Nick Saban’s Film Room: Challenges Mike Elko will present for Notre Dame in Week 1 | College GameDay

and him has won a national championship since 1939 but they believe this is the man who can do it Mike Elco has put together some great defenses in his career did so as a coordinator here at A&M and before that at Notre Dame now he can confuse quarterbacks the guy who'll face tonight he knows from duke and Riley Leonard we go inside the film room with Nick Savin to look at these moments that Elco will present the challenges to the Fighting Irish I'm excited for this defensive game like we expect tonight Nick third down who can make the plays there will be huge ELO's got a deep bag of tricks he can use against his old quarterback Riley Leonard what might we see on third down well getting off the field on third down is really important Mike is great at it uh here you're going to see there's six guys up here and to pressure um you know really no cap look in the in the secondary it looks like they're going to come this way if they're going to come anyway all right so Clemson's going to slide the line that way all right but what happens is is with simulated pressure with should be dropping he blitzes one of the backers drop out and they're going to play zone and they throw the ball hot right into a trap corner all and Duke's off the field on third down didn't create any mismatches create a lot of confusion for the quarterback in the offensive line so here you're going to see seven guys up so they can come from this side or from this side and again they slide to the field they bring four four guys they're going to hit the quarterback this time they are playing manto man so now you can create some mismatches at which Clemson makes a first down here but I would still do this all day if I'm Mike if I can hit the quarterback even though they had success on that down even if you're getting those types of hits now you're thinking you've got to go quickly and then they have another thing they can do here right here we go all right now they've got six guys up so the quarterback's thinking pressure offensive line who do I need to block what do they do they drop all the guys out so they drop eight they get good pressure make the quarterback get the out of his hand with a three-man rush advantage and coverage because you got eight dropping and they get off the field on third down if we're looking at this Riley Leonard might be watching say I've seen all of this in practice at Duke for years might he recognize some of this and have an advantage tonight I think he could recognize the manto man part of it I think when they come out with simulated zones and drop people out that's going to be difficult for him to recognize because he has to do it after he catches the snap all post Snap so that makes it more difficult for the quarterback down post Snap picture big factors tonight when the Irish have the ball the throw and we'll see what kind of answers Mike Elko has you know I've I've heard as the agie head coach joins us that back when you were at Duke that you and rivaly might get a little Joy going back and forth in practice going to get some of that tonight yeah I don't know about tonight we certain had a lot of fun we had a lot of fun in practice though going back and forth and uh he's great to compete against he's a great kid we're looking forward to this tonight for I thought you had an interesting comment we were meeting with you about do you have an advantage does he have an advantage your thoughts on on who has an advantage if anybody yeah I told everybody like everyone makes it sound like it's this new thing that you know the quarterback I think the first thing you try to study about a team you're playing is how good is the quarterback and so I don't know that I've ever gotten into the game and not known the quarterback this is one of the first times I'm going to a game where the quarterback's got two years of experience going against our defense right so we had to get a little creative let's take a look nobody knows Riley Leonard like you and the book on him is let's make throw this is last year late in the game against Wake Forest game on the line tell us what you think he sees here and the importance of what he has the ability to do yeah I think he sees Blitz coming he knows he's got a one-on-one up top and so we're going to try to throw a double move and he's got to put this into a really tight window to win us a football game in the fourth quarter this was a heck of a throw and this is a great catch but that's a heck of a throw into a really tight window uh with the game on the line right and there he is throwing from the pocket right guys I mean that's that's kind of yeah with a lot of people coming at him too okay that's that's what jumps out about L Riley Leonard to me coach is how tough he is how he doesn't doesn't care about what's around him he's always Sur surveying the field and he's going to make the right throw yeah for sure he's and he's a true dual threat I don't know why anybody has that not the right way he can throw the ball really well yeah let's look at this uh let's look at this next one here coach Sav this is against Clemson this is like what everybody Associates Riley Leonard with right the that extra Gap you have to account for with a QB run well I I think this is one of the most difficult things about a quarterback who can beat you with his feet is they've got to go cover all these receivers they're motioning empty they got an extra Blocker in the box with the tight end they run a counter and you know he's a good runner the physicality coach and now he's you know going to make a big play so this is always a difficulty in defending a running quarterback to me especially quarterback draws Riley really good obviously with you at Duke last year and the year before that you turned Duke completely around they were 4 and four in the SEC here last year obviously looking for something similar what is your expectation for today game day and uh how's it been being down here in College Station yeah my expectation tonight is that this place is going to be absolutely rocking oh yeah oh yeah as you can see whe whether it's midnight last night the 12th man shows up 9:00 a.m. this morning the 12th man shows up they're going to be here tonight 108,000 strong loud and proud for sure awesome do you know anything about this place rocking you ever been in here with yeah the last time we played here at night which was three years ago you all beat us and Bry Bryce young after winning 19 games in a row Bryce young was so confused by your pressure that we had no chance yeah but you did a great job that night I'm going to take that one and run coach I'm going to take that one hey by the way all that confusion that you do where did where did you learn that that's that's your thing third down confusion I I think I had a unique upbringing because I was always with an head coach who was an offensive coordinator and so like the what I got from all of them was maybe a little bit more knowledge of how offenses work you know I never got to work with a coach I never got to GA for one of these great defensive minds but I worked for some really good offensive coordinators whether that was Dave Clawson Brian Kelly Jimbo here um and I think from all of that I just kind of got a pretty good understanding of how offenses look at protections and look at things and maybe how to present some things to it that could be confusing I don't know if the Texas A&M fan base knows this or not because he's pretty you know he's back to town he was a DC the size of this man's head here you go again so I thought I was going to get away with that here cuz I'm at Texas A&M it's a little different there's a big bra in here man works all the things you remember about that's what big bra big bra hey Mike thanks for being with us what are you running through the tunnel onto the field with the team for the first time tonight you've never done that so this will be the first my first time ever ground level Kyle Field let's hear your fans tonight let's hear L that's going to be a moment Mike Elco the head coach of the aies tonight will go field level run onto the field with those fighting Texas agies for the first down Good Times staring down the clock some Hallelujah