Just a heads up. There is practice today. But I won’t be there due to personal reasons. So we’re going I have to skip one practice report. Sorry y’all! I’ll work twice as hard to get you the goods the rest of Spring Football!
Mar 7, 2020Liked by Rob Hwang, Christopher Helling, Berkelium97
The "Star" position is really interesting to me. That terminology is straight-up Belichik/Saban, so it seems that our defensive coaches have been meeting with somebody this off-season (it could be anyone from the Saban/Belichik tree, though, not necessarily the founders themselves).
Basically, in the Saban/Belichik terminology, the Star is your strongside OLB. If you're playing against an I-formation, then that guy will line up to the TE side (the strongside), and he'll be playing on the line of scrimmage as an edge defender outside of the TE. If the offense replaces that TE with a Slot WR to go spread, though, then the Star will walk out of the box toward that second receiver. So far, these are just alignment adjustments based on the offense's formation.
The whole point behind calling that guy the "Star" instead of just calling him a strongside OLB, is that the defense might want a different guy at that spot depending on the personnel that the offense has on the field. So, you might want a big OLB at Star if they have a TE in the game, but you might want more of a DB at Star if they're in the spread. Either way, it's the same position with the same assignments, and so you teach all of those guys the same stuff. This means that the Star position is really a group of guys who might have very different body types, but who do the same thing functionally within the structure of the defense. It's basically a way to maintain a base 3-4 while acknowledging that you might want different people in the game against different offensive personnel groupings. This contrasts with a true nickel package, where you might run completely different stuff in substituted personnel. In a more traditional Nickel system, your NB would be a unique position that does entirely different things from your SLB, and so you wouldn't really train them together or think of them as fulfilling the same kind of role.
I think the secondary will be fine and this Star position sounds really interesting. I recall a few years back that ASU had a position known as "devilback" which was kind of a hybrid safety/linebacker position.
" The second by Craig Woodson, a player who we should be watching out for according to Ashtyn Davis. Woodson’s INT was impressive, he tracked the ball perfectly and caught it in traffic along the sideline." - upperclass or outgoing players telling us to watch out for young players is one of my favorite things. I remember Hydro telling a story about the senior DL guys talking about how good Tyson Alualu was going to be . . . and they were right.
Just a heads up. There is practice today. But I won’t be there due to personal reasons. So we’re going I have to skip one practice report. Sorry y’all! I’ll work twice as hard to get you the goods the rest of Spring Football!
The "Star" position is really interesting to me. That terminology is straight-up Belichik/Saban, so it seems that our defensive coaches have been meeting with somebody this off-season (it could be anyone from the Saban/Belichik tree, though, not necessarily the founders themselves).
Basically, in the Saban/Belichik terminology, the Star is your strongside OLB. If you're playing against an I-formation, then that guy will line up to the TE side (the strongside), and he'll be playing on the line of scrimmage as an edge defender outside of the TE. If the offense replaces that TE with a Slot WR to go spread, though, then the Star will walk out of the box toward that second receiver. So far, these are just alignment adjustments based on the offense's formation.
The whole point behind calling that guy the "Star" instead of just calling him a strongside OLB, is that the defense might want a different guy at that spot depending on the personnel that the offense has on the field. So, you might want a big OLB at Star if they have a TE in the game, but you might want more of a DB at Star if they're in the spread. Either way, it's the same position with the same assignments, and so you teach all of those guys the same stuff. This means that the Star position is really a group of guys who might have very different body types, but who do the same thing functionally within the structure of the defense. It's basically a way to maintain a base 3-4 while acknowledging that you might want different people in the game against different offensive personnel groupings. This contrasts with a true nickel package, where you might run completely different stuff in substituted personnel. In a more traditional Nickel system, your NB would be a unique position that does entirely different things from your SLB, and so you wouldn't really train them together or think of them as fulfilling the same kind of role.
Love the vibe Coach Musgrave has...cool, calm, confident and “I’ve seen it all”... has to be great for the guys...
I think the secondary will be fine and this Star position sounds really interesting. I recall a few years back that ASU had a position known as "devilback" which was kind of a hybrid safety/linebacker position.
" The second by Craig Woodson, a player who we should be watching out for according to Ashtyn Davis. Woodson’s INT was impressive, he tracked the ball perfectly and caught it in traffic along the sideline." - upperclass or outgoing players telling us to watch out for young players is one of my favorite things. I remember Hydro telling a story about the senior DL guys talking about how good Tyson Alualu was going to be . . . and they were right.