era. Sometimes as in 2003 when the rush defense is so good the opposition has no option but to pass. The good news is that the average pass yards per completion is not that far out of whack from previous years. Nebraska QB Sam Keller ran up 389 yards by throwing the ball over 50 times. This game drove USC's pass completion allowed percentage, total yardage defense, and scoring defense to worsen considerably compared to two weeks ago. Alex Brink is another experienced senior QB that USC will face this weekend. Over the next couple of weeks we'll learn more about how good this defense is going to be. Sacks by the defense still are on pace for the lowest total of the Pete Carroll era. Even in 2001 there were 37 sacks that year. USC did generate a couple of interceptions in the Nebraska game and had one more taken away on a bad pass interference call by a referee.  Still it lags the rate of previous years considerably which has implications for field position and scoring in the long run.  Again it takes a couple of weeks for the trends to normalize so we'll just keep tracking the data and see how it goes. Here is a quick look at how Nebraska scored. How Nebraska Scored Drive Starting Point Points Comment Long field scoring drives 24 1 FG Drive (56 Yards) TD Drives (52, 77, 91) Short field scoring drives 7 1 TD Drive 34 Yards (After McKnight Fumble) Scores directly by the defense or special teams 0 None Totals 31 1 TD and 1 FG in the game. USC had the game very well in hand at the mid way point of the 3rd quarter with the score 42-10. The teams traded TD's with the USC first string offense and defense still mostly in the game to make it 49-17 in the early fourth quarter. Then against a mix of first and second string defensive players Nebraska scored to make it 49-25. The USC second string did not move the ball much on offense giving the ball back to the Cornhuskers. Nebraska scored one last late TD against mainly second and third string players for USC to make it 49-31 and make it appear much closer than it was in reality.  USC Base Defense Schemes The two base schemes that USC used the most were the 4-3 Under and Over fronts. Here is the behind view of the Under front with a Cover 1 secondary versus Nebraska's 2 TE Ace Back Formation. USC mixed it up more up front however and also played the Over version where you get the three LB's back off the line of scrimmage and this flavor where the center was left uncovered. The safeties were in a two deep Cover 2 shell on this play. This was also against the Cornhuskers Ace Back 2 TE Formation. On obvious passing situations USC went with 3 DL and more of a prevent defense in the secondary on a couple of plays. USC also put Sedrick Ellis in a two gap role versus the Nebraska center playing him in a direct shade (0 technique) alignment.  Also this is referred to as a Double Eagle alignment with two three techniques and the zero technique in the middle. USC Rush Defense The USC rush defense was one of the highlights on the defensive side of the ball. Nebraska was held to a total of 31 yards on 27 rushes for a 1.1 yard average. The NCAA takes sack yards off the run game so in reality they ran for a few more. Still however it was a nice performance overall. Here is the histogram of the Nebraska runs. Unlike last season Nebraska did not try to run the ball down after down and try to keep things close. Instead they mainly went to an air based attack.  As you can see from the data Nebraska did not really get a running game going at all. The majority of the positive runs were in the medium 1-3 yard gain category and offset by the negative run plays (sacks and tackles for losses). Nebraska stuck with the run game just enough to not have to pass all the time in every down and distance situation. On a positive note USC only allowed two run plays greater than 10 yards in the game to Marlon Lucky. That is an encouraging trend and one that I hope keeps up during Pac-10 conference play. Marlon Lucky Run Play Example Here was one of the base run plays for Nebraska. Like USC they often use a simple zone run play with the tail back option to cut back. This one was run out of a single back set and a 2TE Formation At the snap the USC defenders are already on the Nebraska line of scrimmage penetrating the run gaps. The linebackers are also staying in position. Sensing there is no where to go to the right Lucky decides to cut back left and look for a running lane. Keith Rivers meets him head on and he is then joined by Rey Maualuga to stop the play. Nebraska gains 2 yards. Sedrick Ellis Run Stop Here is a run play that Sedrick Ellis just blew up entirely. Nebraska attempted a run out of a straight I formation out of a 2TE set. Upon the snap of the ball Sedrick beat his man into the gap right off the bat. The running back was stuffed almost immediately after receiving the hand off. The play resulted in about a 4 yard loss for Nebraska. USC Pass Defense On the negative side Nebraska did throw for a ton of yards (389 to be exact) and move the ball via the forward pass. We'll look at the data for 3 quarters and for the full 4 quarters for comparison. As you can see from the histogram of the Nebraska passes however they completed 8 pass plays of greater than 16 yards for about 154 yards on just these plays. Four of the eight were in the first three quarters and four were in the 4th quarter.  