As UW Dawg Pound’s resident Film Study nerd, and as a one-time mediocre high school football coach, I try to peel back the layers of the game to help hardcore Husky fans like myself understand the game a little bit better as they’re taking it in on Fall Saturdays. For the last couple of preseasons, I’ve spent time diving into the off-season’s developments in an attempt to figure out what schematic, philosophical, or any other X’s & O’s types of changes we should be on the look out for from the staff
in the upcoming season. This year, with a new defensive coordinator and a new full-time starter at QB, we have a lot of ground to cover.
Let’s dive in
Walters’ Defense on Montlake
Most UW fans are expecting the most obvious schematic change this year to be on defense. Ryan Walters, most recently the HC at Purdue and DC at Illinois, replaces Steve Belichick as the Huskies’ defensive coordinator, and with that change brings a dramatically different coaching resume. Out goes a career NFL coach (albeit a short NFL career exclusively working under his dad in New England), and in comes a career college coach who has predominantly coached at historically underdog programs. However, a closer look will show that the schemes and philosophies are more similar than they are different.
To ground this discussion, it’s important to first understand Walters’ background. Walters football journey is an interesting one that paints the picture of how he views the strategic elements of the game and how he orchestrates his defense. In high school, Walters was actually a quarterback and was recruited to Colorado in the early 2000s as a QB. However, at Colorado he was switched to safety where he was a multi-year starter. After his playing career, Walters bounced around as a GA at a number of programs before catching on as a key DB assistant under Barry Odom at both Memphis and Missouri, where he eventually was promoted to defensive coordinator coaching a top 25 defense out of the SEC. After coaching turnover at Missouri, Walters was hired by Bret Bielema to be the Illinois defensive coordinator. In his two years at Illinois, Walters coached their 97th ranked scoring defense to 29th and 1st ranked finishes.
What does any of that have to do with the defensive scheme we’ll see on Saturdays this fall? Each of those experiences between his playing and coaching journey has molded how he designs and calls his defense. With is QB/DB background, he’s had a lot of success coaching up excellent man-coverage DBs at his various stops. Knowing that he could coach up a good secondary with comparatively easy to find DB talent, Walters leaned on his mentors to figure out the defensive front. Drawing inspiration from Odom and particularly Bielema, Walters bought into Odd Front football.
Generally speaking, those fronts put three big bodies in the middle of the front to then be flanked by big bodied EDGE players outside and savvy, playmaking off-ball LBs at the second level. Schematically, this isn’t a dramatic departure from more common Even Front defenses like the 4-3, but philosophically, modern Odd Front defenses are fundamentally different at their core because of their use of specialization and division of labor to piece together high performing defenses without elite line talent. In practice, these Odd Front defenses (odd referring to the odd number of linemen) accomplished this by using three big bodied run stuffing DL to soak up blocks and control the line even if they didn’t provide any pass rush value. These types of linemen aren’t easy to find, but they are easier to find or develop than the elite pass rushing 3-tech DTs that are often key pieces in a top end Even Front defense. By deprioritizing DL pass rushing, Odd Front defenses are able to better stock their DL room with effective depth as well as having better protection for the off-ball LBs on the field. Big bodies controlling the line with 2-gap techniques allow the defense to put smaller, more athletic players in the box without risking too many 1v1 scenarios between a OG and a 215lb LB. These smaller, more athletic LBs and box safeties are again easier to find on the recruiting trail and are also better suited to work in space against today’s Spread Offenses. This defensive philosophy isn’t new, and a lot of programs, both big and small (including the Belichick Patriots), including UW under Coach Pete Kwiatkowski, have adopted this approach to defense. I did a breakdown article back in the day of Coach K’s UW defenses and some of the Odd Front/3-4 principles that he incorporated into his primarily Even Front 2-4-5 defense.
Walters’ particular style of defense stays a bit truer to the original Odd Front defense than Coach K’s 2-4-5, and the version he’s best known for is his blend of 5-man fronts with single-high man coverage structures behind it. What does that mean? In short, Walters likes to get heavy up front on the line of scrimmage (leaning towards 5-1-5 personnel rather than 3-3-5) while backing up his heavy front with an extra box defender while leaving his CBs in man coverage. By running a 5-man front (3 DL & 2 EDGEs), Walters minimizes the number of double teams the offense can get with Zone run schemes (as well as maximizing the number of 1v1s in pass rush situations). Typically, 5-man fronts are strong against Zone run schemes but weak against Man schemes like Power and Counter because there is typically only one off-ball LB or second level defender who can flow with the pulling/backfield blockers. Walters accounts for this with the extra box defender that he gains by playing predominantly single-high coverage structures. What that leaves us with is a defense that is highly leveraged against the run but is ultra aggressive in coverage. Of course we won’t always run a 5-man front and single-high shells with man coverage, but that’ll be our base look.
