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Glaring issue on defense

Memnon said:
Everything looks good on paper in theory, but in practicality isn't always as easy.

The biggest issue our Defense has is personnel, not Coaching.

The majority of the big plays that get made against the Defense are as a result of missed assignments. People have convinced themselves that Guidry just calls plays intentionally to let opposing Offenses get big plays, but that's not at all what happens.

What Lanning was saying is that on 3rd & longs he primarily isn't going to panic with his calls because he can simulate pressure with specific Zone coverages & not be forced to play Man, because he believes they can get to the ball ahead of the sticks & tackle before any RAC yards can get the Offense a 1st down. That's how most DC's go about handling 3rd & distance, the problem is, we can't assume that if we drop back in Zones playing Palms or Quarters on the outside that if the Offense throws a quick 5yd dump off that it still won't get a 10yd first down. Because we struggle immensely with ball pursuit & open field tackling.

Guidry is well aware of this, so his coverage calls have to be more Man oriented because the likelihood of our LB's & DB's making an open field tackle even with the ball in front of them is less than 50%. So, Guidry isn't going to call a ton of Cover 3 Deep, Cover 2, Cover 6's etc, because our DB's don't bail & pass off properly. When they have to play Quarters they give a ton of cushion & get flat footed when the WR gets a 3 or 4 or 6 route. So as soon as the WR makes the catch, he turns & stiff arms up the sideline for an additional 4+ yards, or they backshoulder our CB's on the sideline.

Defending screen plays is 100% film study & recognizing screen presnap, based on alignment, reading the tackles (depending on which OT is offset is usually your indicator) & reading motion. Your Rover is supposed to communicate with your LB's to tell them what keys he's identifying presnap & the LB's are supposed to communicate to the Safeties what to look for based on what they're reading upfront, so they can check in & out of specific coverages for that play.

What's happening with us, is teams are presnap motioning us to Death to confuse us & get our weakest players (Mike LB, Nickel/STAR) in one on one no man's land situations. We're one of the few Defenses I've watched this year who get confused while in Man coverage on how to cover the motioner. For whatever reason they switch off & give the motioner to whoever is covering on that side of the hash & due to lack of communication, someone's man gets left wide open because the person who's supposed to pick up the switch off didn't know who or where he's supposed to cover.

Again, because people don't know what they're watching, their first instinct is to blame Guidry, but I'm 110% sure, if our players played sound assignment football on snap by snap basis, at least 75% of the big chunk yardage plays against us wouldn't happen.

Our guys routinely get caught looking, or just get flat out walled off in blocking because they're not beating the blockers to the ball. The way you blow a play up before a Blocking convoy can fully formulate, is by identifying early what the play & is reacting off instinct. That can only come from film study & knowing exactly what's happening on a play by play basis. Great Defenders can predict plays & beat blockers to the ball & they do this by recognizing tells that the Offense has. Every offense has ways in which they tip their plays, if you watch enough film, you can accurately guess 80+% of the time whether it's a run or pass. And if you really study tendencies & play sequencing, you can predict where the ball is going on specific downs.

Offenses are repetitive, they run the same plays over & over again, just in different variances. If you figure out what their core plays are to move the ball down the field, you can get ahead of them on down & distance because you intuitively know, "It’s 3rd & 7+, they usually run this play to this side of the hashes, at this specific part on the field & usually such & such is getting the ball. They're lined up in this formation & the LT has his left foot back, so they're probably going here.." Then you communicate with the rest of the Defense depending on which unit you're in & tell them what to watch for.

If you're a CB, depending on the coverage, you need to have eyes on the WR & be ready to flip to get in phase immediately if you're playing press Man. Once you're in phase, don't even worry about the WR anymore, just keep running & locate the ball. If you can't get it at its apex, then play through the hands & disrupt the catch point.

If you're playing Off bail, then you need to have eyes on the QB. If you're on the Boundary side, then you simply position yourself to outside leverage so that he can't beat you down the sideline. If you're on the Field side, then you need to communicate with the Safety that he needs to watch the QB's eyes as well & if it's a Bang 8 or a Dig, he has to immediately crash down to either undercut or meet the WR at the catch point. If it's Post or a Corner/Flag route, he needs to fade over top & cut off the WR at angle so the QB can't teardrop the ball to him. The CB in Quarters in a down & distance play, should jump everything that's 6yds & under. If the route is 7yds or more, get back, keeps eye on the QB & press the angle towards the sideline to cut off the WR & force a route stoppage.

