Hindsight 2022: Penn State Defense vs. Purdue
Lions & Twists & Stunts, Oh My! Billed as an Exotic Break From the Brent Pry Norm, Act One of ‘The Manny Diaz Experience’ Turned Out to be Surprisingly Efficient and Effective, as well.
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Thanks for nothing, Fox Sports Graphics Team.
As the rest of you spent this holiday weekend celebrating the American workforce by driving around town in your Japanese-made cars, floating atop your Chinese-made innertubes, and sipping German beer, the infrequently hard-working folks at FTB were vigorously spinning the hamster wheel of creativity, desperate to find the perfect lead for the inaugural ‘Hindsight’ review of the Manny Diaz era.
After racking our brains for literally dozens of seconds, we spent the next hour screwing around on our phones watching some disembodied voice rip open packs of junk wax baseball cards from the 1980s (oddly soothing and satisfying, highly recommend). Then, we snapped back to the task at hand, re-focused for a good minute, and settled on this corny bit where we turned two Manny Diaz defensive formations into Rorschach inkblots and had an imaginary psychward patient guess the down and distance.
There was just one problem…the ‘splotchy’ EFX on Photoshop wasn’t enough to blur out Fox’s superimposed on-field down and distance graphic, thus ruining the bit. Such a shame.
Rather than revert back to the drawing board, we decided to totally ‘mail it in’ and top this blog post with this riveting BTS account of our failure.
HOWEVER, the point we intended to articulate through this roundabout, funny-to-us-but-probably-not-to-anyone-else manner remains: Manny Diaz is gonna be Manny Diaz and play Manny Diaz defense – no matter the time, no matter the situation, no matter the circumstance.
Proof:
This is 3rd and 30…3rd and FREAKIN’ 30! Oh, there’s only 4:56 remaining in the 4th Quarter, too!!! No room for error. No room for a dumb flag and a gift set of new downs. If Southern-sounding Northerner Brent Pry were still calling the shots, Penn State’s corners would be lined up outside Terre Haute, providing plenty of cushion for Purdue to catch something underneath while PSU rallied to stop the receiver short of the marker. Honestly, it’s the smart move.
Manny Diaz doesn’t see it that way. He’s got 9-Joey Porter Jr. and 4-Kalen King pressed as tight as they can to the LOS. If this were a junior high dance, chaperones would intervene. Despite DPI or defensive holding being the sole scenario in which Purdue can extend this drive, Diaz scoffs at danger and continues to play aggressive man coverage.
Another one:
3rd and 18. Count with us….1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8…9. 9 defenders are within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage! Two high safeties play at off-the-TV-screen depth. Still, Diaz is totally poking the bear here. Head referee/Hank Hill impersonator Ron Snodgrass and his band of Big Ten zebras flagged Penn State pass defenders 3 times on Thursday and arguably could have justifiably doubled that total if they wanted to. That includes this play, a somewhat handsy shadowing by 4- King that concludes with an anxious pause as Ross-Ade groans for a penalty.
Welcome to The Manny Diaz Experience.
Formations
Like a kid brother slowly eating an ice cream cone in the back of a stationwagon, Manny Diaz’s fingerprints were all over this underappreciated defensive debut.
Exotic formations? Check.
Split Field Coverages? Check.
Lots of In-Your-Face, Smell-Your-Breath Press Man? Check.
D-Linemen crossing face and switching gaps? Check.
Putting players in position to take the ball away? Check.
Mash all those funky components together and what we got was a new-look unit that held an explosive Purdue offense well below its 2021 averages in points, total yards, and yards per passing attempt. Not bad for a guy (Diaz) that Miami fans relentlessly trolled in the comment sections of our Film Study videos, eh?
Over the coming weeks, we’ll plate up Diaz’s entire smorgasbord of alignments, pressure packages, personnel choices, and all those wacky stunts and twists, but since I have a 2:30 pm Zoom meeting looming, here’s a quick taste to whet your appetite.
Longtime FTB readers – more specifically, longtime Hindsight readers – know we derive an undeserving amount of pleasure from tagging unique/exotic formations with quirky names. Why, you ask? Hell if we know.
Anyway, we’re calling this look MAGNIFICENT because it features 7 defensive backs…get it? Up front, 20-Adisa Isaac lines up at 7, 51-Hakeem Beamon is nose-to-nose with the tackle (4 Tech) and Chop stands at the strongside 9. This wide spacing parts the G-C-G portion of the line for 16-Ji-Ayir Brown 23-Curtis Jacobs to complete this “mug” front and show “simulated pressure.”
