Chip Brown had a Washington radio guy on his podcast this week to talk about PK and Choate. Dude had a ton of praise both of them and Sark. Pretty good listen. He suggested watching the 2016 Stanford game so I watched the first half (it was 30-0 once Stanford got the ball in the 3rd). Here are a couple things I noticed. A lot of it will have been covered in previous posts on the thread but some of it is specific to that game.
General stuff:
He rarely blitzes. It's mostly 4 man rushes (usually the 4 on the LOS). Dropping 8 or rushing 5 only happened a couple times each. He doesn't stunt a ton. Makes me a bit worried about our lack of edge players. Maybe the new transfers help us out there. Occasionally one of the DTs will stand up and move around on passing downs so that it's not certain which gap he's attacking.
He always has at least one safety playing super deep. He primarily plays zone but will mix in man. The MLBs are very important to defend the middle. Given our difficulties with LB zone coverage the last 3 seasons, that's not great. However last year Overshown and Mitchell were the best coverage combo since Malik and Gary Johnson so there's some hope. PK's MLBs also don't play downhill super aggressively so they are less likely to have it thrown over their heads. UW had very disruptive DTs (we do too!) and he brings secondary players into the box to help out (we have big DBs too!). I think we have the personnel to match his strategy. But I do have some worries about getting RPO'd to death.
It's difficult to see the back end of the defense on the broadcast angle but PK should match up pretty well with the current Big 12 defensive trend of dropping 7/8 into tampa 2 or quarters. I think I remember seeing some tampa 2 stuff in the 2018 Washington State game.
Stanford specific stuff:
When Stanford went with their pro style offense (12 personnel or 21 in a traditional I-formation), UW defaulted to a 3-4 tite front. When Stanford went to 11 or 20 from the shotgun, UW usually went with the 2-4-5. Multiplicity is important in the Big 12 so this is nice to see. He'll know how to line up against against the few remaining air raid offenses but he also cane take on power run teams. The big question will always be how he performs against Lincoln Riley but I don't know of any Pac-12 teams that run similar concepts to OU so we won't know until October. Stanford only ran two GT counter-ish plays that I noticed and they combined for seven yards. Nothing particularly telling for the schematic matchup.
Their offensive creativity was frankly disappointing. This was McCaffrey's final year and his production was pretty pedestrian. Big 12 offenses will do a lot more with their star gadget guys--see Vaughn, Deuce. That said, UW was clearly keyed in to CMC. The DL/OLBs all knew to watch for him. They blew up a couple screens because the DL watched CMC on their side and didn't bite when the OL let them pass. They also jammed him in the backfield with the MLBs or box DBs a couple times when he ran routes in the interior. Again, nothing mind blowing but certainly better than allowing Overshown to repeatedly get burned by the only productive player left on the KSU roster.
Edit to add: We really need Gideon to be a good coach. PK asks a lot of his safeties. It's a talented group but we're replacing a ton of snaps with Sterns and Brown leaving. Ironically I think Sterns would have been a great fit for this defense. Gideon probably has the toughest and most important job of any defensive assistant next year.
Some personnel thoughts:
I was really high on BJ Foster after his freshman year but soured over the last two years. He wasn't a fit for Ash but the more I watch of PK, the more I think he's going to bounce back next year. Budda Baker was the boundary safety in this game and he was all over. BJ is not the second coming of Baker, but his ability to play in the box and on the LOS makes me think PK will love him. PK has a ton of unique pieces to work with in the secondary and I trust him to put them together right.
Another quick take that is much hotter... Juwan Mitchell could be good at one of those OLB spots. He's physical and can take on blockers. The big question with him is always mental--would he have the discipline to set the edge and decision-making ability when he's put in spots of conflict like screens or option plays. But I could see something like Bimage / Coburn / Collins / Mitchell with Ford / Overshown behind them (without counting in the transfers).
Edit to add: We really need Gideon to be a good coach. PK asks a ton of his safeties. We have a talented group but we're replacing a ton of snaps with Sterns and Brown leaving. Ironically I think Sterns would be a good fit for this defense. Gideon probably has the toughest and most important job of any assistant next year.