Aloha,
According to defensive recruit Jermaine Hamilton-Jordan, we are to play a 3-3-5 Defense next season. What do y’all think?
Are we playing a 3-3-5 because that’s what best suits our talent OH or that’s the best defense for the offenses we shall be playing against? Did Missouri or Georgia play a 3-3-5 last season? Very interesting…comments please.
GHG!
I think it’ll be an improvement since we’ve been playing a 3-3-4 for couple years.
That’s what Odom likes. He will make decisions in spring if he has enough DBs with speed to align that way.
I’m not a fan of it.too many running lanes. I don’t remember Missouri running that. That’s more of a defense to stop the passing game. I may be wrong but I can only speak from personal experience as an OL coach,anytime I could get my OL onto LB’s easily then it was very easy to run the ball.
As far as defending in the HUNH spread era, Odom has done very well and not always with high rated recruits. I doubt that Sam will be comfortable with giving up on stopping the run with his defense. The interior three can be run stoppers and the outside linebackers can be hybrid defensive ends so it can easily go from a rush three defend eight defense against the pass to a five man front stopping the run.
You will definitely have to have four or five on the line of scrimmage and seven or eight in the box no matter how you get to it because if you only have 3 on the LOS and only 3 LB it’s way too easy to get OL onto the linebackers and that’s a mismatch. I think a 4-man front is much tougher to block for an OL because it’s tougher to get to linebackers. There are a lot of ways you can run blitz and things of that nature and I have had some trouble before with 3-4 defenses because of that. I think the thing you absolutely must have if you’re going to stop the run in the three-man front is a very dominant nose guard that wil demand double team,but as a general rule any time I faced a 3 man front we gashed them pretty easily on the ground.
I agree with you. Coached football for fifty years under two Iowa Hall of coaches. Our combo and cross blocking schemes would allow us to out number you at the point of attack with excellent blocking angles. Our cross blocking scheme utilized 2 cross blockers and a swing blocker.
Exactly! Just too much space is allowed in a 3 man front, as I noted earlier a very dominant nose guard that demanded a double team is an absolute must if you do run a 3 man front, but even then we’re able combo to the linebackers very effectively.
Georgia and Alabama both played 3-man front last year, as did LSU. Pittman said that 3-man front defenses provided the toughest challenges for his OL of late. Pittman said the one thing no matter the front that makes it tough is movement before the snap. Stem and slides. I know Odom’s fronts ALWAYS did that.
Odom said he varied his front and scheme at Missouri based on talent available. That’s what the best coaches do.
Ok who do we ask the DC or the Recruits?
Stemming/moving/slanting is an absolute must if you’re going to be in a 3 man front for sure. Having a 4th linebacker puts that 7th man in the box and is much better in run support. The run blitzes that Bama runs are what allows them to play such great run defense,that and they always have a great nose guard that demands a double .Odom has always had great defenses so time will tell if he can do it here with our personnel.
Adding 15 to 17 defensive players in the new class was the thing that had to happen.
There have been times when we didn’t have 3 SEC-level linemen, 3 SEC-level linebackers or 5 SEC-level DBs. Any of them. Hoping that Sam is fixing that.
Missouri 3-3-5
It will definitely take something to get used to because he’s the only one to play with 6 in the box… you got to have 6 very good football players to pull that off. Will be very interesting to see how he does with it here
The strong safety, the biggest of the five in the secondary can be the speedy linebacker in a 3-4 alignment. That appears to be him meeting the ball carrier near the line of scrimmage in the video above. Like I said earlier, if Sam agreed with you and felt this defense was giving up stopping the run, I doubt it would be happening. I suspect he is confident that the strong safety can be that seventh man in the box when needed AND the fifth in the secondary when THAT is needed. You can call it a 3-4-4 or a 3-3-5 and play either one to stop the run or pass.
That’s what will happen IMO too, they will have to have somebody assigned to fill the gap in run support either in setting the edge or protecting C gap off tackle. Look I trust Sam and I trust Odom to put us in the best defense they think we can run. I was just passing on my personal opinion on it, I didn’t see the 3 man front very often but we ran the counter trey with great success when we did see it. That and the outside zone we’re both very effective, but Odom has had great success running this defense so I’m looking forward to seeing how he does with it.
You guy’s notice that late hit on the Missouri Linebacker by the OSU player at the end of the vid? That High Powered Cowboys Offense was really frustrated…
I think Odom knows how to coach defense. And he understands technique and need for speed and quickness.
Odom can motivate players, especially defensive players. One thing he learned as a head coach is that you can’t play good defense if they are on the field too much. Even with Drew Lock, Missouri went to a more ball control offense. When they did, the defense excelled.
I believe Odom is an elite defensive coach, but if we are going to keep him we need an offense that can stay on the field at least long enough to give the defense some rest. I’m not sure Missouri had better talent on defense than we have, but as he said, he played the scheme that best fit the talent he had.