If you watched Baylor last year, you couldn’t help but notice #8 Jalen Pitre, this year’s 2nd Round pick (37th) for the Houston Texans. Pitre, who has shades of Tryann Mathieu, can cover, blitz, and play near the box. In today’s game, a do-everything Nickel is a cheat code, and Baylor found theirs in #8. Houston will pair their dynamic DB with another dynamic player in their 3rd overall pick in LSU’s Derek Stingley Jr. The Texans have the building blocks for a dynamic modern secondary.

As for Baylor, they were using Pitre in their Star position was a critical piece to their fantastic ‘21 campaign. Head Coach Dave Aranda is a well-known commodity around the country and one of the best defensive minds in football. Paired with his mentor Ron Roberts, the Bears exploded to an 11-2 finish capped off with an impressive win against Ole Miss in the Sugar Bowl. Both Arand and Roberts are credited for the advancement of Creepers and simulated pressure, having run them for decades.
Alabama’s Pete Golding, Seattle’s Karl Scott, and Florida’s Patrick Toney all cut their teeth under Roberts. Aranda’s system has influenced the likes of FAU’s Todd Orland, Wisconsin’s Jim Leonhard, and many other programs that have poached his concepts over the past decade-plus. One of the main foundational features within the Aranda system is replacement and simulated pressures. As you look across the landscape of college football and even the NFL, there is a shift to protect coverage.
To protect coverage, I mean keeping at least seven defenders in the coverage; the defense can only send four rushers. If you have four great D-linemen, you can just rush four. ‘21 Georgia is a great example. Overall, the Bulldogs had a blitz rate of ~30%. Of those blitzes, only 5% were simulated pressure compared to ~82% five-man pressures. Why so many five-man pressures? As Dave Aranda explained in an interview with 247Sports Chris Hummer,
“…I think some it was you’re getting your d-linemen one-on-one blocks when you’re sending five. You’re trying to get a mismatch there and give them an opportunity to win.”
Georgia didn’t need to blitz to get what they needed out of their front, and when they did, they created one-on-one opportunities for their D-line. Creepers and Sims are an extension of that thought philosophy but mitigate the risk of blitzing by keeping seven defenders in the pass distribution. A Creeper cuts the box in half, sending pressure to one side and loading the coverage to the other. And it’s not random; as Aranda states in the interview,
“[We] Try to be specific in attacking weak parts of protection and identifying protection.”
Before we go further, let’s define the difference between Creepers and simulated pressures. A Creeper is technically a replacement pressure, meaning an off-ball defender will blitz from the second or third level of the defense and is replaced in coverage by a first-level defender opposite him. Bring one, replace one in coverage. Usually, these blitzes attack the B-gap or edge of the box. BREES is shown below.
Simulated pressures do precisely what they say; they simulate pressure. On 3rd Down, this can come from placing five or more defenders on the line of scrimmage (LOS). For early downs, defenses use base alignment and then blitz the interior of the box. The post-snap pressure gives the illusion of a five-man pressure (Allen/Mex) or six-man blitz (Manning below), only to drop one or both DEs. Most simulated pressure use best-practice blitzes but drop extra defenders into coverage.
In short, Creepers brings a defender from one side and drops another while simulated pressures attack the interior of the box (A-gaps) or show pressures pre-snap. Showing pressure is similar to how offenses use motion. It is manipulation to get an advantageous match-up. For defenses, the illusion of pressure can force the RB to stay in the protection. The lack of a fifth option changes the math for the defense, which features seven defenders for four receivers. Aranda, again, explains,
“It’s going to look like a blitz though you’re only bringing four guys. When I was at Wisconsin our offensive coordinator there was a guy named Andy Ludwig (Utah’s OC)… and I think one of the advantages of creepers is if you do it right the back stays in for protection and can’t get out if you identify stuff right. And Andy goes, ‘Dave, you’re not really spending a lot but you’re getting a lot. This is like a nescience.’ That’s the thought behind it...”
Foundationally, Creepers were developed to attack the field, boundary, or middle of the box. Aranda’s system uses QBs to indicate the Creeper called, and you can generally understand where they are coming from by the starting letter. For instance, “B” names attack the boundary (Brady), and “F” names attack the field (Favre below). These PESO (four-down) Creepers are the bedrock of the system.
For Baylor, one of their favorite ways to pressure offenses was to send Pitre off the edge (Favre). In the Bears’ defense, the Star went to the passing strength or most WR side, so calling Favre wouldn’t guarantee the Star was activated. So instead, the most basic way to get the Star in the pressure is to engage him to the passing strength. Baylor calls this Peyton, with the “P” activating the overhang to the passing strength. It was one of their top pressures, and for a good reason, Pitre is a stud.