Halftime adjustments

[Ibis4life]

From what I read it had most to do with how to line up to defend their new formations and unbalanced line. I think that is true because they quit trying to run it so much pretty quickly. As for defending the option, as I recall traditionally it is the DT's and MLB who defend the middle dive, the OLB's who have the QB and the CB's and Safeties who have the pitch guy.

 

[Gatorhater]

donofrio said that in the first half GT was doing some stuff they hadn't done for the last two years. at halftime, he drew up a response, got the defense to understand it, and then after the half shut it down.

I don't watch a lot of Tech, but how do you interpret that? I can see a couple plays here and there and that stupid diamond read option may have been new but Tech is Tech they've been running the same **** since Johnson's been around. I find it hard to believe that they were holding back losing a home game to vt then unleashed a new O against us.

It's clear that we played a better game in the second half and nobody would dispute that. What I would dispute is that we were playing a disciplined, prepared defensive game in the first half but were only getting riddled because they unveiled a bunch of new stuff. We just needed to get our **** together because we weren't playing well defensively. I did not anticipate them hanging 30 on us and they really shouldn't have plus or minus that stupid formation they unearthed.

They had two good drives on us with about a 30 second scoring drive by our O in between. Not easy to play D back to back like that. Then the O coughs up the ball again. Two fumbles and two interceptions, and I think they scored on one of them. It was not the stop them dead D we wanted but after those 1st 17 points, the D shut them down. This team was built to win the whole game, not just the first half.

 

[Pennmed Canefan]

donofrio said that in the first half GT was doing some stuff they hadn't done for the last two years. at halftime, he drew up a response, got the defense to understand it, and then after the half shut it down.

I don't watch a lot of Tech, but how do you interpret that? I can see a couple plays here and there and that stupid diamond read option may have been new but Tech is Tech they've been running the same **** since Johnson's been around. I find it hard to believe that they were holding back losing a home game to vt then unleashed a new O against us.

It's clear that we played a better game in the second half and nobody would dispute that. What I would dispute is that we were playing a disciplined, prepared defensive game in the first half but were only getting riddled because they unveiled a bunch of new stuff. We just needed to get our **** together because we weren't playing well defensively. I did not anticipate them hanging 30 on us and they really shouldn't have plus or minus that stupid formation they unearthed.

They had two good drives on us with about a 30 second scoring drive by our O in between. Not easy to play D back to back like that. Then the O coughs up the ball again. Two fumbles and two interceptions, and I think they scored on one of them. It was not the stop them dead D we wanted but after those 1st 17 points, the D shut them down. This team was built to win the whole game, not just the first half.

So the problem is that our offense scored too fast and not that our defense couldn't get off the field? And when Tech put up 17 in a hurry your thought was "it's cool because we're built to win the whole game." Sounds like jargon.

I'm happy we won this game, but it's a matter of philosophy. If you're happy we don't stink anymore, you're probably ecstatic because we've lost these types of games many times. If you want the team to be really good, you realize that really good defenses are going to crush this sorry offense and not talk about how they had to draw up a bunch of crap at halftime because Tech supposedly reinvented themselves. I personally would not have predicted that this offense could've scored more than 17 points on a good defense.

VTech dominated them on the road. We should've done the same at home.

 

[KANE]

What D'onofrio was talking about Tech was doing things that they havent done in two years, was their blocking schemes. Paul Johnson is the master of changing his blocking schemes. To the naked eye, running an option offense looks like, well running an option. It all looks the same. The difference Saturday was the blocking schemes. Tech used at least 4 different option schemes in the game. They used the triple option, trap (freeze) option, load option and the middle (midline) option. All of them look similar, but the difference is who the QB is reading on each particular play. Then they used the diamond stuff, which as a defense, screws up your fit angles. PJ changed his blocking schemes within those plays to confuse the **** out of our DL. What he did different on the triple was who he had his TE, slot guys blocking. I was screaming for us to go with the 5 man line (in a 3-4 defense, the olb's just walk up to the end of the line outside of the last man on the OL, making it essentially a 5-2 defense, therefore making it easier to set the edge and simpler to get the guy ur responsible for). That was one of our adjustments in the 2nd half. When we started to make them think about who they had to block, I knew we had them. We also started bringing LB's and the occasional Safety into the area to take care of their assignments.

