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Defensive Philosophy

isucy86 said:
Have never been a fan of the 3-3-5 formation.
  1. IMO it is a finesse defense (bend/don't break) and LB/DB's have to be overly aggressive to be a solid run-stopping defense.
  2. Campbell talks about being a physical team and I don't feel a 3 man defensive line meets that mantra.
  3. An aggressive pass-rush is the best pass defense. And creates negative yardage plays.
  4. A 3 man rush leaves wide passing lanes for the QB to throw.
  5. Using a spy is a waste of a defender. He's not rushing the passer AND too shallow to be in pass defense against even shallow crossing routes.
  6. Defensive lineman who are 6'4"+ and 250+ lbs are more physical and better trained to be pass rushers than LB's ad DB's.
  7. It is not a blitz to send 3 DL and 1 LB/DB against 5 OL and RB and maybe TE.
  8. Our OL has struggled for much of Campbell's tenure. Does playing a 3 man d-line impact the development of a quality OL?
I feel like there was a time when the 3-3-5 worked because it was unique, but seems like teams have adjusted and identified its weaknesses. Or maybe teams with certain playing styles and strengths can more-easily take advantage of the 3-3-5.

I would love for ISU to adopt a 4-2-5. It would allow ISU to be more physical along the line-of-scrimmage AND still allow one of the safeties to be strong at run support.
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Agree on all points. Seems to me like the 3-3-5 requires linebackers to be pretty elite. I think LB might have been our worst group this year (yes, worse than OL).
 
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I would like to see them stop giving up a score right after we score, stop giving up 3rd and long first downs,
prevent a score just before the half ends. One of these
would be an improvement.
 
Best defense in Iowa state history has been coached by the current guy and people want to throw it out.

Yeah, we need the right personnel to do it, and right now we prob don’t have it.

It’s idiotic to think Heacock doesn’t know what he’s doing.
 
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AuH2O said:
But you are basically asking to change the defense to something that the 3-3-5 CAN do while limiting flexibility. For example, shift the DE and Nose to 4 man front DT positioning and put a LB like Bacon on the LoS? They can and will do that. He doesn’t have his hand in the ground, but that’s the only difference. You are basically advocating for using the same 6 guys they’d use in the 3-3 stack, but lock them into fewer looks they can bring.

I agree with the general concept, but rather than change to a 4-2, utilize some of these looks a bit more, kind of like they did a lot w/ Vance, using Bacon or another big LB in that role.

Dropping 8 wasn’t the problem yesterday. Memphis hurt ISU when bringing pressure and was playing some man. And they did it with one move deep routes over the top, which I love. The phone booth “replace the blitzer concept works, but if that’s all you do it makes it easy to defend and makes bringing pressure pay off.

The other massive problem was on third and long the two guys they had in the middle intermediate zone (where the two ILB would play in a 3-4) were not getting remotely close to enough depth. Not close. Often it was Lovett and Patton. But other guys too. They turned 3rd and Long into first down or 4th and one exploiting that and it was taking candy from a baby. It was horrible execution. They were multiple yards too close to the LoS. There are just 101 type of things that can’t happen, and it happened multiple times yesterday, and a QB-WR from a random Class 1A team are going to convert on that.
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I agree that ISU should be able to mirror a 4 man front from with the 3-3-5. But our pass rush was almost non-existent in 2024. I am a strong believer in the adage the best pass defense is a pass rush. Could Lovett or Bacon play LB but rush the passer the majority of the time, sure.

But another issue I am seeing is in the run game. Our 3 DL guys are inside the tackles on most plays to be strong against interior runs. This allows opposing tackles to crash in on our DE's allowing teams to flank our defense. Also, our safeties are uber aggressive on play action to help in run support and get caught close to the line-of-scrimmage. Allowing deep passes over the middle. I often see people complain "how can ISU give up deep passes with 3 safeties". But the reality is 1 or 2 of those safeties are relied on to be strong run support tacklers. That philosopy is great when it works. But not so much when opponents take advantage of safeties flying up in run support.
 
