Mississippi State Football Film Preview: the Auburn Tigers

Examining Auburn’s Defense

The Auburn defense is led by DC Ron Roberts. Roberts is a highly regarded defensive coach who’s mentored Baylor HC Dave Aranda and SEC DC’s Pete Golding and Austin Armstrong. His calling card on defense is what are referred to as “Creepers”.

No, I’m talking about the exploding, green mob that will ruin your day in Minecraft (A. has Minecraft ever been referenced before in a football film study and B. is that the geekiest thing ever said when talking football?). Creepers are a type of pressure package that Roberts popularized as.

Creepers disguise where the pass rush will come from by dropping a player from the defensive front into coverage while a second or third-level player rushes. Creepers are not blitzes, as only four players are sent on the rush with seven players in coverage. You’re simply changing who the four rushers will be. It’s very similar to a simulated pressure with the exception being that simulated pressures show the threat of a blitz pre-snap whereas creepers do not. 

Though Creepers can obviously be used to get after QBs with potential free rushers that weren’t accounted for in the protection, they’re great at baiting QBs into throwing into coverage. You’re dropping a lineman into coverage that the QB isn’t going to account for. A throw he expects to be open won’t be. Fire Zone blitzes have the same appeal, but unlike a Fire Zone, you still get seven coverage players as opposed to six.

Even if the QB doesn’t make the throw, the dropping lineman can throw off his picture of the defense and confuse him long enough for the pass rush to ultimately get home. Here’s Auburn running one of Roberts’ favorite Creepers, which sends a nickel corner on a rush off the edge. The QB’s initial read gets taken away by the dropping lineman, and before he can reset to the other side, the nickel has beaten the block of the RB to make the sack.

But Creepers aren’t just about pass defense. They’re also effective in run defense. By bringing a second or third level defender, you have a way to contain the edge against the run. And even more importantly, you get movement from the DL to disrupt the run blocking and allow the LBs to make the tackle. Roberts shows that in action in this clip from a clinic he did while he was the DC at Baylor.

Here you see Auburn getting a run stuff off their nickel creeper. Because the nickel is on a pressure, he’s able to make the tackle in the backfield unaccounted for, and the DL movement also helps free up a LB to get in on the stop (second clip in thread).

Speaking of run defense, Roberts likes to base out of the Tite Front. The Tite Front is a “404” alignment from the DL, a pair of 4-techs, typically shaded inside the offensive tackles as a “4i”, and a 0-Nose aligned over the center. The idea is to clog up the B-gaps that many Inside Zone-based running games look to attack and force runs to the outside where unblocked defenders can swarm to the ball-carrier.

And as Cody Alexander of MatchQuarters explains in this breakdown of Auburn’s front and run fits, even when the Tigers go into 4-Down or “Even” looks as opposed to their typical “Odd” alignments (the Tite is an Odd front), they’ll still treat the run fit the same way as they would if they were in the Tite front. It’s changing the presentation for the offense but keeping things mostly the same for your defense.

Though the Tite front can be really effective at stopping teams that rely on Inside Zone, it isn’t quite as good at stopping Wide Zone. That could be a good sign for a Mississippi State offense that runs Wide Zone more than any other concept. And regardless of what run concepts they face, Auburn hasn’t been great at stopping the run lately.

The Tigers have surrendered 194 rushing yards per game in their four losses. They did manage to keep both Georgia and Ole Miss under four yards per rush, but at least for the Rebels, they still broke off plenty of successful runs throughout the game. Mississippi State’s passing game has had some major struggles this year, and with Mike Wright at QB, they’re going to lean on the run game even more heavily.

Auburn’s pass defense has been susceptible as well but mostly to teams with better QB and WR play than Mississippi State. And how well Wright and the OL will handle the Creeper looks is up in the air given State’s issues picking up pressures throughout the season. The Bulldogs will have to find success on the ground to get it done against the Tigers.