 

[sebastian91]

donofrio said that in the first half GT was doing some stuff they hadn't done for the last two years. at halftime, he drew up a response, got the defense to understand it, and then after the half shut it down.

I don't watch a lot of Tech, but how do you interpret that? I can see a couple plays here and there and that stupid diamond read option may have been new but Tech is Tech they've been running the same **** since Johnson's been around. I find it hard to believe that they were holding back losing a home game to vt then unleashed a new O against us.

It's clear that we played a better game in the second half and nobody would dispute that. What I would dispute is that we were playing a disciplined, prepared defensive game in the first half but were only getting riddled because they unveiled a bunch of new stuff. We just needed to get our **** together because we weren't playing well defensively. I did not anticipate them hanging 30 on us and they really shouldn't have plus or minus that stupid formation they unearthed.

They had two good drives on us with about a 30 second scoring drive by our O in between. Not easy to play D back to back like that. Then the O coughs up the ball again. Two fumbles and two interceptions, and I think they scored on one of them. It was not the stop them dead D we wanted but after those 1st 17 points, the D shut them down. This team was built to win the whole game, not just the first half.

So the problem is that our offense scored too fast and not that our defense couldn't get off the field? And when Tech put up 17 in a hurry your thought was "it's cool because we're built to win the whole game." Sounds like jargon.

I'm happy we won this game, but it's a matter of philosophy. If you're happy we don't stink anymore, you're probably ecstatic because we've lost these types of games many times. If you want the team to be really good, you realize that really good defenses are going to crush this sorry offense and not talk about how they had to draw up a bunch of crap at halftime because Tech supposedly reinvented themselves. I personally would not have predicted that this offense could've scored more than 17 points on a good defense.

VTech dominated them on the road. We should've done the same at home.

It was both. When the offense wasn't turning the ball over in the first Q, it scored on two plays in 30 seconds. No one said anything about drawing up "a bunch of crap" or GT reinventing themselves either. You're spewing that out of your ****. As stated by AG, it was an adjustment in the down 4, and they couldn't implement the adjustment earlier because they were on the field the whole time. It was a negative feedback loop. There's also a very good chance that VT's defense is a lot better than ours.

 

[Dynasty]

It appeared as though we were using the defensive ends to take away the fullback dive early on and that opened up the pitchman to turn the corner on the perimeter. There were two issues I thought we needed to address. The first being we were slow playing the quarterback with the outside linebacker. Instead of straight attacking the quarterback with force the outside 'backer was hesitating which allowed the quarterback a better read and pitch momentum. The second was that we were playing a lot of sky force coverage with the safeties. They were either getting caught up by the receivers blocking them prior to reaching the alley or they were taking bad angles.

In the second half coach D used a little more cloud coverage where the corners became primary force. I actually thought this adjustment was the right call but wondered whether or not AJHighsmith and KCRodgers would be able to cover the deep halves. The other adjustment coach D made was changing the responsibilities of the DE's. The DE's forced the pitch. I don't think it was a coincidence that the fullback started finding daylight after coach D made that adjustment. JMO.

 

[GoldenShowertheGators]

Pennmed is being an idiot. Not a single mention about a reinvented GT offense. Just wrinkles and a new formation we did not prepare for. Instead of *****ing about how our D, that was the worst in school history 8 months ago, did not hold GT to -50 yards and 0 points, how about recognizing that this game is evidence they're leaps and bounds better than they were last year and that game changing adjustments can be made an executed. Maybe your workload is too much in med school buddy but don't **** on this win bc of it.

