The big test against LSU
Facing freshman Mack rather than Milton and fielding multiple blue chip, NFL-bound DBs, Dave Aranda made the decision to maintain his normal aggressive approach in order to cover up the UCF offense.
The Tigers stayed in nickel with sophomore safety Jacoby Stevens tasked with playing over the TE and serving as the seventh defender in the box while Delpit (and later Todd Harris, Jr) served as the nickel on the slot and CBs Kary Vincent Jr and Terrance Alexander matched up outside. LSU’s goal was to carefully contain the ball in the box with Stevens and outside linebacker Michael Divinity Jr serving as the overhangs that would force the ball inside to their three DL and ILBs Devin White and Patrick Queen. The plan worked and those two backers lead the team in tackles and limited the UCF run game to 130 yards at 4.3 ypc.
But you’d expect LSU to mostly hold up in the run game where they had big DL and star linebackers to get off blocks and limit gains if only the overhangs could keep the ball contained inside. The whole trick of the veer and shoot offense with it’s ultra wide splits is to deny teams from having overhangs in the first place so that the alley is open to the run game. Against a team like UCF, the price of maintaining overhangs is yielding 1-on-1 matchups outside in the passing game.
But the Knights just weren’t quite ready to make the most of them.