How Houston sacked Lamar freaking Jackson 11 times in one game

Even after the Thursday night debacle in Houston, Louisville QB Lamar Jackson is still the favorite for the Heisman Trophy. Why? Because the man has 3,109 passing yards, 1,367 rushing yards, and 47 total touchdowns. He’s averaging 7.9 yards per play, a stunning number from a player for whom 37 percent of his touches are runs.

His rival on the other sideline against Houston, QB Greg Ward Jr. is averaging 7.7 yards per pass. However, Ward and the Cougars got the best of Jackson, partly because Houston managed to sack the most elusive QB in all of college football 11 times.

Eleven times. Here they all are:

That’s to say nothing of the four credited QB hurries, five other tackles for losses, three fumble recoveries, and four holding penalties, which the Cardinals accrued while trying to prevent even more sacks.

Those 11 sacks alone cost the Cardinals 74 yards and two points (from a late safety) and were the biggest deciding factor in Houston’s 36-10 blowout victory. That knocked Louisville out of the Playoff race and put UH back into the Playoff rankings.

Here’s how the Cougars pulled this off.

Houston’s DC Todd Orlando comes from the Dave Aranda (Wisconsin and LSU) school of defense, where it’s all about creating pressure by confusing college linemen and playing normal, base coverages behind the pressure.

Many of the 11 sacks involved only four pass rushers, and none required more than five. Houston bases out of a 3-4 defense but played nickel and dime personnel, so it was generally a 3-3-5 or 3-2-6, particularly once Louisville fell behind and had to start throwing.

Because they only play three linemen, Houston is blitzing one of its stand-up players on the vast majority of snaps. Every play, the OL has to identify who’s coming, and Houston was happy to provide misinformation.

On this snap, Louisville is playing an empty backfield, with more receivers on the side close to the sideline. Defenses usually like to bring a blitz in this setting, since the offense doesn’t have anyone in the backfield to pick up a free rusher.

Houston is no exception, but the Cougars showed pressure from three-receiver side only to drop defenders back on that side, making a hot-read throw to that side a risky venture. Meanwhile, they brought late pressure from the other side. Jackson was thrown off, realizing immediately after the snap that the Cougars have rolled coverage toward the majority of his receivers, but his OL doesn’t get a clean block on the explosive nose tackle, Ed Oliver.

It’s hard to discuss his effect on the game without sounding hyperbolic. In this game against Louisville, Oliver had six total tackles, three of which were behind the line of scrimmage and two of which were sacks. He also forced a fumble and batted down three passes at the line of scrimmage ... all despite leaving the game early with a knee injury.

On the year, the former five-star has 61 tackles, 19.5 for loss, five sacks, three forced fumbles, and nine pass breakups. Houston will be a challenge as long as he’s on campus.

And Houston is great at bringing pressure even when they don’t have a nose tackle who could probably go in the first round of the NFL draft as a freshman (were it legal).

Here’s a blitz where Houston brought late pressure from the wide side of the field. On the other side, UH slanted the DL toward the short side and otherwise dropped into coverage, hoping the Cardinal OL would fail to pick up the extra pressure.

It didn’t quite work perfectly. The Cardinals got three OL in position to pick up the three field pass-rushers, which includes the middle linebacker and nickel. However, that still left one-on-one matchups for Oliver and the boundary DE, who are slanting away from the blitz. Oliver blew past his guy and got the sack up the middle.

The Cougars played basic quarters, cover 3, and Tampa 2 pass coverages. All four linebackers are taught to defend a few different matchup zones in those coverages, and then the Cougars are free to alternate who blitzes and who drops back.

These blitzes are mostly sound defenses that play out like the same basic schemes that everyone else plays. The big difference is that they are much more difficult to diagnose before the snap.

Because these are normal schemes that work against the run, the Cougars do not hesitate to disguise and blitz on standard downs (first down, second-and-medium, third-and-short). In fact, five of their 11 sacks against the Cardinals came on standard downs, and the only time they sacked Jackson on third down was when they forced the safety.

Louisville was only eight-of-21 on third down conversions, and that’s largely because so many third-and-long scenarios, due to sacks on first and second down. Third downs tended to consist of Jackson having to throw quickly, then Houston making a tackle short of the marker.

Here’s an instance where they’re in a dime package and they show wide-side pressure before bringing the boundary corner:

They totally caught the Cardinals with their pants down, even the RB who stayed in but didn’t see Jeremy Winchester. It’s only a four-man pressure, and the Cougars are playing Tampa 2 behind it, with a dime safety replacing Winchester in the boundary flat.

They regularly get free rushers with their disguised blitzes, but they also always have DBs playing deep zones and waiting to jump misguided home run attempts. Their LBs tend to take fairly deep drops, as well.

When the Cardinals got down early, they were forced to throw downfield, which is when you are most vulnerable to Houston’s design. It was the perfect storm, and Bobby Petrino and his star QB were trapped in it all night long.

If Jackson wasn’t a sensational athlete ...

... it could have been closer to 20 sacks.