On this play, Penn State runs a Man Robber coverage with a single-high safety – 2-Keaton Ellis, who does an A+ job racing from the middle of the field to help over the top and shrink the bucket on this corner route. 4 Lions rush the passer. Would have been 5, but 23-Curtis Jacobs had to shadow the Purdue RB in the flat.
Diaz dialed up MAGNIFICENT close to a dozen times on Thursday with multiple variations to keep Purdue off-balance/guessing – man, zone, 3 rushers, 4 rushers, 5 rushers, fire zone pressures with a DE bluffing rush then dropping into shallow coverage.
Next pressure package, please (clicks slide projector):
Coach Codutti touched on Diaz’s tendency to overload one side of the offensive line when presented with no-brainer passing situations. It’s risky – because you’re totally susceptible to the run with all these unmanned gaps – but not many coaches have the stones to slip in a draw down 4 points with less than a minute left.
The genius of this particular overload pressure is that Diaz only sends 4 guys vs. 6 blockers yet still winds up with an advantageous CB-on-RB matchup because all 4 rushers’ attack routes are condensed from the C to the LT. Notice Purdue’s RG and RT have no one to block. That’s by design. Plus-play by 3-Dixon, flashing a textbook swim to beat 22-King Doerue. Violent closing burst, too.
But it wasn’t all sunshine and puppy dogs for Diaz. Many of his exotic twists and stunts — his main defensive calling card – bottlenecked as PSU DEs and DTs often wound up occupying the same gap…or, as Codutti calls it, “Two guys peeing in the same Coke bottle.”
Here’s 28-Zane Durant and 33-Dani Dennis-Sutton essentially blocking themselves (bottom of the screen). At the top of the screen, 44-Robinson and 97-Mustipher show how these stunts are supposed to look:
And here, 91-Dvon Ellies and DDS get clogged up when the true freshman swims inside, allowing Purdue QB 16-Aidan O’Connell 1-2 extra seconds to survey the other side of the field after Penn State’s coverage nullified his initial read.
Substitutions
Robust rotation on all three levels of the defense – certainly more than we anticipated given the heightened stakes of opening conference play on the road – as Penn State extracted substantial contributions from 2nd and even 3rd stringers on the depth chart. Our guess is that this Game 1 rotation repeats itself for this week’s revenue generator vs. Ohio, then shrinks ever so slightly – but not too much, because of the thick, swampy Alabama heat – the following week at Auburn.
Unlike the offense, where O-Line anchors 74-Olu Fashanu and 70-Juice Scruggs didn’t leave the field, no Penn State defender played the entire game. LB 23-Curtis Jacobs and 16-Ji’Ayir Brown came closest with 85 and 82 snaps (out of a possible 88), respectively.
Newbie 44-Chop Robinson out-snapped veteran starter 46-Nick Tarburton at defensive end, which made sense for a couple of reasons – 1. Purdue’s a pass happy offense and Chop is a superior (albeit green) pass rusher and 2. Tarburton graded out at an abysmal 35.9, according to PFF, the worst performance of the 26 PSU defenders that registered a snap.
Corners 9-JPJ, 4-King, and 3-John(ny) Dixon each compiled at least 45 snaps, which was 11 more than Nickel slot specialist 25-Daequan Hardy.
In total, three true freshmen saw action. Two of those newcomers – 33-Dani Dennis-Sutton and 28-Zane Durant – didn’t have their hype balloons popped, but certainly some of the air was let out of the unfair, overinflated expectations we (and many others) burdened these guys with in the preseason. As you saw in the formation section, there were many snaps where DDS and Durant looked their age (not a knock, just a fact) trying to stand up/get by 21- and 22-year-old tackles and guards – b.k.a. grown-ass adults.
As for 4-star LB 11-Abdul Carter, well…
Defensive Line
When you think of 4th Quarter finishers, think of Hakeem!
Shelved for the entire 2021 season, Penn State DT 51-Hakeem Beamon stayed MIA for the initial three quarters vs. Purdue before finally popping off the screen in the final 15 minutes to close things out – a much-needed push that emboldened us to whip out our hackneyed Coming To America tributes once again.
