Texas Football: The off-coverage vs. press-man debate

There’s been much talk over the past few seasons about the Texas football defense, specifically secondary play, and their coverage techniques. Steve Sarkisian challenged his defense after the TCU performance to play more aggressively.

He challenged both his players and his defensive play-caller to maintain their aggressiveness in the second half of games as well as their mental intensity. Let’s dive into the DB coverage debate and see how the Texas defense has evolved over the past two games.

What is press coverage?

Press coverage is a technique where the DB lines up at the line of scrimmage, right in the face of the receiver, and attempts to bump the receiver off their desired route to disrupt timing with the quarterback. The benefit of press coverage is that it typically knocks the QB off their first read, providing an opportunity for the pass rush to get home and sack the quarterback.

The drawback of press coverage is that if the pass rush does not get home, defensive backs are left in coverage for too long, and the quarterback finds an open receiver, creating an explosive play.

What is off-coverage?

Off-coverage technique is when the defensive back is playing off the line of scrimmage, typically between 5-10 yards, depending on the speed and short-area quickness of the receiver. The benefit of off-coverage is limiting explosive plays, which has been a theme of Pete Kwiatkowski’s defenses at Texas since 2022.

Teams that employ more off-coverage technique tend to give up more passing yards between the 20’s and fewer points as the field gets compressed near the red zone. Texas’s defensive stats over the past two years tend to line up with this “bend but don’t break” defensive philosophy.

How is Texas football evolving on defense? 

Sarkisian has mentioned since the 2021 season that his desire on defense is to play an aggressive style that employs predominantly press-man coverage.

As Texas continues to develop talent and depth at the EDGE position, I suspect we’ll see progressively more press coverage. In fact, we’ve already seen some of that progression over the past two games.

During On Texas Football’s postgame coverage after the Iowa State game, the Inside Texas team noted that we saw a bit more press-man coverage against the Cyclones, albeit not a drastic change yet. That drastic change would come the week after when Texas dismantled Texas Tech by a score of 57-7.

IT later noted more press-man coverage from the Texas defense but emphasized that Texas Tech was “shocked” by the amount of press-man coverage they saw. This obviously caught the Red Raiders by surprise, and they were not able to make a meaningful adjustment that resulted in a closer game.

One thing to keep in mind is that this progression does not happen (at least successfully) without development at the EDGE position and the pass rush in general. In 2022, Texas was highly successful at pressuring the quarterback but not nearly as successful at getting the QB to the ground in the form of a sack.

Texas has maintained its ability to pressure the QB in 2023 and has improved at getting the QB to the ground. To illustrate this progression, through 13 games in 2022, Texas produced 27 sacks. The EDGE position (Barryn Sorrell and Ovie Oghoufo) accounted for eight of those sacks.

Through the first 12 games of 2023, the Texas defense has already surpassed 2022’s numbers. The defense has accounted for 31 sacks, 9.5 of which came from the EDGE position (Barryn Sorrell and Ethan Burke).

We can’t overstate the importance of the pass rush for teams that employ press-man coverage. Even the most talented secondary cannot hold up in coverage forever, and if the pass rush cannot get the Quarterback to the ground, the secondary will be exploited for explosive plays. Given this, it’s encouraging to see the player development taking place at the EDGE position and other primary pass rush positions.

Is press-man coverage here to stay?

I hope so because it’s fun to watch with the right players on board. At a minimum, I expect to see predominantly press-man coverage through the Big XII Championship game this weekend. The primary commonality between Iowa State, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma State is the lack of a vertical deep threat at the receiver position.

This reduces the risk of getting beat over the top and lends itself well to playing more press-man coverage. Were Texas to find itself in the College Football Playoff, I suspect we’ll see the amount of press coverage shrink as the speed at the receiver position goes up tremendously. I’m not sure the pass rush will be consistent enough against elite competition for the secondary to hold up as long as they’ll need to when playing press coverage.

That being said, I fully expect to see more press-man coverage throughout the 2024 season. The EDGE position (also Anthony Hill Jr.) will have another year of development under their belt, along with the addition of an instant impact pass rusher in 5-Star+ prospect Colin Simmons. This makes it highly likely we’ll see another surge in sack numbers next year, making life that much easier for a young, developing, but talented secondary group in 2024.