Mike Hankwitz Northwestern 6 man pressure fire zones

Let's take a look at one of my favorite defensive coordinators, Coach Mike Hankwitz, now retired but still one of the greatest of all time. He led one of the most solid defenses in college football for years!

Dealing with power football teams is no easy task. Wisconsin loves to line up in 12, 22 and other personnel groupings and play power football. 

One of the ways that Northwestern slowed down Wisconsin's power running game in 2020 was to bring numerous fire zone pressures under Coach Mike Hankwitz. They did this with a great defensive plan, defeating Wisconsin 17-7. They also played some man on early downs with the LB's playing run against some of the condensed formations wisconsin likes to run. But, this article looks at the fire zone pressures. 

They held Wisconsin to 40 carries and 136 yards rushing. Under 4 yards for a team that normally averaged. That is 3.4 yards per carry. That is way off their 165 yards rushing per game and more importantly a team that averaged 4.9 yards per carry.

Wisconsin Fire zone pressures
They ran many fire zones vs Wisconsin, especially when in 12/22 personnel. They loved to bring their safeties with their pressure packages. They would often bring a safety with a linebacker in the blitz.

One of the ways they did it was with some fire zone concepts designed as run blitzes on early downs. Often they involved a safety and a LB. If it was run the DE would play run. If pass he dropped and it became a 3 under 3 deep. The DE would drop!

1st play of the game. Send the FS and Will right up the middle. Nice design.

vs 12 personnel

1st and 10 

Run it with the will and Free coming. On run the DE won't drop, just play run. In this case they get pass so he drops. They get great pressure and a sack.