For LB's & Safeties it's similar. Everything boils down to eye discipline & play recognition. If you know what you're doing, & what the Offense is doing, it's a lot harder for them to make plays on you.
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Are you hopefull they were able to fix the presnap and communication issues during the bye week? Or is this something that can only be fixed in Spring with better players?
 
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edge said:
Are you hopefull they were able to fix the presnap and communication issues during the bye week? Or is this something that can only be fixed in Spring with better players?
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There are temporary "fixes" that can be made in game prep, but overall, the solution to the problem is getting better players with more athletic prowess.

I don't think we'll play as bad defensively vs Wake as we have against other opponents, because styles make fights & WF in spite of the fear of the long mesh actually isn't nearly as difficult of a matchup for us as teams like VA Tech & GTech.

But, you never know how things will play out. Our Defense will still likely give up some big plays, because as long as Mauigoa is manning the middle, Jaden Harris playing Rover & DPJr Nickel, there's always a high probability of a big play on the horizon.
 
Memnon said:
I'll show yall an example:

View attachment 311498View attachment 311499

Watch Mauigoa, Bissainthe & Jaden Harris on this play.

Do yall see what they did wrong?

Look at where Mauigoa is lined up presnap & look at where the play ends up, do you see it?

Now mind you, this was the next play right after 74yd run to start off GTech's first Offensive possession. Do yall really think Guidry was like, "Okay gents, let's let these guys score in 2 plays, run the exact opposite direction of the ball carrier & completely abandoned your gap assignments, ready? Break!"

Just go rewatch the big plays we given up this season & that will answer every question you have about the Defense.

It's not Guidry, I promise you it's not. If it was, yall know **** well I would be the first one here calling for his head. There are very few on the board who are more critical of Coaches than me. If Guidry was as bad as yall think he is, I would undoubtedly be leading the march to get rid of him.
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Those videos are straight up violence to me.

You could create an entire November Rain video montage of the misses our boys make in the defensive back seven. Brutal.

Jaden Harris spent a billion dollars and still ended up in debt after the year.
 
Memnon said:
The long *** Mesh is cheating lol

Nah, the easiest way to deal with that is just a torpedo Blitzer to attack the ball on every snap. It doesn't matter whether they hand it off or throw, it will speed up the QB's processing time & force him to make a decision quicker if he's got a Blitzer coming straight at him.

That's Mauigoa's strong point as a LB, he can Torpedo really well. So if Guidry is hellbent on playing him the majority of the snaps at LB, then that should be his assignment.

Just go collapse the Mesh every snap, don't drop & cover, don't even worry about pursuing the ball carrier, just go rush the Mesh point & force the QB to do something with it quickly.
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All this

For as horrific as Kiko has been this year THIS IS HIS GAME to do his thing

Have Alvin Mack come in here and give him a pep talk and just tell him to just kill everyone. If he makes a mistake that way we can live with it
 
The D could be better, but to put things in perspective...

ACC rankings:
3rd down. #5
1st downs. #1
Interceptions. #3
Passing yards per game. #3
Rushing yards per game. #5
Passing efficiency. #3
Tackles for loss per game. #5
Total yards per game. #1

National rankings: (P4 only)
3rd down. #18
1st downs. #17
Interceptions. #5
Passing yards per game. #25
Rushing yards per game. #17
Passing efficiency. #18
Tackles for loss per game. #8
Total yards per game. #15

"But Moonman, we're giving up 23 points per game (#35 in the P4)!"

Ok.

Osu* is the #1 scoring defense in the country, but aside from Oregon and Penn St, the average scoring offense of their P4 opponents ranks 106th...and they're .500 when they've faced a top 25 offense.
The average scoring offense of the six P4 teams we've faced ranks 58th (not counting literally the worst P4 team in the country, because they're basically a JV team). If you take away Louisville, who are ranked 15th, our opponents are still ranked on average 67th in scoring. If you include that girls school in the panhandle, it's still 77th...which is a whole 30 spots ahead of osu*s pathetic schedule.

The fact is that we are performing at a top 25 level on defense objectively.

Overall, offense, defense and special teams considered, we are a top 10 team. Period.

Take it easy.
 
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I’ll be honest here, I’m too lazy to get into a discussion of the merits of the different players. What I will say is that every single year I’ve been a part of this community, there has been a vocal group insisting that the young guys were much better than the older guys and we’d be better as soon as those younger, more talented guys hit the field.

I guess my question is, why aren’t we the most talented team in the universe by now?
 
Moonman said:
The D could be better, but to put things in perspective...

