ESPN did a piece being released in the FUTURE ISSUE of Sports Illustrated highlighting where NFL coaches are going to study innovationive defensive trends in football right now, and interestingly enough, their journey took them to Army, and the NAIA level.
It's a really good read for both offensive and defensive guys, alike.
The article lays out that NFL coaches have visited with young Grand View (NAIA - IA) defensive coordinator Travis Johansen to pick his mind on his interesting approach. Coach Johansen is known for putting a bunch of safety-type players on the field that can play run support like a linebacker, and also play man-to-man on a slot receiver in an effort to create confusion for offensive coordinators and quarterbacks on who to read.
As the RPO game has become more and more trendy, this is one coach's answer, and it's garnering enough attention that NFL coaches are taking notice and wanting to come and chat about it.
Army's defensive coordinator Jay Bateman is another guy on the cutting edge of recreating defenses, as his unit's near upset of Oklahoma earlier this year proved. In Bateman's defense everyone can be a blitzer, and a player can be a linebacker one play, a defensive end the next, and a safety on another down. He employs six different blitzes from "dozens" of personnel packages, forcing coordinators to spend a ton of time in their preparation for Army's defense. Bateman shares that it creates so much confusion that offenses "start blocking guys that aren’t even rushing, and not block guys who are.”
This from the article is a great note on how defenses are being forced to change.
“The days of a defensive player dropping back into a spot, the quarterback throwing it and [the defender] breaking on the ball are over. If one of my guys draws up something like that, I tell him, We ain’t doing that.”
Head over to SI to read the full piece with a ton of great nuggets, including how Bateman structures his one-word play calls to communicate who's blitzing, and who's not.