Apparently I’m just going to write about the Trojans for the next several weeks. I promise I’m not overlooking the oh-so-dangerous-triple-option Navy team, but bear with me while I get my preseason jitters out of the way. After that I’ll start taking the required shots at “Jake Locker East” (read: Tim “I’m a virgin” Tebow) and that conference that we don’t like to talk about but makes every sports journalist get a chubby. Am I allowed to say chubby?
I’m sure, given the fact that USC is coming to town, a lot of attention is being placed upon what exactly the Buckeyes are going to need to be able to do in order to beat them. Every top-of-the-line school has been trying to figure out exactly that since 2003. Well, I may not have the answer, but I might have a place to start looking.
Obviously, we all know how well Pete Carroll has been recruiting while at USC. Since 2002, the lowest ranked recruiting class USC has pulled in was ranked 12th in the nation, which occurred in 2002 (via Scout). While their recruiting classes haven’t been comparatively spectacular of late (2008: 9th, 2009: 9th – compare to 2003, 2004, 2006: 1st) they did have the second best recruiting class in 2007. For comparison, in this same period OSU has gone 16th in 2007, 4th in 2008 and 1st in 2009.
However, we all know from the 2002 season that, while player talent is very important, it isn’t the whole story; just as important for the win is having a solid game-plan. So, in lieu of this, I present an exclusive look into the defensive mindset of one Pete Carroll from the mouth of…Pete Carroll. Yes, in fact you are looking at the transcript from a talk given by Pete Carroll on the subject of his defensive philosophy.(1) Several things stand out:
1) This is a defense designed to be played with the least amount of necessary thought. As Carroll himself says,
“In principle we want to give our players a chance to know exactly what they have to defend. We also want to give them an attitude in which to do that. We want to be an attacking, aggressive football team. We don’t want to sit and read the play like you often have to with “two-gap” principles of play. We want to attack into the gap at the snap, get off the ball to play on their side of the field and get after the quarterback. “
Every single player has an assignment, and if they carry it out correctly it will result in good things for the defense. While this is true for all defenses, the fact that this is designed to be an almost “plug and play” defensive set makes it particularly dangerous. Each player knows the one or two things he is responsible for in each play call and simply has to act based upon what the offense shows them.
2) On the other hand, however, it has a weakness. Each player must know and play his assignment perfectly,
“The big problem with any “one-gap” approach however is that it allows a ball carrier to get into the secondary if one guy makes a mistake. No matter how aggressive the defense is there is a great amount of discipline that goes with this defense. You have to be very strict about your positioning and the placement of your players. You have to have the ability to maintain relative spacing between your players.”
Having a player out of position, or miss an assignment, would be devastating to this defense. However, you would need either luck, or the ability to know all the defensive assignments and positions to be able to take advantage of a mistake by the defense.
3) Any changes to the defense by offensive personnel changes can be made by the players on the field with little to no interaction with the coaching staff. This allows for a very fast reacting, fluid defense that can respond to a wide variety of challenges presented by the offense. This can even be done on the fly in silence with no audible in the case the offense audibles itself.
4) This explains very easily why elite-level teams struggle so much against USC, while the mid-range teams in the Pac-10 manage to trip them up once every year. Quite simply, the defensive players have to be at the top of their game mentally every single play and every single game. We all know that it’s easy to get to that level of play for the big games, but much more difficult for the lower-quality opponent.
Now, clearly this says nothing about USC’s offense, which is spectacular in it’s own right. But, as 2002 also taught us, a very solid defense can win games with nothing better than an above-average offense. And, obviously, you can’t beat a team unless you can at least partially tame its defense.
Terrelle Pryor and company must be able to deal with the threat that this defense poses against them. In order to do that, I believe that they are going to have to do a bit more growing from what we saw at the end of last season in order to be able to take care of business. Can they do it with such young, but talented, skill players? I believe they can, but they’re definitely going to have their work cut out for them.
(1) Special thanks to my good friend Steve for pointing this article out to me.
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