Illini Film Review: Gophers run wild not just due to poor tackling
Lovie Smith cited poor tackling numerous times Saturday night when asked to immediately evaluate his team’s poor run defense.
“We need to tackle better, have guys in position to make tackles, we’ve got to tackle better,” Smith said following the 40-17 loss at Minnesota. “Yeah, you can always call (a) different defense but eventually, you have an offensive guy and a defensive guy in position to make a tackle.”
The Fighting Illini’s fourth-year head coach and defensive play-caller is correct. The Illini missed several tackles Saturday that led to a previously inept Minnesota running game rack up 332 yards on the ground and 6.4 yards-per-carry.
However, a simple film review can explain how basic execution wasn’t simply the only problem on Saturday. At times, whether it was Rodney Smith (211 yards on 24 carries and a touchdown) or Shannon Brooks (111 yards on 16 carries and a touchdown), Illinois’ defensive line didn’t properly set the edges at all in their run fits allowing Minnesota’s tailbacks to find cut-back avenues to turn a small or moderate gain into a back-breaking run toward points.
NOTE: We should always preface this by explaining to the reader that we aren’t exactly sure what each Illinois player is being asked to accomplish in this scheme. So this is never intended to be an individual indictment on a player’s failure to execute his job but simply pointing out a flaw either by scheme or execution.
Big plays caused by perimeter breakdowns
Smith mentioned Saturday that “big plays are what’s killing us on the defensive side” and the statistics back up the point made by the Illini head coach. Illinois (2-3, 0-2 in Big Ten) now ranks tied for 99th among 129 Football Bowl Subdivision schools by surrendering 31 rushes of 10 yards or more. The Illini defense gave up nine such rushes Saturday against a team that came in averaging 2.6 yards per rush. Illinois also ranks tied for 106th in FBS in allowing 10 rushes of 20 yards or more and UTSA, the nation’s worst, has given up 16. In case you were wondering, Illinois has given up more runs of 20 yards or more in the Big Ten Conference and three league teams have played one more game than the Illini. Most of these big plays that Smith is talking about are results from the runner being able to easily get the corner and because the Illini linebackers are stuck inside the tackle box filling their gaps, the runner is allowed the escape into the secondary.
This breakdown is exactly what happened in one of the first big runs of the game - a 64-yard scamper by Rodney Smith in the second quarter. As you can see in the video above and the still-shot frame picture, Illinois has its inside gap control handled efficiently on this play but Minnesota left tackle Sam Schlueter and tight end Jake Paulson create a giant avenue for Smith to attack outside the tackle box. In this concept, Illinois defensive end Ayo Shogbonyo is unblocked by the left tackle, who immediately gets upfield to engage Illini linebacker Jake Hansen. Instead of staying put and giving himself a better angle to cut off the cutback option toward the sideline, Shogbonyo (a converted linebacker) dives inside toward the guard and is immediately blocked and turned by Paulson, who was lined up as a fullback.
Once Hansen is engaged and Shogbonyo does Paulson’s work for him by taking the wrong angle, Minnesota immediately has a crease for Smith to get to the third level of Illinois’ defense. At that point, the run is more than likely to get at least 10 yards but next is where the bad tackling comes into play. Illinois junior safety Tony Adams is in a one-on-one situation to limit the damage but lowers his head and whiffs on the attempt allowing Smith to essentially be behind every single Illini defender and 50-plus yards later, the Gophers are in the red zone. If the Illini defensive end either hold his perimeter or gets off Paulson’s block, the run is forced back inside where Illini has its gaps filled.
“As a general rule, there will be breaks in every game but you can’t let them go the distance,” Lovie Smith said.
This video how Minnesota used a very similar concept on an 8-yard touchdown run by Rodney Smith. The only difference is Paulson came as a puller from the strongside. Even though it’s only eight yards, the breakdown is the same for Shogbonyo on the perimeter and this run has a crease to go for a huge play if the Gophers had been further away from the end zone.
On the 21-yard touchdown run by Brooks, another breakdown of the first and second level of Illinois’ defensive front occurs. Yes, as you can see in the above video, Oluwole Betiku gets in his perimeter gap late and makes a poor one-shoulder effort at a tackle but Illinois had a linebacker (Milo Eifler) in the area and had dropped a safety (Delano Ware) to fill that gap as well. When Betiku makes brief contact with Brooks near the line-of-scrimmage, Eifler and Ware immediately stand flat-footed and stop running toward the ball. Tony Adams again takes a poor angle at a tackle effort and Brooks has a clear path into the end zone.
“It’s guys not dialing in or making plays when their name is called,” Illinois linebacker Dele Harding said. “There were a couple plays where we were sound as far as defensively, but not making a play.”
Once again, this is another example to show how yes, Lovie Smith is correct that poor tackling led to big plays but also poor gap assignment could’ve also either started the problem or made the situation even worse.
“We worked on it all week and knew we had to run the ball because of the weather.” Rodney Smith said following his career-high performance. “We knew it would be cold and wet out. We had to show up and deliver.”