Introduction: A Culture That Connects
The Robbie Brown Ohio Northern defense doesn’t start with scheme — it starts with people.
After Ohio Northern posted another dominant defensive performance, Brown credited everyone around him before talking about football.
“It takes a village not only to build this football program and raise these guys into men, but it takes a village to help me do what I do,” Brown said. “Very few people see the work that goes on behind the scenes — from my assistants to our players to my head coach.”
That spirit of gratitude and collaboration forms the foundation of one of Division III’s top defenses — and it’s the same mindset that shapes how Brown teaches the game.
Section 1: Teaching Through Simplicity
Brown’s defensive system starts with a simple truth: clarity creates speed.
“The biggest thing for us is just clarity — being able to get whatever we’re trying to communicate across to our boys as efficiently as humanly possible,” he said.
At Ohio Northern, that clarity shows up in every defensive call, meeting, and drill. Brown constantly trims the fat, ensuring players react instead of overthinking on Saturdays.
“One of the things I’ve tried to learn in the last few years is don’t freeze your players with too much information,” Brown said. “It’s my job to make sure they can play fast.”
Because of that focus on simplicity, the Robbie Brown Ohio Northern defense plays with confidence and speed.
Section 2: The ‘Meet’ System — Simplifying Perimeter Run Fits
Brown’s defense operates from a three-high, quarters-based structure, similar to what Iowa State made famous under Jon Heacock. Within that framework, he developed a clean, repeatable language for run fits on the perimeter: the “Meet 1, 2, 3, 4” system.
Each defender receives a number based on their relationship to the formation:
- Corner = Meet 1
- Safety or Overhang = Meet 2
- Nickel/Outside LB = Meet 3
- Middle Safety (“Star”) = Meet 4
“We tell those guys, make sure you’re meeting them on the outside of where the block is so you can force it back to your help,” Brown explained.
As a result, players gain a visual and intuitive way to align and react — no matter how the offense shifts. Whether it’s motion, RPO, or crack-block variations, the system creates consistency and shared understanding.
That shared language keeps the Robbie Brown Ohio Northern defense unified and aggressive in every situation.
Section 3: Training Adaptability — Stacking Knowledge
Brown constantly challenges his defense with “what if” situations. Even the looks opponents never show on film appear in practice.
“It got to a point where I showed our boys on Friday the hardest blocking scheme they could see — and it wasn’t even something the opponent did,” Brown said. “It’s about putting them in what-if scenarios so they can build a lexicon of information to fall back on.”
As a result, players develop faster processing skills and stronger confidence. The unit thinks quickly and trusts its preparation — exactly what Brown means when he says his players are “stacking knowledge.”
Ultimately, this adaptability defines the Robbie Brown Ohio Northern defense. Every rep builds awareness, and every mistake becomes a lesson that sharpens the group for game day.
Section 4: The Star Safety — The Glue of the Defense
In the 3-high structure, the middle safety — or “Star” — functions as the defense’s connector. Brown calls him the most instinctive and trusted player on the field.
“He’s kind of that middle safety, middle linebacker type,” Brown said. “There’s not a whole lot of rules — I give him the bumpers, like when you went bowling as a kid. He can operate within those bumpers.”
That freedom allows the Star to react, fill, and adjust coverage quickly. Consequently, the Robbie Brown Ohio Northern defense often creates unaccounted-for defenders in the run game and unexpected pressure in coverage.
Section 5: Train Your Feet with Your Eyes
Brown preaches one guiding rule for defensive backs:
“Train your feet with your eyes.”
It’s his way of teaching patience and discipline in a system that still demands aggression.
“Your feet have to go, but your eyes have to come with it so you can smell a rat,” he said. “That’s how we keep from getting beat by double moves or screens.”
This teaching method helps players match technique with trust. As a result, the Robbie Brown Ohio Northern defense maintains control, balance, and poise even in high-stress situations.
Section 6: Culture Behind the Scheme
For all the detail in his system, Brown never loses sight of the heart behind it.
“The better you guys are, the better I can feel and the more confident I am in your ability to have success,” he told his players.
That message — that the defense grows together — echoes through every meeting, practice, and game plan. Furthermore, it reinforces the idea that culture drives execution.
The Robbie Brown Ohio Northern defense isn’t just connected by scheme; it thrives on trust, accountability, and shared purpose.
Closing Section: Giving Back to the Game
Brown ended his film session with humility and gratitude.
“I’ve learned so much from this profession,” he said. “Any way I can give back to the game that’s done so much for me and my family — I love doing that.”
