Dan and defense

[starkvegasdawg]

This is for people that know because I surely don't.

I've seen a lot of people posting on here saying they wish Dan would quit meddling in the defense. But I remember reading somewhere or had someone tell me that a defensive starter was quoted as saying that Dan doesn't even know the names of the defensive players. He hates defense and has nothing to do with it. Those are two pretty polar opposite stances. So I wonder if he really is the micromanager of defense or if he is completely hands off to the point that he doesn't even know the players' names. My guess is that like most "facts" presented in an argument, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Maybe he tells the DC here is the type of defense that shall be run and then he scurries back to the offense. I don't know. So for those of you whose ties to the team go beyond this message board and maybe a set of season tickets, how involved is he really?

Oh, and don't call me Shirley.

[Jack Lambert]

I find it hard to believe Dan doesn't know names.

[ShotgunDawg]

I don't know for sure, but this is my take.

I don't think Dan micromanages the defense, but I do think he provides an expected framework kind of like an outline of a book or a business plan. Dan lays down philosophies & dos & don'ts. From there, I believe the defensive coaches can do what they want within that framework.

The problem we are having is that the philosophies of the framework are either poor or don't fit our current personnel. The potential problem is that the framework doesn't adapt with the strengths & weaknesses of the team. Perhaps, some teams require a different framework because they are build differently & have different strengths & weaknesses.

[basedog]

This is for people that know because I surely don't.

I've seen a lot of people posting on here saying they wish Dan would quit meddling in the defense. But I remember reading somewhere or had someone tell me that a defensive starter was quoted as saying that Dan doesn't even know the names of the defensive players. He hates defense and has nothing to do with it. Those are two pretty polar opposite stances. So I wonder if he really is the micromanager of defense or if he is completely hands off to the point that he doesn't even know the players' names. My guess is that like most "facts" presented in an argument, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Maybe he tells the DC here is the type of defense that shall be run and then he scurries back to the offense. I don't know. So for those of you whose ties to the team go beyond this message board and maybe a set of season tickets, how involved is he really?

Oh, and don't call me Shirley.

I want shoot the messenger except to say, I don't understand post like these. First off I don't believe it, second it serves no purpose except to spread more rumors. And yes I know its a message board.

Shirley you can do better. lol

[Bubb Rubb]

Dan Mullen has had multiple defensive coordinators during his tenure (Torbush, Diaz, Collins, Diaz again, and Sirmon). I'm probably forgetting one, but it doesn't matter at this point.

Anyway, in all of those instances, we played very similarly from a defensive standpoint. Bend, don't break. Soft two-deep zone. Limit the big play.

We've seen Collins and Diaz go elsewhere and play different styles - much more aggressive. Mullen may not be in the weeds on the defensive side of the ball, but he's definitely influencing the defensive approach and having us play a certain style. There was a lot of talk about going to the 3-4 this year and I was really optimistic that Mullen was going to let someone come in and put their stamp on things, but I'm really seeing more of the same stuff we've always seen. This isn't meant to bash Mullen, but my opinion is that you can't just limit yourself defensively like this. When you struggle in the secondary and your strength is your linebackers, we should really see a much more aggressive defense than we have. This style we play now works well if you have an all-SEC defensive line and some good cover corners. We don't have those things and that's why it's not working out. My opinion, of course.

[the59dawg]

Against KY we gave up 6 plays greater than 20 yds. So much for bend and not break. But only a couple of those were TD's

[basedog]

Dan Mullen has had multiple defensive coordinators during his tenure (Torbush, Diaz, Collins, Diaz again, and Sirmon). I'm probably forgetting one, but it doesn't matter at this point.

Anyway, in all of those instances, we played very similarly from a defensive standpoint. Bend, don't break. Soft two-deep zone. Limit the big play.

