'I don't know how you'd stop it': How a D-II coach is reimagining defensive plays At its core, it's a system designed to disguise the defensive front, often with one or no down linemen, and nearly always more defenders in the box than the offense can match. But the flex, as it originated, also had its weaknesses, particularly a reliance on man coverage on the back end. May figured he could add some layers to the base system, so he started studying. He devoured textbooks, talked with offensive coaches about their blocking schemes and watched online clinics on YouTube, sometimes at 4x speed, looking for any small detail he could exploit in his new system. In short, May learned the rules everyone else followed, then designed a defense that broke nearly every one of them. "The smartest guys we have in the room go against this for four years," said Daniel Day, Seton Hill's head coach and O-line coordinator, "and they still say, 'I don't know what they're doing.'" Since returning from the COVID shutdown, May's defense has taken Seton Hill from the dregs of Division II football to something at least approaching contention. Seton Hill is a small Catholic school about 35 miles southwest of Pittsburgh, with an enrollment of less than 1,700. In 2018, the year before May arrived, the Griffins ranked 157th in Division II in scoring defense, 159th in rush defense and 152nd in sacks. After the team returned from COVID in 2021, Seton Hill finished the season 27th in scoring defense, ninth in rush defense and nearly tripled its sack total. Three years later, May's defense has had back-to-back conference defensive players of the year, an All-American linebacker, and in 2023, was fifth among all D-II schools in sacks and tackles for loss. In the two years before May arrived, Seton Hill had a combined 1-21 record. Last season, the Griffins finished with a winning record for the first time in 15 years. More astonishingly, the bulk of players responsible for this success began their careers at Seton Hill as walk-ons. And yet, entering his sixth year at Seton Hill, May's system largely remains relegated to this sleepy outpost in Western Pennsylvania, as bigger schools calculate the risk-reward of trying something so outside-the-box and continue to prefer the status quo to a big swing. "It blows my mind that people don't want to run this," Day said. "If you ran this at Alabama, with the best of the best, I don't know how you'd stop it."
It’s a nice turnaround story for a basement D2 program, but quick search shows the guy was 6-5 last year. In D2. Powerhouse East Stroudburg Univerity hung half a hundred on this defense. Although with it saying their team was composed of walkons, maybe they just get overmatched at times. Either way, seems like a tiny little bit of hubris to be like ‘Why isn’t Alabama and Georgia adopting the defense of my 6-5 D-II team, what’s wrong with those guys!!!!’. Maybe if he keeps that program on the upswing, can see if a D1 program will hire him as a DC. If whatever X’s and O’s he’s talking about turned around a D1 team that would catch some attention.
We've seen a lot of gimmick defenses over the years. Remember that Billy Joe whatever D coordinator at Ole Miss getting press about his weird defenses? Wonder what he's doing these days after Bama hung half a hundred on them a few times.
I would rather our D-lineman have no one on the O-line to face versus slow-dancing with them once the ball is snapped. I can't stand D-lineman on our team that slow-dance O-lineman instead of getting to the QB.
It's still worth investigating. Who knows even if you only find one "trick" that works it might be worth the time to dissect. Blocking schemes are all tricks...
A system where the smartest folks don’t know what is going on, might or might not need DL or LB? DBU baby. Grantham says hello
I believe Dave Steckel ran some variation of a flex defense under Gary Pinkel when they won the SEC East. Granted, the SEC East was garbage in those days, but the new kids in the SEC won double digit seasons with a defense that was not quite a flexible as the Seton Hall defense, but close enough to show that it can work in the SEC. Regardless of scheme, there needs to be athletes to execute whatever crazy style of defense is being used and it rarely translates to building NFL players.
It’s not even the more known Seton Hall University, which apparently cancelled football in 1980. Seton Hill. That threw me for a loop as well. I first started searching for Seton Hall, and all the results were for the Seton Hall Prep high school program. I was like… “if this defense is so great, why can’t I even find any of their highlights”.
I like the kind of defense where you're tougher, stronger, meaner, faster than everyone you play and you don't miss tackles and you get a lot of 3 and outs and turnovers and you keep the other team from scoring.