In many ways, the Robbie Brown Ohio Northern defense reflects that same generosity. It’s more than football — it’s a model of connection, clarity, and community built to last.
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Transcript
John Snell (00:02.824)
Coach, congratulations on a great win and a great season so far. As you know, a shutout takes great commitment and a great game plan. And obviously everyone involved had to do a great job for you guys. So congrats. We want to recognize you and your staff here. You have an opportunity to recognize your staff. So feel free to do that before we
we get into our sharing of an idea.
Robbie Brown (00:34.773)
Yeah, absolutely, I appreciate it coach. And one of the things I told our boys the other day, and especially in the DBs of my meeting room with them is, it takes a village not only to build this football program and kind of raise these guys in a men, but it takes a village to help me do what I do. Everyone can tell you, they love you when you’re on top and they love you when you’re-
You’re having success, very, very few people see the work that goes behind the scenes, not just by myself, but really my assistants. Huge shout out to Coach Shoizo, Glenn Shoizo, our linebackers coach, assistant head coach, Vaughn Thomas, our D-line coach, recruiting coordinator, probably one of the hardest working coaches I’ve ever been around. And even really down to our two young interns, Coach Dev Patel helping out with our D-line.
Coach Mike Kellogg who is transitioning into helping me with the DBs this year for the first time in his career. To be able to bounce ideas off of these guys and get perspective and kind of help me sort through my thoughts as we build the plan. Really just to put our guys in the right position. And I told our boys on Saturday after the game and really again on Sunday just reiterating, I am nothing without you guys. So.
better you guys are, then obviously the better I can feel and the more confident I feel about your ability to have success. really just a huge shout out to our assistant coaches, huge shout out to Coach Freeze for giving me the opportunity to come back closer to home. I’m a Columbus guy, so being close to that area and recruiting guys from my hometown is near and dear to my heart. But just the people that I work with here and really the people at Ohio Northern in general.
Embracing me and my family and helping us kind of find our place in ADA. And then it’s always good to be recognized, but I would be remiss if I don’t at least try to show some love to the people that help me on a daily basis from my assistants to my players to my head coach.
John Snell (02:37.096)
Well, again, we appreciate you being on. as I said, having that kind of success on defense takes a great effort from a lot of people. As you know, as part of the show, we asked that our recipients share an idea with our listeners. And you had mentioned run fits out of, I think, quarter’s look. so let’s hear from you, Rob, some of the details.
Robbie Brown (03:00.148)
Yeah.
John Snell (03:05.46)
on that for our listeners.
Robbie Brown (03:08.117)
Yeah, I try to work the technology here. think I can just pop this little share button here, I believe. I think right there. And I know you said you guys utilize a little bit of audio there as well, Coach. But can you see the video that I got right there for you? OK, so we’re a little bit unique. We’re a three high structure, quarters-based defense.
John Snell (03:27.378)
Yes. Yep. That looks great.
Robbie Brown (03:37.273)
It’s very similar to what they run out at Iowa State University, know, with Coach Haycock and those guys. I first learned about it, you know, in 2017, you know, when I was at Wilmington College. you know, I had seen that they were trying to transition to that around the same time, maybe slightly before at Northern here.
So I brought it with me to my time at some other places, really have kind of expanded upon it here. But the biggest thing for us is just clarity and being able to get whatever we’re trying to communicate across to our boys.
efficiently as humanly possible. So right here this is one of our quarters based looks. So we have our free safety to the boundary, our strong safety to the field here, and then our middle safety which would be our star working off of this. But really not focusing too much on the interior run fits here coach, really talking about our perimeter run fits. This was something that I kind of worked through, with Coach Shoizo a little bit about it and he shared
kind of, you know, his kind of stumblings on this and you know how he’s learned it from other people and really it’s just creating a numerical system for our boys on the edge, right? Which is how we identify receivers, how everyone in the country does that, right? So, you know, for our corners, right, in their base defensive structure, they’re a meet one player, right? So they’ll always meet, right, whoever becomes that number one, right?
right? Because it’s always not about where they start, right? Coach is about where they finish, right? Our strong safety here, right? And really either one of our outside safeties, they’re gonna be a meet two player as well. Our nickel, which is our overhang number zero, Miles Aldrich, great football player, local guy, Lyman.