What you as a fan should consider when watching the defense this Fall is how Walters and the staff approach pressure generation in passing situations and how they might adjust their play calling if we struggle to stop the pass playing heavy man coverage. Pressure is an equalizer when defending the pass and having so many bodies in the box can help us disguise pressures better, but it also doesn’t prevent us from dropping a lot of bodies into coverage if an elite pass rush emerges.
Who is Next at Slot?
Based on last year’s offense, as well as Fisch’s offenses at Arizona, the slot position will be an important one to fill. Giles Jackson was an excellent fit last year with a full route tree at his disposal, YAC agility, and explosive vertical speed. Now that he’s on to his next endeavors, the Huskies have to replace one of their top producers at receiver and fill a role that in many ways stirs the drink for the whole offense.
We should ground ourselves for a minute while we’re talking about the “slot” position. When people talk about slot receivers, they are usually thinking about a type of player. Most immediately think about players like Wes Welker. Shorter, shiftier receivers who work underneath mismatches against LBs and produce on catch volume and yards after catch. That makes sense given that Welker was the NFL case study proving that players of his type could be prolific players right as the spread offense was gaining momentum. However, while players like Welker proved that slot receivers could be productive, and even a focal point of a passing game, there is still a stigma that they are the second or third best receiver on the team. They’re too small to deal with press coverage outside or are too slow to test CBs in 1v1 coverage outside. Basically, if they were better, then they’d play outside.
That thinking is outdated and misses the actual definition of what a slot receiver actually is. The slot at it’s most basic level is just an alignment in the formation and isn’t necessarily a position or type of player. A slot receiver is just a receiver that plays out of the slot alignment inside the boundary receiver and isn’t attached to the formation. A receiver in that alignment may face match ups and defensive techniques that happen to mitigate the need for size and vertical speed, but it doesn’t need to.
Over the years, as coaches adopted spread concepts, which almost by definition required that they play someone in a slot alignment, they have experimented with all sorts of different sizes, skill sets, and uses for the player in that alignment. Today, different coaching trees have developed their own version of how that player’s role functions within their respective offenses. Ian Boyd wrote a great article quite a few years ago on this very topic that is still very relevant in today’s landscape. In short, offenses that regularly utilize a slot player have a defined role for the position that falls into one of three main categories: a true WR, a move-TE/H-back type, or a WR/RB hybrid. Depending on what kind of offense you want to run and what talent you have on your roster, you can find effective ways of utilizing each.
In Fisch offenses, the “slot” tends to be a player that falls into the “true WR” category. Guys like Jacob Cowing at Arizona and Giles Jackson at UW have been featured in this role. Neither would be considered prototypical perimeter receivers, and both played a significant portion of their snaps out of the slot, but their most important trait was that they could work a full route tree out playing inside and outside. In 12 personnel, or even 11 personnel, they could play on the perimeter, but they could also run all the quick-break, short area routes underneath as a YAC threat AND take the top off the defense from the inside slot alignment. That well-rounded skill set allows Fisch to hunt for advantageous match ups while keeping his best players on the field and taking safety attention away from the boundary receivers.
The thing to keep an eye on this upcoming season is who will take over that critical role. That’s a hard skill set to find, and even excellent boundary WRs like Denzel Boston might not be well-suited to fill that role. Camp practice reports during the Spring indicated that the staff liked Kevin Greene Jr. and Audric Harris at the role. However, more recent reports from Pre-Season camp also indicate that the staff like how Dezmen Roebuck and Raiden Vines-Bright are coming along in the offense, plus Rashid Williams and Penn State transfer Omari Evans have started to separate from the pack. That’s a lot of talented receivers contending for playing time, and assuming that Fisch sticks to his tried-and-true offensive schemes, my best guess is that we’ll see Evans start off the season in the slot when we’re in 11 personnel based on his experience out of the slot and his vertical ability. That might change over the course of the first few weeks of the season if the underclassmen gain momentum in practice or limited snaps, and that could all change depending on rumored tweaks to the offense to feature Demond Williams’ talent.
The Offense According to Demond
Speaking of Demond Williams and how we’ll feature his skills this season, all it took was an off hand comment from Jedd Fisch on local radio to get me dreaming of all the different ways we could see Williams be utilized this Fall. All Fisch said was that the staff was making changes to the offense to tailor the offense to Williams’ skill set. Most listeners were probably thinking about ways we could incorporate him into the run game (like we had prior to him taking over as the starter). That might be part of it, but we’ve also seen Fisch offenses at Arizona where he had a mobile QB but didn’t feature them as a rusher despite them having lesser passing talent.
