From the beginning it was always Charlie Strong’s intention to install a run-based, ball control offense that could beat down Big 12 defenses and protect his own defense. His once innovative 3-3-5 defense was heavy on disguised blitzes and shifting fronts designed to disrupt opponents. Gameplans for college defenses rarely have enough disguise or variety to hold up under the microscope of spread offense for 70+ snaps a game. Now Texas will ironically feature a spread, ball-control offense of the sort Charlie always wanted to match with his defense as well as an aggressive defensive scheme designed to attack offenses up front.

You can see the superior results of this new pairing in the contrast between Houston and Texas over the last two seasons:

The 2014 team that Herman and Orlando inherited ranked 98th nationally in offensive S&P and 70th in defense. Herman immediately weaponized Greg Ward Jr and boosted the Cougar offense in a major way while Orlando made small gains with a defense that was returning a very solid secondary. In 2016 the offense slipped due to offensive injuries and the loss of Demarcus Ayers while the defense had to face one of the more underrated challenges in modern defensive football, replacing three starters from the secondary including a first round draft pick corner in William Jackson III (Cincinnati Bengals) and a safety in Adrian McDonald who’s currently on the practice squad for the San Diego Chargers.

Orlando also had to replace middle linebacker Elandon Roberts, who was a fourth round pick by the New England Patriots. Despite those losses, Orlando’s second offseason with his charges (and the infusion of Ed Oliver) launched them up the defensive rankings.

When a defensive coordinator can adjust to losing a lockdown corner and several other veterans and then oversee a rise from 58th to 22nd in performance, you’ve got a keeper. Tom Herman knew that and that’s why Orlando is now joining him in Austin. So what kind of strategies have the Texas Longhorns brought aboard with this new defensive hire?

Orlando’s 3-4 defense

Charlie Strong’s base defense at Texas was a 4-3 Under and the Longhorns would create that front in a variety of different ways from 4-3, 3-4, and of course 3-3-5 personnel packages. When they brought Brick Haley aboard they mixed in some Over fronts but the 4-3 Under was still the base front and philosophy for the defense.

Todd Orlando’s base defense is a true 3-4. Now he’ll mix and match a few different fronts and basically line up his DL wherever he thinks they’ll be needed to clog lanes, occasionally mixing in four-down looks as well, but the underlying front is three down. In particular, Orlando likes to play a 0-technique nose and two 4i-technique DEs and enjoy the benefits of having four linebackers off the ball who can play wide and off the football and move around in the backfield or on the blitz.

The other big difference from Orlando’s nominally 3-3-5 defense (that’s the package they spent the most time in at Houston) and Charlie’s is in the coverage behind it. Charlie Strong based out of single-hi safety coverages and had his DBs play a lot of man coverage outside. Todd Orlando’s base coverage is quarters and he uses single-hi coverages mostly as a changeup or for the fire zone blitzes he regularly dials up.

Quarters is a very flexible base coverage that has lots of different iterations, much like Orlando’s fronts. Here’s a more aggressive brand of quarters useful for stopping the run:

In this example Oklahoma is running the split zone (zone slice) play that Texas used to great effect this past year. This variety of inside zone tends to put a lot of stress on quarters teams because it requires that the defense get an extra man in the box from their secondary in order to fit the run thanks to the insertion of the H-back. The way Houston plays it here is to clog interior lanes with the DL and have the LBs flow hard to the ball with DBs in position to make the play if it’s spilled or forced into the cutback lane. The nickel and strong safety both play those lanes somewhat conservatively while minding their coverage zones but the LBs are free to run to the ball with abandon: One of the benefits of quarters coverage is that the defense can play two different coverages to either side of the field. Orlando uses 2-read a lot against twin receivers to the field, a pattern matching coverage that can become cover 4 or cover 2 based on the route distribution and uses the nickel as an underneath zone/run support player. On the boundary Orlando calls a lot of “robber” or “sky coverage” where the corner has to play deep over the receiver and the safety helps on inside routes like the post and supports the run. He’ll also mix in normal cover 2 and Tampa-2 as options for obvious passing downs. Although we haven’t seen them in Austin in quite some time, these are all really common coverages in the Big 12. What isn’t as common is that Orlando will regularly blitz while playing quarters, a privilege afforded by the 3-4 defensive structure. That’s partly how an inside linebacker like Steven Taylor can end up with 18.5 sacks in two seasons. Either outside linebacker or inside linebacker is liable to join the DL as the fourth pass-rusher while everyone else plays one of Orlando’s quarters calls. Finally there are the fire zones, which were an essential component to Manny Diaz and Charlie Strong’s defenses and will remain a key piece of the puzzle for Texas moving forward. Here’s an example of how Orlando likes to use fire zones:

Before the snap it looks like Houston is lined up in a conservative mix of 2-read to the field and cover 2 on the boundary, but then they try to time their blitz at the snap to bring the middle and nickel backers, drop the rush LB, and rotate the safeties into their single-hi fire zone coverage.