Robbie Brown (05:28.031)
will be a meet three player, right? And then our middle safety will be a meet four player as it shows up, right? So we tell those guys, make sure you’re meeting them on the outside, you know, of where the block is so you can force it always back to your help, right? So in this picture here in a perfect world, it would look something along the lines of this, right? Obviously we know it can change, you know, so we try to change up the blocking.
throughout the week. Like even it got to a point where I showed our boys on Friday before we.
broke from the team meeting, I was like, hey fellas, here, this is probably the hardest blocking scheme we have on the outside and it’s not even something they do. So this concept allows us to put our guys in a lot of what if scenarios, to cover a lot of bases on a weekly basis and really that allows them to kind of stack their knowledge and kind of build that lexicon of information for them to fall back on in a real time there.
So first play here, you’re going to get an outside play to the bottom of the screen. So you’re just going to see our three guys here from our strong safety nickel linebacker in our field corner react to the perimeter. Run pass option here. So number one, Tarrion Ross is going to be trying to meet number one on the outside.
Right, Jacob is going to end up meeting two, you know, to the outside here. Right. And then Miles, his meet three is in the backfield, but you’re going to see him react on what we call the ball out break. Right. So once he feels this ball is pulled, right. Then now that’s his reaction time to the perimeter. Right. So he’s working three inside out. Jacob’s working two outside in, right. Terry on is working one outside and kind of as that secondary contain. And you can see they build a nice little triangle on the ball carrier, right. As it hits. And that’s the nice little net that
Robbie Brown (07:16.875)
want to create and then it puts us in a position to get a zero yard gain.
Robbie Brown (07:24.541)
Next one here.
Right, same concept, right? So now, right, they’re gonna end up getting the three out to the perimeter here with motion, right? Our star, right, is going to push our nickel outside to the new number three, right? And then now he’s just get, they’re just helping us get into our run fit a little bit quicker here, right? So you’ll see as it happens, right, boom, okay, there’s one, there’s your two, there’s your three, right? Miles is looking to meet three as the lead blocker here, right? Our safety comes down to meet two, right? And because my,
So, going transition his eyes down to number
Robbie Brown (08:17.909)
at some point and then work on the outside as well. So there we go, boom, nice easy tackle, good little kill the legs. And then you can see our star is running as the fourth player here. So one, two, three, our star has got to end up pushing forward to all of his help. And now we’re able to kind of build that net just with different humans in different ways as well. Next deal here, coach.
Okay, so now this is a nifty one here. You’re gonna get motion that’s gonna end up pulling now our wheel linebacker out of the box.
Will linebacker is gonna work in the same way that our nickel would to the field Okay, they’re just gonna remove him from the box a little bit here, right? But now our safety is still operating right with his meat to corner still meet one right now the will instead of the nickel is meet three here, right? So again, they’re working like bash concept, right? Okay, just trying to get this guy on the edge Okay, go ahead. Zack right here can take this trigger cuz meet his three on the outside That’s gonna force either the block right or it’s gonna be a nice clear
alleyway for Zach to go and hit it. Okay Cooper right here is going to be meeting four in this case his four is going to be the quarterback.
Right. So just checking for the quarterback, make sure he doesn’t pull it so we don’t lose our plus hat. Right. And then we always talked about getting over top or meeting him outside. So now as the quarterback hands it, his new four becomes the tackle. If he goes underneath this block here, we’re up against it. We’re going to lose a man. Right. So now, right, you can see number seven attacks the tackle on the outside shoulder. There it is. Right. Got a great little fit here, but unfortunately we missed the tackle. But because number seven met his four outside, right. Then now he’s able
Robbie Brown (09:58.423)
able to run this thing down, push it to the sideline, use it as your best friend. Great job by our number two here. Getting the safety checks. He sees the receiver break down. So now, we’re 100 % sure this is not a pass. We’ve seen a change in pad level. We’ve seen a change in demeanor. He’s no longer trying to press us downfield. So now we can meet him on the outside. And this is something we worked on. I’m very proud to see this, is clearing the hands, the little swipe move there. Both. Clear the hands of the blocker.
John Snell (10:25.14)
Okay.
Robbie Brown (10:28.221)
Now that allows you to attack and press upfield. And then there we go. Boom. Nice little combo tackle on the outside. And I believe this is the last one here. So this is, again, just kind of showing how it’s trickling down. We’re kind of towards the tail end. First time playing here as a freshman. Young man from Florida for us. So you can see the coaching is really taking hold with their young guys. And coach, I got to be honest with you. That’s probably what I’m the most proud about right now.
when our young guys are really buying into what we’re trying to accomplish. So again, same deal, you’re gonna see this thing hit on the outside, Azariah’s gonna hit this thing to the edge, you’re gonna see Jacob hit his meet two, Andrew’s gonna have meet three going inside out, and then Cooper’s working meet four as we go here.