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cyclone1209 said:
Also, when I watch about 32 NFL teams this weekend, 0 of them will be using a 3 man front. Hard to say it’s a great system when NFL teams don’t use it
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The NFL is the least innovative football organization in the country. They took forever to evolve from Hawkeye offense to more open looks. All the innovation starts at the HS/JUCO level where coaches have to work around major talent discrepancies. Those concepts trickle up as those coaches slowly work their way up the ranks. Look at how long it took the NFL to advance their 4th down strategies.
 
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dafarmer said:
Agree, but we need to bring in more DT and DE, something ISU has a problem with. It also might help our O-line to practice against a 4 man line and blitzing package.
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In non-game-prep practices, they do a bunch on 1-on-1 work. In game-prep practices, the offense will mostly work against a scout team that runs the opponent's defense.

We need talent, and time to develop both the individual talent and teamwork (combo blocks, everyone reading fronts the same way, reactions to stunts/blitzes...).
 
fsanford said:
They finished 3rd in scoring Defense in the Big 12, they played 4 of the top 20 scoring offenses in the country.

Now is it smarter to base decision across multiple data points or just 2 one of which was an exhibition game
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And the other was in a crazy snow game, which tips the balance in the offenses favor (and we did win, btw).
 
cyatheart said:
Best defense in Iowa state history has been coached by the current guy and people want to throw it out.

Yeah, we need the right personnel to do it, and right now we prob don’t have it.

It’s idiotic to think Heacock doesn’t know what he’s doing.
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I don't feel people are saying Heacock doesn't know what he's doing. It's how does ISU's defense evolve to putting more pressure on opposing QB's? Also how can our defense be stout against the run without LB's and safeties being hyper aggressive in run support? Which leaves ISU susceptible to long pass plays on play-action.

If the staff can find a way to do that with the 3-3-5 great. But when Campbell and Heacock came to ISU, they ran the 4-2-5 defense at Toledo and had success.

Heacock & 4-2-5 Defense
 
dirtyninety said:
Penn State came to win.....wow. What a contrast to our passive zone seminar gimmick defense.....third play of the game the rattle the Ole Miss QB....he might be hurt. I don't remember our 8th man linebacker dropping back ever causing any duress at all on an opposing qb.
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How's it working out for them?
 
cyclone1209 said:
Also, when I watch about 32 NFL teams this weekend, 0 of them will be using a 3 man front. Hard to say it’s a great system when NFL teams don’t use it
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This isn't true but either way the college and pro game have very different ways of operating.
 
AuH2O said:
Dropping 8 wasn’t the problem yesterday. Memphis hurt ISU when bringing pressure and was playing some man. And they did it with one move deep routes over the top, which I love. The phone booth “replace the blitzer concept works, but if that’s all you do it makes it easy to defend and makes bringing pressure pay off.
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Yeah, the lack of pressure was a problem this year. But for at least the first few drives yesterday, the defense did bring extra guys to try to create pressure on pretty much every critical play. To Memphis's credit, they picked up the blitzes pretty well and were able to beat the man coverage.

More than anything, I think the defense just wasn't prepared for Memphis's skill guys to be as athletic as they were. For an example, on that first long TD, Cooper (not even one of the young guys filling in) just got blown by. Plus, Memphis's QB was just about as good as QB Iowa State played this year. He didn't miss many throws and made all the right decisions when the defense did sit back more to prevent the big play rather than trying to force something.
 
MJ271 said:
Yeah, the lack of pressure was a problem this year. But for at least the first few drives yesterday, the defense did bring extra guys to try to create pressure on pretty much every critical play. To Memphis's credit, they picked up the blitzes pretty well and were able to beat the man coverage.

More than anything, I think the defense just wasn't prepared for Memphis's skill guys to be as athletic as they were. For an example, on that first long TD, Cooper (not even one of the young guys filling in) just got blown by. Plus, Memphis's QB was just about as good as QB Iowa State played this year. He didn't miss many throws and made all the right decisions when the defense did sit back more to prevent the big play rather than trying to force something.
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Cooper also fully got turned around in the play.

That's usually bad things for a DB.
 
cyclone1209 said:
Also, when I watch about 32 NFL teams this weekend, 0 of them will be using a 3 man front. Hard to say it’s a great system when NFL teams don’t use it
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Wait……wut……. ????? Do you watch the NFL? I pretty much only watch the packers and they run a 3-4, was thinking the Steelers do also and I’m pretty sure about a 1/3 run a 3-4.
 
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