 

[HurricaneVision]

I can honestly understand where Pennmed is coming from, and having high expectations is what the Cane legacy was built on, but it's also ok to give a little credit.

1. they did adjust and play much, much better in the second half.

2. Miami had four turnovers on offense/special teams and put the defense in bad position.

3. Georgia Tech is one dimensional, but that offense is not easy to prepare for based on uniqueness (even for a triple option offense).

4. Miami is now ranked 15th overall in total defense, 12th in total yards per play allowed, 12th in scoring defense (while allowing two meaningless TD's late in games), 73rd in rushing defense (a decent 3.98 ypc), 2nd in passing defense (7th in yards per attempt, so it's pretty legit).

Think about the putrid showing from last year's defense and the improvements are borderline insane.

 

[jakeman1]

I haven't seen anyone comment on Jenkins' INT. They baited the QB into that throw, knowing he was going to go to his favorite receiver. Jenkins was watching the guy the entire time.

 

[whoopingcane]

Take out the meaningless/questionable 54 yard final drive and UM outgains them 551 to 347. That's pretty dominant against a team that averaged 440+ ypg last year and 425+ so far this year. They got 273 against VT.

Stop that opening 75 yard drive and it's a complete blowout and the D is comparable to vaunted (lulz) VT.

 

[Pennmed Canefan]

Maybe you guys had different expectations of this game than me. There is no doubt that we've made a lot of improvement on D but we're talking about gt which is a different animal than most offenses. If you are talented and physically sturdy (I think we are), then you should crush this offense if you play disciplined. They have no plan b.

This sounds a little revisionist to me. If I had said before the game that I expect GT to run for 300 yards and put up 17 points in 25 minutes, I doubt many wouldve said "yeah probably right." Now it's all ifs and buts and "without x and y."

Again, I'm glad we won, but I'm not revising my opinion that solid defenses should squash this team in home games and I think they will no matter what tweaks Johnson has to his high school attack. We should've done the same we just didn't play well overall and especially in the first half obviously.

 

[Bigtip]

I agree that we sucked for the first 25 minutes or so on defense.

we have dominated this offense in the past and probably should have saturday. we did dominate them in the 3rd and 4th quarters though and i believe we went on something like a 38-6 run.

could we have played better? yeah. we still won by 2 TDs (really should be 3 considering the late garbage TD, which i was very surprised that the kept calling timeouts. thought that was kind of a **** you from PJ)

 

[LuCane]

It appeared as though we were using the defensive ends to take away the fullback dive early on and that opened up the pitchman to turn the corner on the perimeter. There were two issues I thought we needed to address. The first being we were slow playing the quarterback with the outside linebacker. Instead of straight attacking the quarterback with force the outside 'backer was hesitating which allowed the quarterback a better read and pitch momentum. The second was that we were playing a lot of sky force coverage with the safeties. They were either getting caught up by the receivers blocking them prior to reaching the alley or they were taking bad angles.

In the second half coach D used a little more cloud coverage where the corners became primary force. I actually thought this adjustment was the right call but wondered whether or not AJHighsmith and KCRodgers would be able to cover the deep halves. The other adjustment coach D made was changing the responsibilities of the DE's. The DE's forced the pitch. I don't think it was a coincidence that the fullback started finding daylight after coach D made that adjustment. JMO.

If you take it a step deeper into why those were issues, I think we're looking at a consistent problem we've seen pop up and will probably continue to see pop up: we allow the offense to mostly dictate. After watching what had worked against GT earlier in the season, I was surprised we didn't attack the A and B gaps more w/ our LBs.

I'd have to re-watch the game for just this, but it seemed Perryman and crew were playing very far back. Perryman made a lot of tackles. However, they were after things had washed out and were coming like 8-10 yards downfield. Was surprised when we didn't sprinkle in some gap exchange/blitzes from the LBs/DEs. It's the way to address the spread-option, but it'd have also helped us out. I don't think this is a tactical issue. It's a philosophical decision.