In terms of yardage allowed in passing the Trojan defense had allowed 220 yards through three quarters by my notes at least. The final quarter allowed 169 more for a total of 389. The majority of the 4th quarter yardage was racked up against the second string defense of USC so it probably needs to be considered accordingly. Still if the 1st string defense gave up 220 pass yards in three quarters even a straight line average extrapolation implies they would have give up around 292 yards if they had stayed in for the entire game...that is still a considerable amount but certainly less than the 389 yards that were surrendered. In reality of course it depends upon what pass plays are called, how USC pressures with its front four and what coverage schemes are used in the secondary and in the end how the players simply execute. Sam Keller did throw for 347 yards with the Sun Devils versus USC in 2005 so he was more than capable of putting up big numbers. Alex Brink of Washington State is another fine senior QB. I think we'll get a much better read on the Trojan pass defense after facing the Cougars on Saturday. I won't post the pictures of the pass plays that Keller completed. That was a bit depressing to review. I will make some comments below about the number of blitz plays and how effective they were below. On the positive side just in case people did not see it however Keller did have several balls batted down by the Trojan defense. This is just something that happens to every team. Not even the shotgun formation can prevent this. Here is Keller getting a ball batted down out of the shotgun. The same happened to a North Carolina QB on a two point conversion to attempt to win the game at the end of regulation (sound familiar?) 4 Wide receiver formation with Keller in the shotgun. This was Nebraska's hurry up offense at the end of the first and second half. Keller retreats and does not seem to find anyone open. Upon the throw it is batted down by Sedrick Ellis and deflected off to the left. From behind you can see what he was up against on this play. The root cause has nothing to do with his height or the shotgun formation. It is a matter of penetration on this play and  not having a clear lane to pass through. Lawrence Jackson Sack Play Here is a first quarter play and the first USC sack of the game. It looks like USC shifted to a double eagle front with two 3 techniques.  The center is peering over and figuring out the line call it appears here.  But I don't think a change was made to the protection scheme? Here you can see right away that some sort of mistake was made by the Nebraska offensive line. Jackson had an unobstructed path to the QB. The offensive line seemed confused when Kyle Moore dropped into pass defense. They failed to slide their protection to the other side. #70 instead of blocking LJ helped double team Ellis. The result was a quick sack as Keller barely had time to plant his feet on the 3 step drop. The replay view from behind shows the open lane for Lawrence Jackson.  It just looks like an offensive line breakdown to me in hindsight by Nebraska.  USC Blitz Plays On one final note when I re-watched the game I also took note of the total blitzes in the game by USC. The Trojans used the usual array of confusing looks and combination blitz schemes. The blitzes included a number of Zone blitzes (like above), combination blitzes like Sam and Mike,  Strong Safety and Sam, Corner and Safety, and later in the game solo shots by the MLB, WLB, and a corner blitz. I counted 14 in total. The results unfortunately varied depending upon your point of view. They were less effective than I originally thought when I re-watched the game. The extra pressure did help result in one sack and one interception. There was also anther interception wiped out by a dubious pass interference call late in the game. Those three plays aside left 11 blitzes to check more closely.  On these passes Nebraska QB Keller was actually 8 of 11 for about a 73% pass completion rate and 114 yards of offense. On these plays his YPA and YPC were both higher than on non-blitz plays. So the blitzing schemes had the usual high risk high reward relationship. Quite often Keller threw right into the open spot that the blitzers had vacated and the receivers then pick up nice yardage. Blitz Plays Non Blitz Plays Overall Pass Plays Passing Stats 8 of 11 for 72.2% and 114 Yards 28 of 45 for 62.2% and 275 Yards 36 of 54 for 66.7% and 389 Yards YPA 10.4 Yards 6.1 Yards 7.6 Yards YPC 14.3 Yards 10.6 Yards 10.8 Yards So the results are sort of mixed. On the positive side the blitz plays did generate a sack and interception. On the whole however Keller's completion percentage, yards per attempt, and yards per completion were all higher against the blitz than on the non blitz plays. Usually when I check the completion percentage is lower but the YPC is almost always significantly higher. Keller just did a good job of reading the blitz, staying in the pocket, and making plays into the spots vacated by the blitzing Trojans. Of course the results on the non blitz plays are not exactly something to be proud of in this game either. This area apparently still has lots of work for improvement by the 2007 Trojan defense. Other Notes and Reflections From this game we learned a few things on defense. On a positive note the run defense looks like the real deal and that is great news if the trends hold up. If teams can't run on USC they'll often be forced into 3rd and long situations several times per game and that is generally when sacks and interceptions occur. I hope for a big pick up in sacks the next couple of weeks. The pass defense this past week was not in top shape but Keller has an NFL arm and the Nebraska attack is a sophisticated NFL pro style. I give them credit for pulling it off. I have to imagine that the USC pass defense will improve as the season goes on. Just "blitzing more often" as fans sometimes clamor won't always do the job I'm afraid. Alex Brink of Washington State will be another good test this upcoming weekend. He makes smart decisions in the pocket and few mistakes. If he takes apart the USC secondary then I'll be alarmed.  We'll know more one way or the other in a few more days.