WSU Vs. UCLA: Prince And Rosario Thwart WSU's Defensive Gameplan
by Craig Powers on Oct 11, 2011 11:23 AM PDT
in 2011 WSU Football News
Email
Print
Leading up to Washington State's game against UCLA, much of the focus was on whether or not the Cougs could hold down the Bruins' potent rushing attack. The defensive coaching staff had their minds on the same thing, and wanted to avoid the embarrassment of being run over at will. The game plan was to basically play two base defenses: Cover 0 and Cover 1.
Cover 0 involves having the safeties play in the box, leaving the cornerbacks alone to play man on the outside. Cover 1 has man on the outside with one deep safety in the middle of the field (as opposed to Cover 2 where the two safeties are splitting the field in half). This was all in an effort to slow down the UCLA rushing attack. To some extent, it worked for that purpose. UCLA put up 4.9 yards per carry, a far cry from the 7.8 they posted a year ago.
The downfall of this defensive philosophy for this particular game was that it was very specific to the man UCLA had starting at quarterback. Richard Brehaut does not possess the ability to burn a team deep. He is the less error-prone of UCLA's top two quarterbacks, and that is what earned him the job. Playing Cover 0 and Cover 1 against Brehaut was betting the percentages. It was a smart move by the coaching staff and was working out for the first 2 1/2 series.
On the third UCLA drive, Brehaut had his leg rolled on by a WSU defensive lineman. The result was a season-ending broken leg. Kevin Prince was thrust back into the the starting role. Normally, getting to a team's backup quarterback can signal an easy rest of the game for the defense. Not this time. Prince has more "tools" than Brehaut. He is at least as fast and can throw the ball farther and with more accuracy. However, he also has the tendency to kill his team with poor decisions as he did against Texas with three interceptions in the first quarter. The problem for WSU was the arm strength and deep ball accuracy that Prince brought to the table. Suddenly, UCLA had the ability to exploit the man coverages, and they did almost immediately with their best wide receiver.
Nelson Rosario is essentially a wide receiver in a tight end's body. At 6-5, he has at least a seven inch height advantage on most corners and the bulk to be able to hold them off for 50-50 balls. Damante Horton of WSU had the task to cover him on Saturday, and for the most part he had him blanketed, but was often beat out simply because of Rosario's size advantage.
Two plays after Brehaut went down, UCLA targeted Rosario for the first time in the game. Horton was left in man coverage on the outside as Rosario ran vertical towards the goal line. Horton was right on his hip, but Prince put the ball where only Rosario could catch it. The result was a deep completion in which Rosario lost the ball when hitting the ground, but was ruled down before doing so. Suddenly UCLA has their first big play of the game and they were on the WSU one-yard line.
UCLA tried the vertical route with Rosario three more times in the game. They resulted in an underthrown ball by Prince for an interception, an almost catch by Rosario that was knocked free on an excellent play by Horton, and the 58 yard pass that set up UCLA's game-winning touchdown (that time Rosario had actually created some separation between himself and the Cougar defense). In all, Rosario was targeted 5 times for 120 yards. That is a whopping 24 yards per target. Rosario accounted for 60% of the Bruins' passing yards on only 25% of the pass attempts.
Prince's all-or-nothing ability worked out in the positive for UCLA in this contest. With the Cougars stacking the box and trusting their corners, it was essential for the Bruins to loosen them up with something down the field. Brehaut was not going to make that happen. Prince did with the help of his super-sized receiver and it turned out to be just enough to send WSU home with their first conference loss of the season.
17 comments
|
0 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
Pick play.
There was only one. The second was a complete busted coverage by Daniel Simmons.
by Brian Floyd on Oct 11, 2011 12:53 PM PDT up reply actions
It was a pick play.
Two receiver to the field side. Slot receiver took an inside release and ran a vertical, the outside receiver ran a slant off of it and Simmons ran right into the slot receiver and Bucannon.
That doesn’t mean that it’s not Simmons fault however. The DB’s need to communicate on that and either switch it (since it was man coverage). Or they need to stagger their depths so there is room to cross each other.
Nope, he didn't
Simmons gave the slanting receiver a cushion, then went over the slot receiver’s route. He never touched anyone.
It was designed as a pick, but UCLA didn’t need a pick. That’s what happens why you play seven yards off a guy at first and goal from the seven.
I agree with everything you're saying.
I guess we just have a different definition of “pick play”. To me it’s just a route combination designed to beat man coverage. The offensive player doesn’t actually have make contact with the defensive player in my mind. Simmons tried to go around it (which was the wrong thing to do). And he essentially “picked” himself.
Like you were saying, he should have been in press, with the safety playing off. Then there is room for the receivers to cross and the defenders to fit through as well.
