What Will Boston College's Defense Look Like in 2021?
For the last few decades, Boston College has utilized traditional schemes on both sides of the ball. With a few notable exceptions (2014 offense with Tyler Murphy), the offense was pro-style, and the defense operated out of a base 4-3 defense. Since Jeff Hafley took over as the head coach, these heuristics have remained, to a certain extent. However, as the offense became much more pass-heavy in 2020, I think the defense will undergo a similar transition in 2021.
Boston College Defense Through the Years
For as long as I’ve been a fan of Boston College, they’ve run a standard 4-3 defense. Players like Mark Herzlich, Luke Kuechly, Steele DeVitto, and Steven Daniels manned the middle linebacker position, and the defense followed a traditional pattern around that. Even Don Brown’s exotic defenses during the early Adazzio era were rooted in 4-3 principles.
However, those defenses introduced an important position: the Viper. The Viper position is somewhat of a hybrid linebacker that is typically undersized but still plays in the box and is utilized to stop the run and even rush the passer. For BC, players like Josh Keyes and Matt Milano manned this position; at Michigan, Jabrill Peppers took on the mantle. After Brown left Chestnut Hill, the Eagles’ defense reverted even more strongly toward 4-3 base principles, sometimes refusing even to play nickel packages against pass-heavy personnel (see Kansas, 2019).
In 2020, Jeff Halfey and the new coaching staff were obviously hamstrung by the COVID-19 pandemic, which prevented their players from learning a new defense on campus. Hafley recently admitted that their defense last year was relatively vanilla. Luckily, the new coaching staff inherited a very deep and talented secondary and two very experienced linebackers. During the 2020 season, Hafley and defensive coordinator Tem Lukabu seemed much more willing to run with nickel personnel than their predecessors. Jason Maitre saw extensive playing time as the nickel cornerback, and Josh DeBerry filled in there.
After those two players, the player with the next most snaps taken in the slot is very telling for how BC’s defense will look next year. Jahmin Muse played the third-most snaps in the slot on the BC defense. But even more of his snaps came in the box as a linebacker. This, along with the addition of Florida State transfer Jaiden Lars-Woodbey and safety Kam Arnold “switching” to linebacker, tells me that Boston College is moving to a 4-2-5 defense for the 2021 season and possibly beyond.
The History of the 4-2-5
The 4-2-5 defense gained significant popularity in the early 2010s, as defenses in the Big 12 experimented with different ways to get more defensive backs on the field to counter the dynamic offenses of schools like Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Baylor, and Texas Tech. The difference between a traditional nickel defense and a 4-2-5 base defense is relatively subjective. But the player that makes the difference, the slot defender, typically looks more like a safety or even a linebacker than a smaller cornerback. Whereas a nickel defense subs out a bigger linebacker (such as John Lamot) for a smaller cornerback (i.e., Jason Maitre, Hamp Cheevers, Taj-Amir Torres, etc.), the 4-2-5 finds a smaller linebacker or bigger safety and plays them in the slot or “overhang” area.
In theory, this player can still be an effective coverage defender (albeit in a more limited role) but can be equally effective at filling outside gaps against the run and even rushing the passer on occasion. The name for this position has many names: Star, Money, Rover, Vandal, and more. The usage may also differ based on the team and the available players, but generally, this player will play about five to seven yards off the line of scrimmage and outside the tight end on either side of the offensive line. Playing in this “overhang” or “apex” area allows the defender to stop the outside run game, sniff out quick passes including screens and RPOs, blitz the quarterback, or drop into coverage against tight ends or wide receivers.
How BC will use the 4-2-5 Defense
On the BC roster, four players fit into the Slot/Overhang defender role. They are as follows: Jaiden Lars-Woodbey, Jahmin Muse, Kam Arnold, and Bryce Steele. These players are all between 6’ and 6’1” and between 214 and 225 pounds. If you followed the 2021 NFL Draft process, you might recognize Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, formerly a linebacker for Notre Dame. JOK was listed as a linebacker but played almost exclusively in the overhang area. He was an absolute demon for the Fighting Irish this past year, and many expected him to be a first-round pick. Ultimately, injury concerns and how to use him in an NFL defense pushed him into the late second round. But his success should be replicable for BC.
Acquiring a player like Jaiden Lars-Woodbey provides the Eagles with their own version of JOK. JLW (the triple name hyphenate certainly helps the comparison) played a similar role for the Florida State Seminoles, who also used Hamsah Nasirildeen as a hybrid defensive weapon. Kam Arnold performed quite well at safety in limited reps last season and acquiesced to the coaching staff’s wishes to change positions this season. Finally, Bryce Steele is a true freshman this year, and due to the depth at the position, he might not see the field; but learning from experienced players like JLW and Jahmin Muse could be invaluable for his future in this defense.
A Three Deep Safety Look?
Some 4-2-5 defenses (or even 3-3-5 defenses) prefer to align with three deep safeties. This strategy has been most frequently connected to Brent Venables' defenses at Clemson and Iowa State's defenses. Last spring, an article from Pro Football Focus on the three deep safety defense generated quite the buzz on football Twitter. I'm not sure how much BC will utilize these types of alignments instead of more traditional 4-2-5 alignments, but I think they have the personnel to do it.
For these three safety roles, I would prescribe using Mike Palmer, Deon Jones, and Jahmin Muse. The order I listed these players in is important. From the offense's perspective, these players should align in that order from left to right on the majority of plays. In short, Palmer would play the Weak Safety (WS), Jones the middle safety (MS), and Muse the strong (SS).
Generally, I would play Muse towards the tight end (the offenses' strong side) and Palmer away from the tight end. Palmer has consistently struggled with his ability to take good angles to the ball carrier, so allowing him to cover the backside should help mitigate that issue. With that being said, Jones is the more dynamic player and probably better in covering slot receivers so that he could be interchangeable with Palmer on certain downs against sets with four or five wide receivers. On the other side, Muse will most likely be limited to playing towards the offense's run strength due to his size, ability to stop the run and his limitations in deep coverage. However, playing with three deep safeties gives the defense many different ways to align and run their defense and confuse the offense. Furthermore, I think Jaiden Lars-Woodbey would fill in at weakside linebacker to prevent cutbacks by the running back in this defense.
Taking Boston College into the Modern Era
In 2020, BC transitioned away from the run-heavy, ultra-conservative Steve Adazzio offense to the more aggressive, pass-heavy offense with Frank Cignetti. Granted, the majority of Cignetti's offense was rooted in pro-style principles. But in 2019, BC ran the ball on 63% of their plays (37% pass plays); in 2020, that split dropped to about 40% run and 60% pass. Obviously, there is no commensurate statistic for defenses. But I think we could see the Eagles' defense undergo a similar drastic metamorphosis.
As previously mentioned, BC's defense has been rooted in traditional 4-3 principles for many years. But Jeff Hafley and his staff have not been afraid of making significant schematic changes. Based on the personnel already on the roster along with the players brought in via the transfer portal and recruiting, Boston College seems primed to enter the modern age by running a hybrid defense to compete in the ACC.