Previewing Luke Fickell's Wisconsin Defense (The Origins of Cincinnati's 3-3-5 Defense)

Twitter: @tcpfootball
Additional Resources:
Luke Fickell ($): Defensive Identity and Evolution: coachtube.com/course/football...
Marcus Freeman (via Chris Vasseur's podcast "Make Defense Great Again"): / s03-e03-marcus-freeman
Pat Narduzzi ($): Press Quarters vs. the Pass: amzn.to/43v2NFA
Patt Narduzzi($) : Press Quarters vs. the Run: amzn.to/3ME2lhv
Disclosure: I get a commission from each sale of items marked with ($).
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Video Contents
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00:00 Introduction
01:55 Fickell's Early History
04:20 Origins of Mark Dantonio's Defense
13:35 Nick Saban's Influence on Dantonio
20:54 Fickell's Struggles vs. the Spread
24:31 Switching to Press Quarters (Cover-4)
32:15 Problems at Cincinnati
35:56 Cincinnati's 3-3-5 (Dollar Package)
44:38 What will Wisconsin do in 2023?
In this video, we'll see how Luke Fickell, the new Head Coach of the Wisconsin Badgers football team, developed his Dollar Package/3-3-5 defense during his time with the Cincinnati Bearcats. We'll see how Fickell came up as a young coordinator in the Ohio 4-3 defensive school, which was Mark Dantonio's take on what he'd run with Nick Saban at Michigan State in the late 90's. We'll see how Fickell adapted that defense over time, switching from a matchup/pattern-matching Cover-3 philosophy to a Press Quarters/Cover-4 base, in response to the challenges presented by spread offenses. Finally, we'll see how he, along with guys like Marcus Freeman (current Notre Dame HC) and current Wisconsin co-coordinators Mike Tressel and Colin Hitschler developed a unique way to defend the spread. We'll close with some thoughts from the Wisconsin spring game, and an attempt at predicting how Fickell, Tressel, and Hitschler will use their different defensive structures and personnel groupings with the Badgers in 2023.

[@paulehrke9586]

There is next to nothing which excites me more than a new TCP upload. Thank you for your effort and the awesome content you put out there!

[@TheCoordinatorProject]

Glad to hear it! Making these videos is crazy fun for me.

[@epicclips456]

This is probably the future of college football, definitely in the big 10. It’s easily adaptable to many different offenses and with the increasing amount of spread and air raid attacks in the big 10, this will be great

[@nickflahive8903]

Love the effort in the videos man glad you could do a Wisconsin vid. If you could also do a Longo air raid at some point in the future that'd be great.

[@TheCoordinatorProject]

I'm definitely interested in Longo. I want to publish more this summer, so my hope is to do Longo as part of a pod with maybe the defenses at Notre Dame and Pitt.

[@only1murphh]

@@TheCoordinatorProjectplease do LONGOOOO

[@Theplaymaker1271]

This is great! As a Big Ten fan id love to see a Longo analysis, but also a Phil Parker breakdown cause those defenses might be the most fundamentally sound defenses in the country

[@majiinbuu4689]

I second a Phil Parker breakdown, if Iowa had a better offense more consistently they would be in the top fifteen every year and become a serious contender in the big ten they’re always good but they could be so much better.

[@TaxinGigs]

You're secondary better be able to open field tackle in a 3-3-5

[@larrychannell7056]

If you were that knowledgeable about it you would be coaching. Man I hate armchairs quarterbacks.

[@TaxinGigs]

@@larrychannell7056 me?

[@morganyu812]

​@@larrychannell7056Dude that's common sense. Please shut up

[@krisdrew988]

Really great video! Appreciate the effort and research that went into this!

[@sameichorn3757]

these videos deserve so much more attention. Keep up the good work!!!

[@DancherboiJr]

I just love these videos man, I started watching after your video on Knowles OKST Defense as an ohio state fan, and i felt like i knew exactly what was going on on every play. Keep it up man

[@TheCoordinatorProject]

That's great to hear, thanks for the kind words!

[@arrogantprickly]

Wow. This channel is criminally underviewed. This is the best football analysis I've seen. Keep it up. How about Phil Longo next?

[@jimohler5593]

As a OSU fan and UC grad, this was one of my favorite videos! Thanks!

[@TheCoordinatorProject]

Nice! I'd hoped that all of the Ohio-based football history would be interesting to non-Badgers as well.

[@MichaelJohnson-nn2kc]

About time we got a new vid lol jk. Great content as always bud👍

[@TheCoordinatorProject]

Hah, I know, right? Glad you liked it.

[@robdawgsports1060]

Love these videos as always, especially as someone who loves seeing the scheme of these different 3 down looks and their origins to today. Quick question, when I was think what to type up I was gonna call you coach, are you a coach rn? Because if not you break down the film like one!