We've seen Collins and Diaz go elsewhere and play different styles - much more aggressive. Mullen may not be in the weeds on the defensive side of the ball, but he's definitely influencing the defensive approach and having us play a certain style. There was a lot of talk about going to the 3-4 this year and I was really optimistic that Mullen was going to let someone come in and put their stamp on things, but I'm really seeing more of the same stuff we've always seen. This isn't meant to bash Mullen, but my opinion is that you can't just limit yourself defensively like this. When you struggle in the secondary and your strength is your linebackers, we should really see a much more aggressive defense than we have. This style we play now works well if you have an all-SEC defensive line and some good cover corners. We don't have those things and that's why it's not working out. My opinion, of course.

Nice post. I agree.

[ShotgunDawg]

IMO, Dan's defense looks great on paper, but doesn't have the same affect in reality.

Bend but don't break looks great because it keeps the score lower, but it disregards the momentum of the game & gives you virtually no chance of creating enough turnovers to beat teams with superior talent. It's so conservative that the difference between the floor & ceiling of the approach is razor thin.

If you want to know why for most of Dan's tenure we've beaten the teams we should & lost to the teams we aren't favored against, look no further than Dan's defensive philosophy. It's chalk. It doesn't offer the variables for something great to happen.

As good as Dan has been, since he's been at MSU, we haven't had one "tear down the goalpost type win". There hasn't been one big upset at home since he's been at MSU. I think the defensive philosophy & OL recruiting has caused that.

[Irondawg]

We certainly look a lot more like the read and react stuff we saw a few years ago. We never really attack running lane and are the initiator of contact.

Scheme aside, the attitude is very mild. Ideally you want them mean and smart, but you need to at least be smart or mean. we don't have a lot of mean except maybe AJ and Leo and not sure we have a lot of smart either.

We look like we're are doing a walk through about 50% of the time.

[GTHOM]

Whoever told you or wrote that was trolling you

[starkvegasdawg]

Whoever told you or wrote that was trolling you

I have since had the person that told me that come up and remind me it was him. Huge MSU fan with no reason to troll. It was a player that he invited on his LFL rig during baseball season this year. Now, that player may have been exaggerating or having a bad day and just said that. I don't know. But I have full faith that this conversation actually took place.

[Sacrifice]

Mullen said this during the SEC media days...

"Defensively, our defensive philosophy is not going to change, but our personality is with Peter Sirmon coming in as our D coordinator. A lot of new defensive coaches on our staff. That?s always going to change, a little bit of that personality, a little bit of the play call. But our philosophy will not change."

And it looks like our philosophy hasn't changed.

[preachermatt83]

Dan micromanages the Defense plain and simple. Insomuch as he will go in the meeting rooms and critique certain schematic things

[Really Clark?]

Dan Mullen has had multiple defensive coordinators during his tenure (Torbush, Diaz, Collins, Diaz again, and Sirmon). I'm probably forgetting one, but it doesn't matter at this point.

Anyway, in all of those instances, we played very similarly from a defensive standpoint. Bend, don't break. Soft two-deep zone. Limit the big play.

We've seen Collins and Diaz go elsewhere and play different styles - much more aggressive. Mullen may not be in the weeds on the defensive side of the ball, but he's definitely influencing the defensive approach and having us play a certain style. There was a lot of talk about going to the 3-4 this year and I was really optimistic that Mullen was going to let someone come in and put their stamp on things, but I'm really seeing more of the same stuff we've always seen. This isn't meant to bash Mullen, but my opinion is that you can't just limit yourself defensively like this. When you struggle in the secondary and your strength is your linebackers, we should really see a much more aggressive defense than we have. This style we play now works well if you have an all-SEC defensive line and some good cover corners. We don't have those things and that's why it's not working out. My opinion, of course.

First off the bend don't break is a philosophy that is ran in many many different schemes. Saban runs a bend don't break but from a 3-4 and while aggressive in ways, it's not a blitz heavy scheme. He has superior athletes so he can rush 4-5 guys and still play zone, match up zone, Cover 1, Cover 3, etc. There are just not many who don't run some version of bend don't break. So people need to understand that is technically what you see the majority of the time when you watch most defenses.

