Analytics: What Will DC Mike Tressel Bring to Wisconsin Football?

Mike Tressel is brining new Coverage Schemes, Pass Rushing and Box Heaviness. How will that impact the Elite Wisconsin Football Defense?

I’m back with Part Eight of my Pre-Season Series: TOP 10 Wisconsin Football Stats you need to know for the 2023 Season!

Today, we will discuss what Mike Tressel will bring to the Wisconsin Football program!

For Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3  | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7

First, it will not be a small task to follow up on Jim Leonhard’s Wisconsin Defenses. Only 2 times in his 6-Year stint as Defensive Coordinator did they fall outside the Top-10 in scoring defense. He also led the recruitment and development of over 14 Badgers onto current NFL rosters!

However, let’s not get it twisted in his short time as DC for Cincinnati Tressel in his two years at the helm, he finished 5th & 20th in Scoring Defense, respectively. So it’s not out of the question that Tressel can begin to cement himself in that ELITE Coordinator status with a continuation of the Wisconsin Badgers being in the Top-10 of scoring defenses.

It’ll be much more of a challenge, given the increased tempo of the offense Wisconsin will be running. But with the changes to the clock rules following 1st downs. Overall scoring should decrease this year. But that will be across the board, and all defenses should benefit from shortened games!

In this post, we’ll examine how Tressel and Leonhard diverge in Coverage Schemes, Pass Rushers, and Box Heaviness. You'll see that there are many ways to get the job done at a really high level. Both of these Coaches have proven they can do so! But as you’ll see, they both do it in a slightly different way…

Let’s dive in!

What different Coverage Schemes does Mike Tressel Use?:

First, we’ll look at the different Coverage Schemes each coordinator uses and the rate at which they utilize them.

Graph Below:

We can see that Tressel has a MUCH HIGHER affinity for playing Cover 1 Zone than Jim Leonhard. While Tressel liked playing slightly less Cover 3 & 4 than Jim Leonhard.

Now, I’m not even close to an X’s & O’s guru, so I’ll leave you with this FANTASTIC video that explains in much more detail than I ever could as to how and why this is. It's obvious to say there was an evolution to the defense Fickell/Freeman/Tressel liked to use, and that scheme to combat the Spread/RPO offense relies heavily on a single high safety (Cover 1)!

One thing I always feared for Jim Leonhard's defenses were going up against Spread/RPO offenses, simply because that scheme he utilized put a lot of stress on underneath zone players. Those athletes, especially versus the Top B1G Teams (PSU/Mich/OSU) & Oregon/Notre Dame’s, who we couldn’t overwhelm and keep behind the sticks, always seemed to have issues. This led to those 3-Deep & 4 Deep Players getting increasingly aggressive coming down to help out that they would eventually give up a crushing big play over the top at exactly the wrong moment.

Again, this was always just a feeling, but given against those teams, we allowed 11.6 MORE PPG against those teams. So…it stands to reason something was missing that could help us compete with them at the same level we competed versus all other opponents. My contention is the scheme was very useful when we had the athletes’ advantages & could overpower their spread-run game and keep them behind the sticks! In that absence, we were an average defense, especially in the passing game and not in that ELITE category.

Will Wisconsin Football Maintain Pressure on the QB?:

One of the biggest strengths of Badgers football Defenses under Jim Leonhard was the amount of pressure they would get on opposing QBs. How does Mike Tressel and his defenses compare on that measure?

We’ll break this down into two categories, the first being how many Pass Rushers each Coordinator would like to bring. The second is who by position are those pass rushers. Then we’ll look at how those two factors influence Pressure Rates by Down.

Pass Rushers:

 

We can see here that both Tressel & Leonhard aren’t going to generate heavy pressure by sending more bodies. They like to send 5 or fewer, and disguise where the pressure is coming from to create those opportunities for the defenders!

How do they differ in terms of WHO they send to generate pressure?

Pass Rushers x Position:

 

Something very interesting came from this. We can see that Wisconsin didn’t signal any Pass Rushes from the DE & CB Positions. This data source has Isaiah Mullens, Rodas Johnson, James Thompson Jr., and others as DTs. Wisconsin was in a 2-Down Lineman scheme for much of the 2022 Season, which may have confused how they get captured in this data.