Iowa State Football: Jon Heacock Defense (Origins, History, and Film Study)

in 2020 iowa state ended the year ranked number nine in the country the highest final ranking in program history well the cyclones were good on both sides of the ball it's really the defense that's caught the eye of the scheme world and honestly when we look at their record why wouldn't it that defense squared off against oklahoma's 11th ranked air raid offense two times last season and those were two of the sooner's three worst games in terms of both yardage and scoring beyond those games the cyclone d has had to come up in a big 12 conference that's been quick to embrace the air raid as well as other wide open spread attacks and over the last four seasons iowa state's been one of the leading innovators nationally and finding new ways to shut those offenses down in this video we'll look at the architect of that defense john haycock but i'll be looking at coordinators from all over the country throughout the offseason so be sure to subscribe to the channel and ring the bell to get notified whenever a new breakdown posts at the age of 60 john haycock's been around football for a long time and in that time he's been fortunate enough to work for a couple of career-defining coaches first after spending a few years at the high school and division ii levels he landed a spot as a grad assistant at michigan in the last few years of beau shem becker's tenure there that then launched him into his first division one job at army with head coach jim young who had ben schembecker's first defensive coordinator at michigan haycock's next big break came when after one year at army he was heard to coach defensive backs for jim tressel at youngstown state that year the penguins won the division one double a national championship and established something of a dynasty in 92 tressel promoted haycock to defensive coordinator and together they went on to win two more national championships in 1993 and 94. the next two decades saw haycock gradually trying to work his way up in the division one world but it was never a straight linear progression in 1997 he got his first shot as a power five defensive coordinator at indiana under head coach cam cameron after a lackluster three seasons there he was back at youngstown state working for trestle in his last season there when trestle moved on to ohio state in 2001 haycock replaced him as head coach at youngstown state and he held on to that position for the better part of a decade before resigning in 2009 it wasn't obvious at the time but haycock's next job would play a pivotal role in bringing him to his current position at iowa state in 2011 the coach named daryl hazel got the head coach job at kent state hazel was an old college teammate of haycox at division 3 muskingum university in ohio and when he got the kent's state job he was quick to call up his former teammate and offer him a job as defensive coordinator kent states in the mid-american conference and in that conference at the same time a young offensive coach by the name of matt campbell was working his way up at toledo first as the offensive coordinator and then as the head coach haycock and campbell never directly squared off in the mac but being in the same conference and sharing a bunch of common opponents they couldn't help but be aware of each other at any rate haycock's defense must have made an impression because in 2014 campbell still the head coach of toledo brought him on board to be his defensive coordinator two years later they moved on to iowa state together and from a schematic standpoint that's where things start to get interesting over the last couple of years haycock's gotten this reputation as a defensive innovator from the pass happy big 12. but the defense that he originally brought to iowa state and which he'd run for his whole career up until that point was a pretty straightforward 4-3 so here we see the cyclones lining up against iowa with four defensive linemen at the first level and three linebackers stacked behind them when they faced spread sets back in those early years haycock did about what you'd expect him to do he took a linebacker off the field and replaced him with a fifth defensive back putting him in a 4-2 nickel look again none of this was particularly revolutionary or innovative in 2016. in 2017 though campbell and haycock decided that it was time for a shakeup early in the season they were sitting at two and one and while the team wasn't necessarily bad they felt that they hadn't been getting the most out of their personnel so with an early season buy coming up haycock and crew did the unthinkable they completely threw out their playbook mid-season and started over from scratch this is the kind of thing that really shouldn't be possible in just 12 days but sure enough the new cyclone defense caught the conference by surprise and they ended up holding a of their final 10 opponents to 20 points or less so what was the scheme behind this incredible turnaround although the cyclone's depth chart still suggests that they base out of a 4-3 in reality they play most of the game in their own unique version of the 3-3 stack so here we see that they've got three defensive linemen at the first level and then three linebackers stacked behind them this 3-3 is obviously a base nickel look with just those six box defenders like a lot of 3-3 teams though instead of playing with the classic nickelback walked out toward any extra receiving threats the extra defensive back in this look will be this robber safety right here who iowa state calls the star that player is really a hybrid safety middle linebacker position