ACC rankings:
3rd down. #5
1st downs. #1
Interceptions. #3
Passing yards per game. #3
Rushing yards per game. #5
Passing efficiency. #3
Tackles for loss per game. #5
Total yards per game. #1

National rankings: (P4 only)
3rd down. #18
1st downs. #17
Interceptions. #5
Passing yards per game. #25
Rushing yards per game. #17
Passing efficiency. #18
Tackles for loss per game. #8
Total yards per game. #15

"But Moonman, we're giving up 23 points per game (#35 in the P4)!"

Ok.

Osu* is the #1 scoring defense in the country, but aside from Oregon and Penn St, the average scoring offense of their P4 opponents ranks 106th...and they're .500 when they've faced a top 25 offense.
The average scoring offense of the six P4 teams we've faced ranks 58th (not counting literally the worst P4 team in the country, because they're basically a JV team). If you take away Louisville, who are ranked 15th, our opponents are still ranked on average 67th in scoring. If you include that girls school in the panhandle, it's still 77th...which is a whole 30 spots ahead of osu*s pathetic schedule.

The fact is that we are performing at a top 25 level on defense objectively.

Overall, offense, defense and special teams considered, we are a top 10 team. Period.

Take it easy.
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But like not really though. I mean, you see the 60 yd end runs right? The 40 yd screens? Giving up 4th and 20?

Maybe the overall numbers aren’t that bad, but his D just does basic things really badly. We aren’t getting torched by good teams, we’re letting every team we play score more than their average.
 
Moonman said:
The D could be better, but to put things in perspective...

ACC rankings:
3rd down. #5
1st downs. #1
Interceptions. #3
Passing yards per game. #3
Rushing yards per game. #5
Passing efficiency. #3
Tackles for loss per game. #5
Total yards per game. #1

National rankings: (P4 only)
3rd down. #18
1st downs. #17
Interceptions. #5
Passing yards per game. #25
Rushing yards per game. #17
Passing efficiency. #18
Tackles for loss per game. #8
Total yards per game. #15

"But Moonman, we're giving up 23 points per game (#35 in the P4)!"

Ok.

Osu* is the #1 scoring defense in the country, but aside from Oregon and Penn St, the average scoring offense of their P4 opponents ranks 106th...and they're .500 when they've faced a top 25 offense.
The average scoring offense of the six P4 teams we've faced ranks 58th (not counting literally the worst P4 team in the country, because they're basically a JV team). If you take away Louisville, who are ranked 15th, our opponents are still ranked on average 67th in scoring. If you include that girls school in the panhandle, it's still 77th...which is a whole 30 spots ahead of osu*s pathetic schedule.

The fact is that we are performing at a top 25 level on defense objectively.

Overall, offense, defense and special teams considered, we are a top 10 team. Period.

Take it easy.
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This is the epitome of making stats fit whatever narrative you want. I actually need you to cite your sources here.

This is also what watching the box score looks like instead of watching the game.

Talk about being delusional
 
kryptonite said:
But like not really though. I mean, you see the 60 yd end runs right? The 40 yd screens? Giving up 4th and 20?

Maybe the overall numbers aren’t that bad, but his D just does basic things really badly. We aren’t getting torched by good teams, we’re letting every team we play score more than their average.
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We give up 4 or 5 big plays per game. The majority of the rest of the game we stop opposing the team's offense.

VT had 3 60+ yard drives on 11 possessions.

Cal had 5 big plays on 12 drives.

Fsu is not worth a mention.

Duke had 5 60+ drives on 15 possessions.

GT had 4 60+ drives on 11 possessions.

Louisville was the outlier. They moved the ball consistently all game, but they also have a top 15 offense.

Again, for perspective, the #1 (total yardage) defense in the country (Texas) gives up approximately 65 fewer yards per game on average. That's equivalent to one drive. When you compare strength of record, Texas has played one team that ranks in the top 20 on offense (Arkansas), and they got smoked by Uga. The rest of their P4 schedule is has offenses ranked an average of 101st on offense. Our opponents have been better on offense. That's just a fact.

Again, I'm not content with giving up a bunch of points and yards. We need to be better, but it's all relative.
 
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JamesQuall said:
This is the epitome of making stats fit whatever narrative you want. I actually need you to cite your sources here.

This is also what watching the box score looks like instead of watching the game.

Talk about being delusional
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Look it up yourself. We did this already James. I posted my sources, you ignored them and replied with nonsense. Not doing this again with you.
 
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gogeta4 said:
Sam Brown has cost himself off head 2 tds by not running full speed to the end zone for whatever reasons. lol

Dude has gotten tackle at the 1 or 2 yard lines twice when i thouhgt they were for sure tds.
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Sam Brown should return to college for another year so he can set the record for most times tackled at the one. Good lord
 
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