What I think Fisch and the staff have cooking isn’t a dramatic departure from their bread & butter concepts, formations, and personnel. Instead, I think we’ll see an adjusted play call sheet that emphasizes different parts of the playbook that better suit where Williams is at as a player with a sprinkling of new looks to capitalize on the talent around him. Here are a few to keep an eye out for:
More Moving Pockets / Boot Action / Hard Play Action
Generating more explosive passing plays are obviously a priority this season, and while we can expect more vertical passing concepts from Fisch to capitalize on Demond’s huge arm, something else to look for from a scheme perspective is how we set them up for Demond. One of the trends that I noticed over the last few games of the 2024 season once Demond got extended playing time was that many of his biggest passing plays came on vertical concepts where he had a “moving pocket.”
“Moving pocket” protections and backfield action don’t necessarily need to involve rolling out of pocket like a bootleg or sprint out. They can be more subtle like the half roll in the play above.
Based on the handful of instances where we used these types of play designs, I think that a larger dose of these would help Demond in two ways. One, I think that by moving the pocket, or at least his launch point, we are using his mobility to buy more time to set up the vertical plays that his arm can support. Moving Demond around in the backfield messes with the pass rush. Instead of pinning their ears back and attacking a spot, rushers need to slow down and actually read the backfield action. Even if it doesn’t buy him any more time, these types of plays tend to also better set up escape routes for Demond where we might better avoid the negative play.
Two, I think that these plays can help Demond, and younger or shorter QBs in general, read the entire field better. By intentionally moving his launch point deeper in the backfield or outside of the pocket, Williams is putting distance between himself and the scrum at the line of scrimmage. He has a clear shot to see downfield, as well as seeing oncoming rushers that he can better avoid in space.
Selective Use of Option & RPO Concepts
Yes, I do think we’ll see a little more Option and RPO get called next year. We all know that there was a package installed just for him to run the ball that we saw regularly before he took over full time. However, once he transitioned from being a spot player in certain situations to being the guy, we saw a lot less designed running plays get called for Demond. That was probably to protect him a bit better once it was clear that he was going to take a larger role, but it’d be a waste of his athleticism to complete remove this portion of the offense from the call sheet. I mean come on, just look at that play above.
Instead, I think we’ll see a portion of that package get called selectively with plays tailored to either give Demond an option to get rid of the ball or add in additional protection in the form of lead blockers.
For example, I’m envisioning plays like the one above from the UCLA game this past year where it’s a quick pass RPO that is very similar to a Lincoln Riley staple when he had Caleb Williams. It’s essentially the modern take on the Triple Option with the “pitch” option being an out-breaking route from a skill player. It’s comparatively safer than the conventional Read Option since it gives the QB an outlet to get rid of the ball after he makes the “pull” read, and it provides all of the typical leverage advantages that the Triple Option provides to the run game by forcing defenses to respect the QB’s legs. We can run this concept out of almost any shotgun formation, with almost any skill player taking the “pitch” and pair it with almost any run concept, all while making designed run plays look almost identical to keep the defense guessing without actually putting Williams in danger.
More Screens & Manufactured Touches for Playmakers
This might be a hot take, but I think it’s important to remember that Demond is a Penix-level passer just yet. He’s talented, but he’s still young with a lot of room left to grow. One area in particular with room to grow is in the quick passing game and navigating hot reads. As we saw in the Penn State and Oregon games, when we can’t run the ball but still need to move the sticks consistently, the quick passing game just wasn’t there. A lot of that had to do with the protection up front last season, but there will be times when we can’t just rely on the running game to move the sticks or the vertical passing game to make up a deficit. It’s totally fine if we can’t rely on Demond to win every game throwing 40 times, but we need to find ways to take some of the weight off his shoulders while still taking advantage of his passing.
My thought here is that we might see an expansion of the Screen package to manufacture touches for our restocked room of playmakers. We’ve already seen a range of Screen concepts from Fisch last season when he rolled out WR Screens, RB Slip Screens, Jailbreak Screens, TE Delay Screens, and more on several occasions. With YAC athletes at the skill positions who could do serious damage on a screen, why wouldn’t Fisch supplement the quick passing game with more screens and RPOs? Just think about Dezmen Roebuck, Decker DeGraaf, or even Jordan Washington getting fed touches through the screen game, and those are guys who might not even be full time starters. There’s a lot we can do just with the screen game to get these guys involved and to shift the burden of down-to-down efficiency away from Demond.