Beamon wins the leverage battle and resets the line of scrimmage, causing congestion for the Purdue pullers. Notice how Boilers RG 63-Marcus Mbow bumps into his blocking buddy 75-Spencer Holstege, making it impossible to reach his assignment, PSU DE 56-Amin Vanover? Yeah, that’s not supposed to happen. 3-yard loss.
More Beamon:
Beamon flies from the B-gap to the opposite A-gap, splitting the center and left guard. The up-the-middle pressure rushes O’Connell to hit the mesh short of the sticks. 25-Hardy quells any and all YAC possibilities. 4th down.
Speaking of happy returns…it was encouraging to see 97-PJ Mustipher play as much as he did and as well as he did on Thursday. Mustipher put his hand in the dirt for 48 plays, second among PSU DTs (Beamon had 52 snaps). While Mustipher’s strength – clogging up running lanes – obviously clashed with Purdue’s modus operandi, he still managed to flash on a few plays, like this short gain on 1st down. Mustipher rides the Purdue center’s inside shoulder from the backside A-gap to the playside B-gap – where this run was supposed to hit – causing the back to bounce outside.
Linebackers
Good news and bad news when it comes to analyzing the first chapter of LB 23-Curtis Jacobs’ fulltime switch from SAM to WILL.
Good news: Despite weighing 20 pounds less than WILL predecessors Brandon Smith and Micah Parsons, Jacobs proved he possesses the necessary amount of sand in his pants to handle the physical demands of the position.
In this clip, Jacobs fight through a second-level block from Purdue RT 64-Mahamane Moussa, maintains his balance, and assists on the tackle with 7-Jayden Reed at the line of scrimmage.
Bad news: Jacobs’ doesn’t appear totally comfortable reading and reacting now that he’s stationed primarily inside the box. Unlike the SAM, where the tackler has a clear, unobstructed view of what’s happening in the backfield, Jacobs is still adjusting to the WILL’s cloudier POV.
Case in point:
Like many Penn State fans, when Manny Diaz announced 0-Jonathan Sutherland would man the defense’s new hybrid spot – a position Diaz labels ‘Striker’ but we’re gonna call ‘PITBULL’ as an homage to Diaz’s South Florida roots – we too set the bar of expectations lower than an underground tavern. But, you know what? Sutherland wasn’t half bad manning his new forever position.
Sutherland’s 64.2 overall PFF grade ranked 6th-best, while his tackling grade of 80.7 topped all linebackers. As a pass defender, Sutherland was hit or miss – story of his lengthy college career. By far, this was his best rep:
Before the snap, Sutherland offers up an assignment assist to 43-Tyler Elsdon (Hey, you got that guy!), then sifts through any potential WR picks, and manages to run step-for-step with All-Big Ten TE 87-Payne Durham. O’Connell’s only chance for a completion is a low-percentage back-shoulder toss. Durham doesn’t get his head around in time. Incomplete.
Secondary
The book is out on Penn State CB 9-Joey Porter Jr.
(open book)
Page 1: Don’t throw at Joey Porter Jr.
(close book)
Yeah, it’s a quick read. But, apparently, it’s not a popular read. Either that, or the lone copy of this 1-pageturner must have been checked out from Purdue’s Hicks Library for the entire summer semester. How else do you explain Jeff Brohm’s willingness to pepper a player who will have two commas in his bank account 9 months from now?
JPJ entered Thursday credited with 6 PBUs in 3 seasons of college football. He left Thursday with 12 career PBUs. Let that sink in for a second.
Purdue QB Aidan O’Connell – a heady 6th-year senior sporting a 68.4 career completion percentage – connected on just 42.9% of throws targeted at Porter Jr., for a pedestrian 66 yards. AOC also got away with at least two turnover-worthy throws, this being the most egregious:
Lastly, we’d be remiss not to identify the most-impressive facet of 6-Zakee Wheatley’s opportune forced fumble that occurred during the dying breaths of the first half, triggering at least a 10-point swing.
And no, it’s not the strip itself.
It’s the ground Wheatley covered – and the speed in which he covered it – to have a chance at ripping the ball loose.
Wheatley is playing outside leverage on the slot receiver, Purdue’s TJ Sheffield. That positioning coupled with the split-second it takes for Wheatley to react to the motion puts Sheffield a yard or yard-and-a-half ahead of the ‘Turnover King’ in this race to the edge.
In the span of (we’re guessimating) 30-40 feet, Wheatley erases Sheffield’s head start and initiates contact right at the line to gain. Unreal burst and short-area speed displayed by Wheatley.
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