Like Dave Aranda, Todd Orlando loves to move his DL around to draw the attention of the OL and create opportunities for the blitzing LBs to find creases to shoot through. Getting pressure is at the heart of the Orlando defense as he likes to attack teams and discourage them from even attempting particular schemes all while playing as conservative and sound a coverage as he can on the back end.

Orlando vs the Big 12

I’ve mentioned Orlando’s fit at Texas before and since he’ll be basing out of a three-down front with a hybrid DE/OLB and heavy use of a nickel package the fit with the Longhorn roster is rather obvious.

What hasn’t received enough attention yet is Orlando’s fit within the Big 12 conference. Although the Big 12 is down nationally and doesn’t field defenses like you see in other Power-5 conferences, not even the SEC West will stress a pass defense like a round robin trip through the Big 12 can. Orlando’s first priority at Texas may be to get his linebackers up to speed in the fundamentals where they’ve lacked for the past two years, but he’ll also have to tweak his approach to survive and thrive in this league.

At Houston he got just a few tastes of the kind of stress that’s coming from the Big 12. Here was one such incident against SMU:

Houston is playing their conservative “2-read” coverage over the passing strength with safety Garrett Davis in the nickel. They also blitz Will linebacker Steven Taylor and while he’s picked up, he’s able to push the pocket some. Orlando has a good DB over every receiving threat and in reasonably good position to make a play. Normally the post route on the dig-post combo is what kills a quarters defense, but corner Howard Wilson (#6) is in good position here. The tight matching coverage on the back end is pretty ideal but the addition of a wheel route does them in when Davis doesn’t realize quickly enough that the H-back is going vertical and the deep zone DBs are already committed to the other vertical routes.

Dig/post was responsible for a ton of touchdown passes in the Big 12 this season since quarters is so common and that route combo is so good at attacking it. Plays like the one above are very common week to week in this league. When teams are literally calling the touchdown play every other drive, points happen.

So beyond the objective measure of SMU’s success scoring on this play, how well did Orlando’s Cougar defense hold up here?

The most important rules for defending Big 12 spread passing plays such as this one are:

1. Avoid coverage busts

2. Avoid major mismatches

3. Maintain leverage on the deep routes

4. Match up tight and squeeze windows

5. Don’t give the QB all day to throw

Houston only broke one of those rules on that play (rule #1) and their punishment was six points. That’s the pressure that these offenses put on a defense and why virtually every team in this league has embraced vertical passing as a core element to their strategy. The execution level has gotten high enough that every time teams run a play like this, all of the pressure is on the defense to avoid a single mistake that could mean six points.

The teaching on the back end has to be excellent to avoid mistakes, match the routes well, and provide enough depth to play nickel and dime sub-packages and continue to do so if there are injuries. Those are tall orders and Texas really struggled in that regard this past season.

Where Orlando could have a leg up on the rest of the league is his ability to execute rule #5 at a high level, which may be the most difficult rule to adhere to if you’re being strict about 1-4. However, if you have DL that are hard for OL to keep their hands on and blitzing linebackers that can come like a ton of bricks off the edges or inside, you can disrupt the whole process by not allowing the QB to see the routes or get a good ball off cleanly.

Don’t be shocked if Orlando decides to tweak his scheme to get as much pass-rushing on the field as possible in order to create leeway for his young secondary with the other four rules. One such route would be taking a DE off the field and creating a 2-4-5 nickel package of the sort that Wisconsin used extensively this past year. That would allow Texas to play both Malcolm Roach and Breckyn Hager on either edge and bring even greater variety with their blitzes.

Texas hired a good defensive coach in Todd Orlando and the success they’ve had in their secondary amidst serious turnover suggests that his assistants Jason Washington and Craig Naivar are very worthy additions as well. If they can get a young defensive backfield up to speed on fundamentals in this scheme, they may find that they have the tools and support from the offense to adjust to the Big 12 and even offer a clinic on how to play defense in this league.

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