Did I hear someone say that we are going to a 3-4?

[IronHorseSooner]

I thought about this last night. I know we pretty much do this already with Beal as a spinner/LB, but some of the DEs that we have recruited in the past few years would work well in that system. Grissom, Washington, Ndulue, and King are more the size of OLBs in a 3-4, and Chaisson is an bigger DE who would fit well into that scheme. Add that we have a number of DLs who are in 6'4", 275 range, and they would lend more to being a 3-4 DE. We have a number of young 300+ guys on the roster (McFarland, Walker, Peterson, D. Williams) who could fit into the system. Our MLBs, as I understand the 3-4, would need to be good in pass coverage, and we would have that with guys like Box, Wort, Ibiloye, Bird, D. Franklin, and OUr new guys. OUr secondary would be about the same. OUr LBs are athletic enough to drop into coverage against spread teams, but are hard-hitting enough to cause damage in the pass rush and on blitzes. I know that Coach Stoops and Coach Saban have talked a lot, and I wonder if he isn't picking his brain about instituting it here. I wonder if this will be the big surprise for the D in the same vain as the no-huddle spread was for the O in 2008.

[47straight]

I am sure that Venables would consider anything that gave more linebackers the chance to play. If he could figure a way to run an 0-11-0, he'd do it.

[rawlingsHOH]

I thought about this last night. I know we pretty much do this already with Beal as a spinner/LB, but some of the DEs that we have recruited in the past few years would work well in that system. Grissom, Washington, Ndulue, and King are more the size of OLBs in a 3-4, and Chaisson is an bigger DE who would fit well into that scheme. Add that we have a number of DLs who are in 6'4", 275 range, and they would lend more to being a 3-4 DE. We have a number of young 300+ guys on the roster (McFarland, Walker, Peterson, D. Williams) who could fit into the system. Our MLBs, as I understand the 3-4, would need to be good in pass coverage, and we would have that with guys like Box, Wort, Ibiloye, Bird, D. Franklin, and OUr new guys. OUr secondary would be about the same. OUr LBs are athletic enough to drop into coverage against spread teams, but are hard-hitting enough to cause damage in the pass rush and on blitzes. I know that Coach Stoops and Coach Saban have talked a lot, and I wonder if he isn't picking his brain about instituting it here. I wonder if this will be the big surprise for the D in the same vain as the no-huddle spread was for the O in 2008.

No. ILBs in a 3-4 are generally prefered to be thicker, in the box, players who can fight thru the trash, and can take on offensive linemen mano y mano. As opposed to 4-3, run and hit, linebackers.

We definitely don't fit the prototype at ILB, but the other positions look pretty good.

[IronHorseSooner]

Your right, I remember the Ravens' D ILBs are bigger, but we may run a variant of the 3-4 where the emphasis is more on the pass, but I'm not versed enough in it to understand how it would work.

[Tulsa_Fireman]

It depends entirely on who's running it and how.

You look at a Dom Capers 3-4, and the OLB plays like a loose DE with contain responsibility. You can really generate some stank off the corners in your pass rush, but as was mentioned, you need beef in the ILB to shed blocks because your NT is in the 0 or 1 technique, usually playing read and react with little gap priority. This frees the guards and allows a quick mobile offensive front to set folds and traps, but allows those ILBs to play off of zone blocking schemes to find the football.

In a lighter, faster 3-4, a more traditional set, you can increase the OLB's set of responsibilities to include the flat and some shallow 2s, but still give deep 3rds to a cover 2 to control the TE from the line of scrimmage instead of depending on an ILB to pick up the release and move to coverage post-read like you would in a 4-2-5 or 4-3. And with that faster 3-4, you can transition to either a 3-3 Stack or Offset or even a 3-2 Dime to confuse the pre-snap read. Given some of the safeties/running backs converted to light, fast, hunter/killer style LBs, this seems more in line with what would fit Stoops' scheme with what we've seen so far.

I'll have to see it in execution, but if there's truth to the rumor, we could very easily get real nasty (even more nasty) real quick. But then again, I think a 4-3 sucks goat nuts.

[StoopTroup]

I'm not sure this thread will be good for Curly Bill's health. Keep an eye on him...