Michigan Football Jesse Minter Defense- Cover 3 Variations and Adjustments
Michigan plays a variety of cover 3 as part of their package. You see both 3 weak and 3 strong as part of their package. I think they may make a choice call, so depending on the formation, it will dictate which way they roll the safety.
you will often see them play 3 weak vs teams that play the tight end to the boundary. This is a very common pass concept with tight end to the boundary. It has been very effective for them . Whey they get 3x1 trips they are more prone to bring the safety down to that side and play what I call strong. The 1 wr side safety will play the middle of the field
3 weak
What I refer to is when teams bring the safety down opposite the passing strength. This is 3 weak in my vocabulary. It is a weak rotation away from the strength of the formation.
Michigan loves this with 11 personnel with the tight end to the boundary. That is probably the scenario you will see the coverage the most with them.
Nice job by the defensive end as you can see OSU find blocking, DE comes off and makes a nice play.
Vs Purdue
They ran 3 weak quite a bit vs 11 personnel when playing Purdue. Again, its vs 11 personnel and often when the h back is in the game and the safety comes down to his side.
vs Michigan State 21 with Mac Donald, He did run some of the same concepts as Minter. But, lets focus on this years versos
3 strong
When they get 3x1 or formation with the TE to the field, you’ll get more 3x1 strong.
Below Michigan runs a simulated pressure. They bring the Mike C gap and have the sam outside on #2. The safety comes down to play the curl. Ohio State runs an RPO but the scheme defensively with the mike coming on the pressure maintains the #s on the outside. Good scheme as you give yourself numbers but you are forcing a pull with the mike pressure. Ohio State has a great run game so you are in essence forcing a throw into numbers.
They have 3 over 2 defensively but do a poor job tackling.
Here/s the clip with it.
3 strong vs unbalanced
and Ohio State.They often ran 3 strong vs Ohio State. Ohio State runs an RPO for 5 yards. The cb makes the tackle against the TE. Again the read tells Stroud to throw the RPO and Michigan limits them to 5 yards.
Nice defense as the CB closes quickly and limits it to 5 yards as he makes the tackle in space.
Here is the clip
3 vs Formation into the boundary
vs Formation into the boundary they will make the passing strength call to the boundary. The Sam LB will go to that side like below and they will rotate that way if in cover 3.
Here they bring the sam to the boundary. get the edge set and make a nice play on the running back.
Michigan Motion Adjustment
You will often see them roll from 4 or 42 to cover 3 with motion. Here they do it vs. Purdue. They are in cover 4 but with motion they roll to cover 3. My opinion they will have coverage choices and checks depending on formation but that’s information I don’t know.
Looks like 4 or 42 pre snap. 42 is cover 4 to the field and 2 to the boundary. When they motion to the boundary they check to cover 3.
Safety makes the call as you can see his hand go up as well. They are rolling to 3 with the motion. They don’t always do this but did it this game.
The safety rolls weak and is there to make the tackle and unblocked. Nice design and how they handle motion when in zone. Not always but one of their examples from TCU.
You can see this play plus 2 others in the bonus 3 clips of 3 weak below!
I hope you enjoyed this post!
Sharing is Caring! Please share if you liked the article.