and they'll play most of the game from this position in the intermediate hole behind the linebackers and in between the other two safeties from this position he can fulfill a couple of different functions in the passing game this will put him in a good spot to rob any crossing routes that attack over the middle of the field in the wrong game the defensive landing linebackers should be able to protect that guy from many blockers in the box freeing him up to pursue to the edge against outside runs as we're seeing right here where hitcock's defense really stands out though even in comparison to other 3-3 defenses is in its innovations against the spread and specifically in its use of 8-man coverages and hyper light boxes for example on this play oklahoma state's got a first intent in the red zone the cowboys ran the ball more than they passed it in 2020 but check out how iowa state's approaching them in this case they seem to be showing just a four-man box with both of their outside linebackers walked out to combat the four wide spread formation that the cowboys are showing when we look at this we might ask how can they possibly defend the run in this defense the key here is that even though there are only four guys in the box those four guys aren't responsible for defending the entire run game they're just responsible for stopping up the middle and spilling the ball to the outside where they've got those outside linebackers and that middle safety in position to add in his extra defenders against the run to see how this works let's start from the middle of the formation and work our way out in the very middle of the formation we're going to see the nose tackle and the middle linebacker pitchforking off of the center to cover up the gaps to either side of him the middle linebacker is going to line up directly behind the nose tackle and he's going to read what happens to him after the snap after the snap oklahoma state's offensive line all steps to the left and the nose tackle falls to the backside to end up in the gap to the right of center the middle linebacker is reading this and so when the nose tackle ends up to the center's right he's going to attack downhill to his left in this way the nose tech on the middle linebacker clog up the inside gaps to either side of the center if we watch this play one more time we can also see that the defensive ends aren't playing the kind of contain technique that you might expect from them in fact nobody in the front is particularly interested in setting the edge instead those defensive ends are playing hard into the offensive tackles and they're either trying to push those blockers down inside to further compress those inside running lanes or they're trying to cross the face of those blockers to fall inside themselves when those four defenders execute these techniques successfully it creates a big mass of humanity in the middle of the formation and the goal here is to force this ball to bounce outside where those outside linebackers are walked out to provide the real edge defense in this front when the ball does bounce it comes straight to this outside linebacker who'd started the play walked out of the box but is now in perfect position to fall in to tackle this outside run that guy's there to take this play on from the outside in and meanwhile that star safety playing from his position in the intermediate hole is free to pursue this play from the inside out finally on the backside iowa state's second walked out linebackers there to defend something like a quarterback keeper on the zone read or anything similar when we think about this defense not just as the four guys in the box but in terms of all of the guys who are a part of the run fit then we see that iowa state's actually playing with seven guys in run defense and they're going up against just five offensive linemen for oklahoma state of course the real motivation behind these hyperlight boxes is all about the passing game and on this play we'll get a good look at one iowa state's common coverage looks on this play oklahoma's brought an h back into the box and so the cyclones are playing with a whopping five box defenders to account for that extra threat in the run game but the idea is largely the same as what we saw in the last play the reason that haycock wants to play a 3-3 and walk his outside linebackers out to wherever there are extra receiving threats is so that he can use eight-man coverages to defend air raid style passing games after the snap here we see iowa state drop into an eight-man tampa two type of coverage which means that these two outside safeties are going to bail out to play deep halves and the star safety is going to drop to defend the intermediate hole in between them because this is an eight man coverage iowa state will still be able to use this three deep safety structure while also flooding the underneath zones with five defenders here we see that the cornerbacks because they have that deep safety help over the top to each side of the field are going to be able to contest the outside receivers on anything short to the inside the outside linebackers are dropping to any slot receiving threats to defend quick inside stuff or to pick out crossers and over the middle of the field the middle linebacker's sitting directly over the ball to take any kind of running back check down so there just aren't going to be a lot of holes here on this play oklahoma is trying to test this covered structure by going deep but in just a second we'll see that because this star safety is sitting in the intermediate middle of the field the quarterback's gonna have to put some air under this ball and