Over at Football Study Hall I explain the tite-robber defense, the ascendancy of base dime defense, and how base dime personnel will look once this becomes a mainstay across the country.
As I explained on Twitter recently, and really bears repeating here and probably again with greater depth in a future article, Texas’ defensive breakthrough against Oklahoma State (which was stealing Iowa State’s breakthrough, who were copying someone else in a trail that probably leads back to Rocky Long at SD St) was a massive one for offering a pathway to winning in the Big 12 with a grind it out approach on offense.
As I put it on Twitter:
When Texas held OSU to 10 points in regulation while doing nothing whatsoever on offense that was a game changer in B12 history. Eventually teams will realize that you have to pair a run-centric O with a pass-centric D.
— Ian Boyd (@Ian_A_Boyd) May 23, 2018
Traditionally teams that run the ball have been very concerned with their opponents not being able to also run the ball but that's not the concern in the B12. The concern is how to MAKE the other team run it and not chuck it around and build a lead you can't overcome?
— Ian Boyd (@Ian_A_Boyd) May 23, 2018
The answer is what Texas did to OSU. You play dime, flood the deep zones, and force them to drive the ball down the field with the run game. Now they're playing your game and it's a contest of who's more efficient with run game and ball control.
— Ian Boyd (@Ian_A_Boyd) May 23, 2018
What do you do when they're faster/more explosive but you're tougher/smarter? Make it a mud fight. pic.twitter.com/bZ07DVcsEb
— Ian Boyd (@Ian_A_Boyd) May 23, 2018
That last GIF is from an animated adaptation of “The Dark Knight Returns” in which an aging (55 year old) Bruce Wayne can’t stay retired and decides to return to clean up Gotham once more. He’s taking on a super-powered freak called “the mutant” who’s already clobbered Batman in another fight and his solution is to lure him into a mud pit where the mutant’s superior speed is useless and Batman’s cunning and superior fighting skills can rule the day.
In the past, any team that wanted to come into the Big 12 and run the air out of the ball while winning the traditional fashion with defense and low-scoring outcomes was getting blown off the field. You can’t keep the score down if the offense is throwing down the field on your run-stopping defense and running 80 plays, you end up giving up 30+ points and sometimes 40, 50, or 60 if you’re truly in trouble.
But if you force those teams to run the ball on your light box and then turn the game into a contest of which team is better at plugging away downhill, playing for field position, and converting third and two? Now your smashmouth culture and recruiting choices can carry the day and almost certainly will.
But first teams have to give up on trying to stop the run and play pass-first defense with a dime package.
To play a Dime defense that forces your opponent to run the ball, don’t you have to have the horses on the defensive line to not give up 4+ yds per rush? If so, I don’t think many Big 12 schools have those horses on their starting line.
In the 4i-technique article I explain how that works. From that tite front it’s a much simpler proposition than from the standard 4-down Ds.