As far as going down the line DC by DC running the same stuff. That's incorrect to a certain degree and not incorrect because of circumstances. Torbush ran his own defense. You saw some similar stuff but Torbush was schooled under Teaff and Bully Brewer and it was different from Diaz. Now he didn't work was informed to find another job.

Then came Diaz and Wilson. They wrote our defensive playbook together. It was that playbook that was used through Wilson, Collins and back to Diaz. Diaz even mentioned how much of the terminology and scheme was the same as when he left. That had nothing to do with Mullen. Even though it is the most prevalent defense ran and Dan does like that.

Now Diaz was a Chuck Amato disciple who learned most of his philosophy under the NC State long time DC Al Michaels and was there under the Lou Holtz years. Holtz was a big influence on many of the modern Cover 2 type guys like Kiffin and Pete Carroll. Chris Wilson cut his teeth under Tim McGuire who, like Monte Kiffin, was influenced by Devaney and Osborn at Nebraska. McGuire has been coaching for a very long time and has put out some good assistants over the years. Wilson played under Gary Gibbs at Oklahoma. All bend don't break guys and if you started really looking at what they ran you will see a lot of similarities to what we do. The passing and spread concepts tweaking it of course.

Collins came in and he was influenced a lot by Ted Roof who played under Don Lindsey. Lindsey's list of who he has coached with and influenced and been influenced by is extensive. He was with Holtz from 81-83 and Frank Broyles in 1970. Was under John McKay and John Robinson at USC but Bear and Jim Sweeney (interesting fact he was Dennis Erickson's coach at Montana St and conveniced Jan Stenerud to tryout for kicker even though he was at Montana St in a skiing scholarship) was his two early influences.

Anyway, just another cog to add to the bend don't break philosophy and the bulk of these guys have also been 4-3 scheme types. So with that you see similarities bleed through. Then of course we get back to Diaz who wrote the dang thing to begin with.

With Sirmon there have been some differences but with our injuries and issues in the secondary, coverages have had to be more like what has been previously done. Although, it hasn't been completely identical even with that.

[BB30]

First off the bend don't break is a philosophy that is ran in many many different schemes. Saban runs a bend don't break but from a 3-4 and while aggressive in ways, it's not a blitz heavy scheme. He has superior athletes so he can rush 4-5 guys and still play zone, match up zone, Cover 1, Cover 3, etc. There are just not many who don't run some version of bend don't break. So people need to understand that is technically what you see the majority of the time when you watch most defenses.

As far as going down the line DC by DC running the same stuff. That's incorrect to a certain degree and not incorrect because of circumstances. Torbush ran his own defense. You saw some similar stuff but Torbush was schooled under Teaff and Bully Brewer and it was different from Diaz. Now he didn't work was informed to find another job.

Then came Diaz and Wilson. They wrote our defensive playbook together. It was that playbook that was used through Wilson, Collins and back to Diaz. Diaz even mentioned how much of the terminology and scheme was the same as when he left. That had nothing to do with Mullen. Even though it is the most prevalent defense ran and Dan does like that.

Now Diaz was a Chuck Amato disciple who learned most of his philosophy under the NC State long time DC Al Michaels and was there under the Lou Holtz years. Holtz was a big influence on many of the modern Cover 2 type guys like Kiffin and Pete Carroll. Chris Wilson cut his teeth under Tim McGuire who, like Monte Kiffin, was influenced by Devaney and Osborn at Nebraska. McGuire has been coaching for a very long time and has put out some good assistants over the years. Wilson played under Gary Gibbs at Oklahoma. All bend don't break guys and if you started really looking at what they ran you will see a lot of similarities to what we do. The passing and spread concepts tweaking it of course.