throw it well down the field by the time the ball finally does come down all three of those safeties have been able to converge on the throw and there really aren't that many other places that the quarterback could have put it to try and throw his guy more open if a defense is going to be so committed to light boxes and 8-man coverages like this then we might think that offenses have tried to test them with the wrong game up the middle but in the games that i watched many of the biggest runs actually came from getting off tackle and attacking the seam in between the box defenders and those walked out defenders on the edge on this play oklahoma state's gonna do this with the help of this tight end here to the right side of the formation because they've got that tight end as an additional blocker in the box iowa state's bringing the outside linebacker to this side into the core of the formation giving them an extra box defender to match that extra blocker as we've seen the goal for these guys in the front is to clog up the middle and then spill the ball to additional defenders outside on the edges and so to keep that structure sound the cyclones are inverting their cornerback and their safety to this side so now the safety instead of dropping and playing a deep half like we saw in the last play is going to rotate down to give the defense that outside defender on the edge the cornerback is then going to bail out to be the deep half player the problem here is that that safety is too far outside to defend a quick hitting play coming toward him after the snap we'll see that oklahoma state's using their tight ends to get leverage on the defensive end who's lined up to the inside of him he's going to block down on that defender sealing him off to the inside and opening up the edge for the running back the running backs think gonna hit that outside lane and the safety won't be able to fall in fast enough to get the stop a lot of iowa state's blitz game is ultimately designed to address this weakness in their run structure on this play we're going to see a run to the right now if we assume that the defensive ending linebacker to this side are going to play hard down to the inside to take away runs up the middle then the next defender who could play that outside role on the edge will have to be this safety this is a second and three though and so it's easy to imagine that if the running back's able to attack that edge quickly then that safety won't be able to get down to stop him before he can pick up the first down to combat this iowa state's going to use a blitz to close up that lane with this cornerback coming down hard to take away the edge after the snap we see that cornerback start to come on his blitz and the safety right here is going to jump over the top to pick up his receiver in coverage the running back is going to try to get to the edge here but with that cornerback coming unblocked he doesn't have a chance when we look for potential weaknesses in iowa state's past defense we see that this basic defensive structure that we've been studying was also responsible for some of the biggest passing plays that were given up by it we'll see a great example of that on this play here oklahoma state has two tight ends in the game one lined up to each side of the formation with no slot receivers split out wide either side iowa state's gonna pull their full front six into the box and the goal with those box defenders here is as it's always been to clog up the middle and spill the ball outside the question now becomes if all their linebackers are in the box then who are they spilling the ball outside to on the edge the answer is going to be different to each side of the field to the left side they're again playing that inverted eight man tampa two structure that we saw in the last play with the cornerback bailing out to play a deep half while the safety spins down to be that outside defender against the run to the other side they're playing more of a classic cover 2 look so after the snap we see that the cornerback is going to jump down inside of his receiver letting him place that extra defender on the outside while the safety bails out as the deep defender over the top here's where the problem comes in remember that in order to maintain that solid structure that we've seen against the run and in underneath coverage these two defenders the safety at the top of the screen and the cornerback at the bottom had to play those outside rolls in underneath coverage and in the run fit the problem here is that this leaves only three defenders in deep coverage those are the cornerback up here at the top of the screen that's star safety playing his middle hole assignment and then the bailing safety down at the bottom of the screen to attack this structure oklahoma state's just running four verticals and when they send four receiving threats deep they're able to outnumber those three deep defenders the star safety is opening up toward the top of the screen to take the tight end to that side of the field and that's going to leave the safety at the bottom of the screen outnumbered one on two versus a tight end and a wide receiver he looks to take away the wide receiver running deep down the sidelines and that leaves the tight end completely uncovered down the seam in this way iowa state's efforts to play with a light box and drop aid into coverage can paradoxically lead to them occasionally getting outnumbered deep down the field because of the way that they ask their defensive backs to be involved in the run fit against certain formations alright that's it for this video 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