Ok, we're thinking the same.
I guess, my point is that the soft coverage gave the outside receiver the slant anyway. That slot could’ve just stood at the line of scrimmage or ran a bubble and it still would’ve been a touchdown.
An argument can be made that the first pick was pass interference. The same, however, can’t be said for the second one.
This is how I saw it too.
There wasn’t any contact, but the pick still worked because it took Simmons out of the play.
"Tonight, we skate with them. Tonight, we stay with them. And we shut them down because we can!" | Herb Brooks
I should probably explain, too
The term pick play seems to conjur up bad reactions. Its a gray area, especially when the picker drills the pickee. The first fell within this. It could’ve certainly been called as PI.
The second, however, just seemed like good play design against bad coverage. It didn’t even seem borderline to me. Also, fool me once…
by Brian Floyd on Oct 11, 2011 3:34 PM PDT via mobile up reply actions
Very good point.
Being beat on essentially the same route combination twice for touchdowns shows what I think is a weak point of our defense.
I think overall we are much improved, we have better athletes all over the field, and are more sound fundamentally. But we are still pretty young.
Our guys don’t quite understand formations, route combos, down and distance, etc. as they will with some more game experience.
A source of optimism
Would seem to be that we don’t see this team repeat mistakes from game to game.
by Jeff Nusser on Oct 11, 2011 10:08 PM PDT up reply actions 2 recs
an honest question re: DBs
We show 7 cornerbacks and 12 safeties on the roster. It looks to me that 1 safety is redshirting. Most of the recruiting classes have been made up of WRs and DBs. i thought many of these DBs were highly touted. Why don’t we have cornerbacks who can play man coverage rather than playing off the receivers and giving up easy first downs? In general, why is our DB play so weak? I don’t want to discuss individuals unless it’s necessary, but can anybody help me here? Ball certainly got good secondary play when he coached at Alabama, so I doubt it’s coaching. Thoughts???
I'm not sure this is an answer
But I’m counting 6 scholarship CBs, with 1 (Simmons) a Junior, 2 (Washington, Horton) Sophomores, and the rest Freshmen, including 1 that’s redshirting.
Horton and Washington are decent, improving CBs. Aire Justin getting suspended for the year hurt. A lot.
#CougHarmonyonTwitter with your pants off, M*tha F*cker!
by TiltingRight on Oct 11, 2011 7:53 PM PDT up reply actions
Washington has also been hurt.
He’s more of the lockdown corner. Kind of screwed things up for the Colorado and UCLA games.
Excellent look Craig
I felt in watching at the Rose Bowl, that the Cover 0 was too often, too blatently obivous as the Bruins lined up. Especially when Prince entered. Bucannon could have veiled the looks by appearing initially in Cover 1- and then pressing after the snap. The looks on defense weren’t mixed enough and the open deeps were very clear on many downs from outset.
In the final drive I literally said to my brother (we were both Db’s in HS) , ‘wow, you gotta have cover one at a bare minimum up 5 w/ 5 to play- maybe cover two and deny sideline to run clock’. Horton got burned right after that. I don’t agree with the sentiment that Hirton played well for being on an island. When the Bruins wanted it, they went his way and got it- juggular style. I was hawking Horton because last year they worked him for button hook first downs all day (his first start ever) on the rare occasions when they needed to apss for a 1st down. When he pressed, they torched him. It was be design. But again- I think when they got the first few gains, a cover 1 adjustment was the call.
Ah well— gimme a couple of the red zone TD catches and I am looking at this from a victorious analytical bent… right? Nice to be loking over miniscule details, rather than “hey when we got waxed by 30 this frosh played well”.
If you can't Go Cougs... don't go.
by hollyweirdcoug on Oct 11, 2011 12:48 PM PDT reply actions
I agree with you that cover 0 was to obvious.
I was thinking why don’t they try to disguise what they are doing. I was just surprised how much they stack the box. I know they were trying to stop the run, but why not start the safeties outside the box and then rush them in. I sometimes I think the cover 2 is just as good in run protection because it gives you a second layer of run protection. In the cover 0 if the RB gets past the DL, LBs and Safeties then it is (pretty much) clear daylight to the endzone. Kind of like when the defense goes all out on a 4th and 1 and the RB breaks through the line and ends up with a large gain or touchdown. Luckily that never happened. Although it almost did on Franklin’s 32yd run. I think Horton is a pretty good tackler and good in the open field, but he struggles with the one-on-one coverage…mainly due to his size. He looks a lot smaller than 5’10" 174lbs.
"Baseball is 90% mental. The other half is physical." –Yogi Berra
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
Community Guidelines
Related FanPosts on CougCenter
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