Collins came in and he was influenced a lot by Ted Roof who played under Don Lindsey. Lindsey's list of who he has coached with and influenced and been influenced by is extensive. He was with Holtz from 81-83 and Frank Broyles in 1970. Was under John McKay and John Robinson at USC but Bear and Jim Sweeney (interesting fact he was Dennis Erickson's coach at Montana St and conveniced Jan Stenerud to tryout for kicker even though he was at Montana St in a skiing scholarship) was his two early influences.

Anyway, just another cog to add to the bend don't break philosophy and the bulk of these guys have also been 4-3 scheme types. So with that you see similarities bleed through. Then of course we get back to Diaz who wrote the dang thing to begin with.

With Sirmon there have been some differences but with our injuries and issues in the secondary, coverages have had to be more like what has been previously done. Although, it hasn't been completely identical even with that.

Awesome post, I would like to piggy back off of that a little bit and add that you can't do some things schematically you might like due to personnel issues. If you don't have the athletes you are kind of pigeon holed.

[thf24]

Here's my problem with calling what we do "bend don't break." Correct me if I'm wrong, but the way I understand it, in a "bend don't break" philosophy, you give up underneath passes and play contain against the run to limit big plays, and bank on the opponent making mistakes or holding them to field goals. But you still have to be aggressive and put on pressure up front in order to force those mistakes. At our best (when we're not giving up big plays despite our scheme, as we've been doing all year), we give up the short gains, but we're not putting on pressure either, effectively making our scheme "bend THEN break." Instead of being aggressive like our philosophy traditionally demands, we're playing too safe and waiting on unforced errors, which isn't going stop good SEC teams.

[BB30]

Here's my problem with calling what we do "bend don't break." Correct me if I'm wrong, but the way I understand it, in a "bend don't break" philosophy, you give up underneath passes and play contain against the run to limit big plays, and bank on the opponent making mistakes or holding them to field goals. But you still have to be aggressive and put on pressure up front in order to force those mistakes. At our best (when we're not giving up big plays despite our scheme, as we've been doing all year), we give up the short gains, but we're not putting on pressure either, effectively making our scheme "bend THEN break." Instead of being aggressive like our philosophy traditionally demands, we're playing too safe and waiting on unforced errors, which isn't going stop good SEC teams.

Up until the last drive against KY we brought pressure from different places most of the night. We just didn't connect and don't have the athletes. IE didn't get pressure but it was not due to not trying different things.

[thf24]

Up until the last drive against KY we brought pressure from different places most of the night. We just didn't connect and don't have the athletes. IE didn't get pressure but it was not due to not trying different things.

I'm talking more about how we've looked over the course of Mullen's tenure than this year. Our new scheme is going to look a little more aggressive by nature since a guy whose hand didn't start on the ground is rushing just about every play, and like you say it lets us bring pressure from different places. The period I'm looking at is the time from Diaz 1 to Diaz 2. Diaz 1 executed the philosophy correctly; play off with two deep safeties, but also rush 5 or more pretty liberally. Excellent defense that year (granted that team had 5-6 NFL players). Then we saw pressure taper off over the next few years, culminating in last year in which Diaz 2 didn't look much different from Collins. It seems obvious to me that our defenses have become less and less aggressive in a philosophy that demands aggression up front.

[Bubb Rubb]

First off the bend don't break is a philosophy that is ran in many many different schemes. Saban runs a bend don't break but from a 3-4 and while aggressive in ways, it's not a blitz heavy scheme. He has superior athletes so he can rush 4-5 guys and still play zone, match up zone, Cover 1, Cover 3, etc. There are just not many who don't run some version of bend don't break. So people need to understand that is technically what you see the majority of the time when you watch most defenses.

As far as going down the line DC by DC running the same stuff. That's incorrect to a certain degree and not incorrect because of circumstances. Torbush ran his own defense. You saw some similar stuff but Torbush was schooled under Teaff and Bully Brewer and it was different from Diaz. Now he didn't work was informed to find another job.

