Virginia Tech's secret to shutting down the Ohio State juggernaut

For well over a decade Bud Foster has been considered one of the best defensive minds in all of football. The Virginia Tech DC's rep grew even more last season when his Hokies went to Columbus, harassed Ohio State freshman QB J.T. Barrett and rattled the Buckeyes' offense, sticking Urban Meyer with his first regular-season loss at OSU, 35-21. A big key to the Hokies' triumph over the eventual national champs was going to the Bear defense.Just exactly what the Hokies did, why they did it and how the change-up impacted their defense for the year has been detailed in a fascinating series that's just come out via the coaching site, XandOlabs.com. The site, which offers premium content, is done by football coaches and for football coaches, but a lot of the material also resonates for regular fans of the sport, especially the ones intrigued by the X-and-Os.

Mike Kuchar (a former colleague of mine and a friend) spent a lot of time in Blacksburg this spring with the Hokies' defensive staff and came away with some really insightful stuff. The three-part series begins with the genesis for Tech's Bear package, which stems from Foster meeting with the Ole Miss staff and Rebels DC Dave Wommack, who, based out of a three-down front, was experimenting with a five-down front in order to better defend the interior run game he was seeing in the SEC."According to Foster, what Wommack was doing was having his edge players, or defensive ends, 'wire,' which means read the guards in order to fit inside on any run schemes," Kuchar writes. "Foster loved the idea, but with the speed of the quarterbacks on Virginia Tech's upcoming schedule (Ohio State, Georgia Tech, Duke, etc.), he was concerned about the quarterback perimeter run game. He had to find a way to accomplish two tall tasks: load the box to stop the interior run, yet be sound enough on the perimeter to defend the read option game."So when Foster got back to work in Blacksburg, he hit the lab to try to find a way to mesh what the Hokies were doing with its three down package, which was mainly used on third downs, to Wommack's concept. A few days later, the birth of the Hokies' Bear package came to fruition."