Paging Anthony Shegog

Might Tech fans see the return of the Dime Mike in 2022?

In his practice report from August 19, Techsideline’s David Cunningham dropped in an intriguing quote from head coach Brent Pry:

“I think Jaden Keller and Keli Lawson have both done a great job,” Pry said on Wednesday [August 17]. “They are making us feel better and better all the time about what we can put out at that spot. Alan Tisdale is obviously in the mix. We got Tisdale playing some will, we may start looking at him at mike a little bit.”

While there is growing speculation that Jaden Keller will displace Tisdale as the starting will linebacker, a move to mike seemed odd at first blush. And that got me thinking, is Chris Marve, Defensive Coordinator and Linebacker’s Coach, considering reviving Bud Foster’s old niche role, the dime mike, aka the Anthony Shegog position?

The Meltdown Against Notre Dame

With 3:49 to go in the fourth quarter of last year’s game against Notre Dame, Dax Hollifield was disqualified for targeting. Aside from some first half struggles adjusting to QB run plays by Notre Dame’s backup quarterback, Tech’s defense had fared well. The Hokies, who entered the game with a 3-1 record, held a 29-21 lead. Needing to move the ball quickly, Notre Dame reinserted starting QB Jack Coan, who had wilted under heavy pressure from the Tech front in the first half. One more stop from Justin Hamilton’s defense and the Hokies would secure a signature win over a Top 15 opponent. Enter backup mike linebacker Dean Ferguson.

Following the penalty, the Irish faced 1st and 10 at their own 45-yard line. Coan completed a pass underneath to RB Logan Diggs in the space vacated by Ferguson, who tracked back in zone coverage. Diggs netted some yards after the catch, resulting in a 15-yard gain on the play. After an incompletion on the subsequent first down, Coan hit slot receiver Avery Davis, who beat Ferguson on the play, for 23 yards. Three plays later, Coan completed a touchdown pass to Davis. The two-point conversion tied the game, and Notre Dame would go on to win it at the buzzer on a 47-yard field goal by Jonathan Doerer.

Ferguson played 20 plays that night, with 8 of them in coverage. Overall, he logged a 44.9 coverage grade from PFF. Ferguson is a similar, though less experienced, type of player as Hollifield. He is much better in the box than he is drifting back in coverage. But when Hollifield was tossed from the game, the Hokies had nowhere else to turn. Tisdale was already in the game at backer (the Foster/Hamilton term for will linebacker), and Anthony Shegog used up his eligibility in 2017.

The Dime Mike Linebacker

At 6’2”, 225 lbs., Anthony Shegog was a former safety who converted to linebacker midway through his college career. In the end, he never quite fit the mold of either position. He was not fast enough to play safety and not quite strong enough to be an every down linebacker. So, he became a niche player, eventually carving out a roll as the mike (middle linebacker in Tech speak) when the Hokies put six defensive backs on the field.

In 2016, Andrew Motuapuoka started at mike and had a good year. His average PFF coverage grade that year (65.3) was solid, and even topped Shegog’s (64.6). However, Shegog excelled in obvious passing downs, and he proved himself a major asset in the Belk Bowl win over Arkansas. In that game, he notched a 93.5 coverage grade on 14 snaps.

Alan Tisdale has some obvious similarities to Anthony Shegog. Both are 6’3” and between 225 and 230 lbs. Both move well laterally, but are prone to struggles in the box against the run. In addition, neither is particularly adept at blitzing.

Tisdale’s potential as a mike linebacker in dime coverage has not been widely discussed in the media, but there exists enough data to make some inferences.

Workload and Performance

Both Anthony Shegog in 2016 and Alan Tisdale in 2021 had a higher percentage of snaps in coverage than the starting mike linebackers in those respective years. If Shegog is the model, then Tisdale would be looking at a run-pass shift of nearly 9 percentage points toward the pass.

With two years of full-time starting experience, Tisdale is certainly an experienced player. If he played between 5 and 10 snaps per game in dime packages and another 15-20 spelling Keller at will in the base package, Tisdale would be looking around 20-30 snaps per game, down from nearly 55 last year.

While Tisdale is long, lean, rangy, and possibly in search of a new role, the major issue is that he does not grade out very high in coverage. That is especially true against P5 opponents, where he was below average and about 10 points lower than Anthony Shegog.

The charts below highlight another major area of divergence between Shegog and Tisdale. There is a clear positive trend between Anthony Shegog’s coverage grade and his number of coverage snaps. That is, the more passes the other team threw, the better he performed. Motuapuaka had a slight positive trend, but both Tisdale and Hollifield show no discernable association. This level of inconsistency is a major factor against Tisdale with regard to reprising the Anthony Shegog role. More coverage snaps for a mike linebacker in a dime package would suggest a Tech lead in the fourth quarter. That is precisely when you want to get the hit or miss defensive players off the field.

Conclusion

Each new practice report seems to reveal different combinations working at the linebacker positions. No doubt the coaches are experimenting with guys and situations. My gut tells me they gave Tisdale a good look at mike in obvious passing situations. Even if he isn’t an upgrade over Hollifield, he may prove to be the second best mike against the pass. And while that may sound inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, remember how two late-game completions in the middle of the field against a backup linebacker helped doom the Hokies to defeat last year against the Irish.