[@TheCoordinatorProject]

Thanks! I'm not a coach, but I try to bridge the gap between coaches and players with my videos, and it's great to hear that coaches like them. I go to Glazier clinics, watch a ton of clinic videos, read coaching books, etc., and fully chart a ton of games every year. I'm really just a scheme historian, though.

[@slinkyrb3337]

Watched this video a couple times now. Makes me want a Joe Gillepsie video. He really helped turn around TCU. Matt House would be an interesting one as well

[@TheCoordinatorProject]

A few people have mentioned Matt House now, so that one's definitely in the rotation. I think my next swing of videos will deal with some SEC units, so I'll do LSU as one of the defenses that I look at.

[@majiinbuu4689]

@The Coordinator Project can you do a breakdown on defensive coordinator (Iowa Hawkeyes) Phil Parker’s defensive scheme and how he’s able to generate turnovers with his defense.

[@jaylyndunlap2011]

Could you please do Phil Longos offense for unc he’s moved to Wisconsin but I think he’s one of the best in the game

[@AndreKing4]

That’s Marcus Freeman’s Defense !!!!

[@Karmafirst]

It’s a 3-2-6 Dollar NFL been running this package

[@Coach-Stein]

I don’t know how I just found your channel, if anyone if trying to learn meat and potatoes of football, this guy knows what he’s talking about. Also side note: Fickell hired former GVSU head coach Matt Mitchel to coach OLB and Special Teams Cordinator, from what I know too they are pretty close buddies. So maybe dive into some GVSU vs Ferris State (rivals and best team the played) film and see how they will take some of his schemes into the Big10.

[@TheCoordinatorProject]

Thanks for the kind words. I'll have to look into Mitchell and see what the deal is. Those high-level FCS teams are always worth watching.

[@MichaelJohnson-nn2kc]

Would it be asking to much if you did a video on how casual fans can know what to watch for during live games? Trying to watch the all 22 is difficult. Should i just focus on a certain position group?

[@TheCoordinatorProject]

This is an interesting idea. I could do a video on what I'm looking at and thinking about pre-snap when I watch games live. I'll try to write it around my normal breakdowns and see if it's something I can do fast.

[@MichaelJohnson-nn2kc]

@@TheCoordinatorProject sounds awesome!!! Thank you sir!!!

[@danemesser1576]

Hey man appreciate the awesome content. Where do you get your film?

[@TheCoordinatorProject]

Through last season I just had a KZbin TV subscription and DVR'd every college football game, then screen-recorded whatever games I wanted to break down. This spring, though, KZbin TV did something that blacks out the video whenever a screen recorder is on, so I'm going to have to deal with that somehow. I'll sort that out closer to September, lol. For older games, there's a lot of stuff that's just up on KZbin itself.

[@danemesser1576]

@@TheCoordinatorProject I ran into the same problem with screen recording even with Hulu TV... What are you screen recording with looks way better than a phone?

[@TheCoordinatorProject]

@@danemesser1576 I just use the screen record function of Quicktime.

[@efficientmagazine1884]

Can you go over some LSU schemes?

[@TheCoordinatorProject]

I'll put it on the list! I want to look at the Alabama and FSU defenses, so I can do a Denbrock video as part of that sequence.

[@Donotdisturb946]

@@TheCoordinatorProject Would you mind going over what DC Matt house likes to run at LSU so far? Love the insight on your channel & I would be interested to see your perspective.

[@rephillips56]

Can you do a review of Parker Fleming the Ohio State Football coach. His passive coaching style may be the reason Ohio State loses close games Bucknuts says: ** The Buckeyes ranked No. 87 (again, out of 130 teams) in the country in kickoff return average last season (19 yards per return). ** They ranked No. 61 in punt return average (8.3 ypr). ** They ranked No. 72 in kickoff return coverage (20.4 yards allowed per return). ** They ranked No. 66 in punt return coverage (7.1 yards per return). I am not being sarcastic here: Ohio State cannot say its goal is to be "Best In America" in all aspects of its football team and put up numbers like that. Just look at those statistics: Eighty-seventh in kickoff returns? Seventy-second in kick coverage? When your best unit among your return teams and coverage teams is ranked No. 61 in the country, you've got a problem.

[@morganyu812]

Hey Coordinator do you ever do NFL breakdowns?

[@TheCoordinatorProject]

I definitely will at some point. I know the college coaching trees a lot better, but there's.obviously a lot of schematic history that you can't get into without talking about the pros, so it'll happen.

[@morganyu812]

@@TheCoordinatorProject maybe if you're thinking about it you can start small. Like the pro coordinators philosophy in college first

[@tyressy01]

Can you do Illinois defense from last year??????

[@TheCoordinatorProject]

I'm definitely interested. I'll need to think about what offensive breakdowns would be interesting to pair it with (Michigan and...?).

[@tyressy01]

@@TheCoordinatorProject maybe Mississippi state , air raid