re: Defensive success against HUNH

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It'll be interesting to see how college football schemes shape up in the coming years.

You either put all of your best players on offense, and run a HUNH, and play just enough defense to get by.

Or you specialize your D to stop a HUNH then you need a power running attack on offense to keep your D rested, otherwise the D will get worn out.

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I agree. Just as we've seen a lot of offensive formations and creativity over the years, I think defense is now challenged enough by it that we will start seeing some creativity on defense.

I think teams may start using more packages and more hybrid players. For example, last year we had a "Smurf package" which was basically a smaller, faster, and more athletic dline we sent in. We only really used it once (we couldn't get too creative with the talent problems we had last year) but it worked perfectly. In fact, it confused the referees so much they asked the offense if they wanted to sub in response to it.

With HUNH teams, DCs are going to have to not only get creative but figure out how to get their guys in when they do have particular packages to send in. There are times you can sub but the team has to be able to get out there fast and the big boys have to get off the field fast.

I think there's going to be a lot of tinkering, mixing things up and experimenting in order to figure out how to effectively build a defense prepared to stop both HUNH and non-HUNH teams. And really, it's well past time for innovation on defense.