Okay, but again what you’re gonna see and what I’m most proud of you see number 19 once he transitions boom gets his eyes to the receiver now watch that create extension right look you love to see it boom extension gets the guys on his heels he’s attacking the outside shoulder so he’s got a clean path here the only thing I would like to see from him and again freshmen ready hasn’t been doing this for very long just like Jacob did on that last one clear the hands so now you can go get involved in the play right but even though he gets kind of held up a little bit here he creates that
extension now he can create a dent and make this ball carrier run east and west right we’re still trying to meet our two but I tell the safeties don’t be a robot here right if this guy’s now gets around the defense then now you can fit off the corner and recontain this thing okay and there it is he stresses it out boom great form tackle right right on the edge there coach you know so
Those were just some quick little tidbits. The biggest takeaway is making sure that we, in a quarters-based system, understand where our help is, understand who our initial keys are, and then understand who we have to meet. And then when we meet them, we meet them with violent force. So as long as we can do those things and have great eye discipline. Now, obviously, the biggest thing you have to worry about off of that is play action pass, which is why we always tell the DBs, train your feet with your eyes.
Robbie Brown (12:39.671)
react, right, your feet have to go but your eyes have to come with it so you can see through and smell a rat if they’re trying to, you know, run like a screen and go or a double move or a double pass or something along those lines.
Just something simple, wanted to make sure I had something to share with the community, man, because I’ve learned so much from this great profession. So I hope that gives you guys a little insight without diving too terribly far into the well here. But anyway, I’m able to give back to this profession that done so much for me and my family, man, I love
John Snell (13:16.104)
Rob, that’s great. That’s great stuff. Tell me again, you said it. What do you call your middle field defender there? What’s his, what do you refer to him as?
Robbie Brown (13:26.505)
Yeah, he’s our star safety. He’s kind of that middle safety guy, middle linebacker in an old school 4-3 type deal. That guy’s kind of hard to find because he’s usually your best football player, most instinctive type guys. There’s not a whole lot of rules. give him kind of a… I talked to our guys about, remember when you went bowling with your parents when you were kids, right? Throw the bumpers up, right? And now you can operate kind of within those bumpers, right?
John Snell (13:28.925)
Star, yeah.
Robbie Brown (13:56.373)
One of the things I’ve tried to learn in the last few years is don’t freeze your players with too much information, right? And that’s why I’m glad I have the staff I have here cuz sometimes they keep me honest. Like hey coach, you might wanna.
Rethink maybe that’s going to put someone in conflict or that’s a lot of things that we need to consider. And then it’s down to me to trim the fat and see if I can get exactly what we need to be as efficient as humanly possible for these guys. that is arguably between that guy and our nose tackle and our Mike linebacker to get us in all the right checks. Those are the three most important positions on this defense from my perspective.
John Snell (14:35.026)
He, yeah, that star position, I’m assuming that a lot of teams don’t account for him. So if he can run and obviously is active, he can make a lot of plays because people aren’t accounting for him, which I think is a unique feature of that defense.
Robbie Brown (14:57.181)
Now lot of people have been trying, and that’s where, at other places I’ve been, I’ve noticed we were kind of a little slow on that perimeter fit. So we try to find different ways, I mean, coach, we try to find as many ways as we can to crack that guy. You know what I mean? That guy on our backside safety. Okay, is it coming from a number one receiver, is it from a two receiver, right? Are they motioning out of three and bringing them back into crack?
And that’s why, kind of like we talked about with the Village working together, as long as everyone’s doing their jobs and are 100 % sure as to what they’re seeing, if you bring one for that guy, it brings one more guy into the party. If you want to bring the number two in, then Id Dangle sure is gonna be able to bring our strong safety in. Now again, depending on what that demeanor is, we tell those guys to match the top shoulder. So if you’re trying to search crack that guy, maybe you slip up
into like a cross route, know, or maybe you’re like a use some understand over Mike, you know, we work the heck out of that since spring ball this year. You know, so we talk about trying to meet those guys as quickly as possible. So it’s carrying over into our coverage aspect just as much as it carries over into the perimeter run.
John Snell (16:09.96)
Yeah, that’s great stuff. I hope that Glenn is a help to you when you guys are putting your game planning together and he’s a pretty sharp guy who’s had a great background as well. So Rob, we can’t thank you enough. was really a lot of fun to go through that. We wish you the best the rest of the way and appreciate your time.
Robbie Brown (16:15.657)
Very much so. Very much so.
Robbie Brown (16:36.959)
Thank you, Coach. Hey, appreciate you guys, man. And go Bears.