Previous Message

there are a million ways to run this defense, we typically ran it as a "mint" defense with the Jack at the LOS (OLB that is really a pass rusher; think Gabe Jacas) in his first year.

we evolved it and ran more of a tite front since; this looks more like a 5-2 or a 5-1 with an aggressive safety as the run fitter (think S Brown or M Bailey.) another difference in the tite is the interior DL lines up in a "bear" look, i.e. NT over the C, DEs over the two OGs.

in this D when we ran it as a 5-1 "penny" defense we would put Tariq Barnes over the TE with the Jack lined up opposite. We ran the penny variation almost exclusively years 2-4. We were very good when we had guys like Newton and Randolph that could create a lot of disruption on the interior and two gap the OL.

Last year we went back to more mint front and played more LBs off the ball. my guess is this is because we did not have the mammajammas to two gap out of the tite look.

I'm not sure how Hauck will run it. we will not see a 3-3-5 stack, which is how the defense was invented, at all. no one runs it that way anymore. we will probably run multiple variations of mint, tite, and penny. i don't think we will look all that different from how we looked last year. i think mint (more like 4 down lineman) is probably what we do.

if our D is good, Joe Barna will have to have a breakout year disrupting on the DL. i noticed our 2026 Illini roster page doesn't list OLBs anymore, which is what we called Jacas, Carney, Bryant, etc even though they were really edge rushers in a 3 point stance. so i'm not quite sure who is who until we see them play.