Then came Diaz and Wilson. They wrote our defensive playbook together. It was that playbook that was used through Wilson, Collins and back to Diaz. Diaz even mentioned how much of the terminology and scheme was the same as when he left. That had nothing to do with Mullen. Even though it is the most prevalent defense ran and Dan does like that.

Now Diaz was a Chuck Amato disciple who learned most of his philosophy under the NC State long time DC Al Michaels and was there under the Lou Holtz years. Holtz was a big influence on many of the modern Cover 2 type guys like Kiffin and Pete Carroll. Chris Wilson cut his teeth under Tim McGuire who, like Monte Kiffin, was influenced by Devaney and Osborn at Nebraska. McGuire has been coaching for a very long time and has put out some good assistants over the years. Wilson played under Gary Gibbs at Oklahoma. All bend don't break guys and if you started really looking at what they ran you will see a lot of similarities to what we do. The passing and spread concepts tweaking it of course.

Collins came in and he was influenced a lot by Ted Roof who played under Don Lindsey. Lindsey's list of who he has coached with and influenced and been influenced by is extensive. He was with Holtz from 81-83 and Frank Broyles in 1970. Was under John McKay and John Robinson at USC but Bear and Jim Sweeney (interesting fact he was Dennis Erickson's coach at Montana St and conveniced Jan Stenerud to tryout for kicker even though he was at Montana St in a skiing scholarship) was his two early influences.

Anyway, just another cog to add to the bend don't break philosophy and the bulk of these guys have also been 4-3 scheme types. So with that you see similarities bleed through. Then of course we get back to Diaz who wrote the dang thing to begin with.

With Sirmon there have been some differences but with our injuries and issues in the secondary, coverages have had to be more like what has been previously done. Although, it hasn't been completely identical even with that.

Of course, we haven't played the exact same defense under all different DCs. I understand that there are some differences in terminology, defensive playcalling, and execution, but the overall strategy has been similar under all of them. I do believe Mullen has an overall philosophy and each works within that.

Saban's defensive philosophy works because he has a monstrous defensive line that pressures the QB without the need to bring too many blitzes. That in and of itself changes the dynamic of his defense, and it's why we have had some previous success defensively because we've been generally good on the defensive line. I don't disagree necessarily with our scheme so much as I acknowledge that we don't really have the personnel to do it effectively. I think we are kinda saying the same thing here.

[Really Clark?]

I'm talking more about how we've looked over the course of Mullen's tenure than this year. Our new scheme is going to look a little more aggressive by nature since a guy whose hand didn't start on the ground is rushing just about every play, and like you say it lets us bring pressure from different places. The period I'm looking at is the time from Diaz 1 to Diaz 2. Diaz 1 executed the philosophy correctly; play off with two deep safeties, but also rush 5 or more pretty liberally. Excellent defense that year (granted that team had 5-6 NFL players). Then we saw pressure taper off over the next few years, culminating in last year in which Diaz 2 didn't look much different from Collins. It seems obvious to me that our defenses have become less and less aggressive in a philosophy that demands aggression up front.

It doesn't demand aggression up front though. What you are thinking of with Diaz 1 was actually less effective than Collins and even Diaz last year on pure pressure. What set the tone in 2010 was not pressure that got us 26 sacks, it was an incredible run defense that allowed us to be at better depth for zone coverage on third down. And for reference we had 37 sacks in 2014 and 30 in 2015. So we got there a lot more the last 2 years than Diaz 1 year. What you rather have is some blitzing bringing 4-5 on passing down and pressure the QB with just that. When you have problems is what we have had issues with. Either it's been talent, injury or missing assignments on the back end that has hurt us. If you have a team and QB that is good enough to dissect you in landmark zone coverage it can kill you. You hope to run more pattern read zone coverage but again when the players don't read it correctly, you are picked apart