More often than not, I think we're going to setup to allow offenses to self-destruct. If we come up on an offense that's clicking or an O-Coordinator who stays one step ahead of our D, then we're just gonna get into a track meet and have to outscore 'em. At least we won a game we would have lost the past few years.

 

[GoldenShowertheGators]

We also played this O much better than last year, even with our D taking the first 20 minutes off.

 

[rsa coral gables]

from my untrained, uneducated eye, it seems that in the second half the DEs were running straight up the field to force the QB or RB to run inside. sometimes that pressure came from the corner back or a safety also. you see this in the number of plays that chickillo was running after the QB or the RB a few yards behind the LOS.

i was pleased with our defensive performance.

 

[sebastian91]

Maybe you guys had different expectations of this game than me. There is no doubt that we've made a lot of improvement on D but we're talking about gt which is a different animal than most offenses. If you are talented and physically sturdy (I think we are), then you should crush this offense if you play disciplined. They have no plan b.

This sounds a little revisionist to me. If I had said before the game that I expect GT to run for 300 yards and put up 17 points in 25 minutes, I doubt many wouldve said "yeah probably right." Now it's all ifs and buts and "without x and y."

Again, I'm glad we won, but I'm not revising my opinion that solid defenses should squash this team in home games and I think they will no matter what tweaks Johnson has to his high school attack. We should've done the same we just didn't play well overall and especially in the first half obviously.

So, in your opinion, the offense turning the ball over early had nothing to do with the defensive struggles in the first quarter? I don't understand why you won't just address the point of the thread. You keep spewing about your expectations and how GT is one dimensional, but you've never said anything relevant to the thread, nor have you given any meaningful analysis to support your (irrelevant) position. The circumstances leading to this thread have been provided to you (UM coaches say GT had a wrinkle, they had to adjust, but couldn't quickly because the O kept turning the ball over). If you want to refute what they say, then go for it, but at least come with something better than "solid defenses should squash this team at home". That's weak *****.

 

[whoopingcane]

Penn Meds

Look at offensive output against decent FBS opponents this year and last.

2012 VT 288
2012 CU 483
2012 NC 588
2012 GA 379
2012 FSU 301
2013 USC 369
2013 VT 273
2013 UM 401

Avg 386

They get yards not matter what defense they play. They got some lucky scores off of turnovers and an opening drive. The D played very well apart from the opening drive and when the 3rd string was in.

Change your tune.

 

[Dynasty]

It appeared as though we were using the defensive ends to take away the fullback dive early on and that opened up the pitchman to turn the corner on the perimeter. There were two issues I thought we needed to address. The first being we were slow playing the quarterback with the outside linebacker. Instead of straight attacking the quarterback with force the outside 'backer was hesitating which allowed the quarterback a better read and pitch momentum. The second was that we were playing a lot of sky force coverage with the safeties. They were either getting caught up by the receivers blocking them prior to reaching the alley or they were taking bad angles.

In the second half coach D used a little more cloud coverage where the corners became primary force. I actually thought this adjustment was the right call but wondered whether or not AJHighsmith and KCRodgers would be able to cover the deep halves. The other adjustment coach D made was changing the responsibilities of the DE's. The DE's forced the pitch. I don't think it was a coincidence that the fullback started finding daylight after coach D made that adjustment. JMO.

If you take it a step deeper into why those were issues, I think we're looking at a consistent problem we've seen pop up and will probably continue to see pop up: we allow the offense to mostly dictate. After watching what had worked against GT earlier in the season, I was surprised we didn't attack the A and B gaps more w/ our LBs.

I'd have to re-watch the game for just this, but it seemed Perryman and crew were playing very far back. Perryman made a lot of tackles. However, they were after things had washed out and were coming like 8-10 yards downfield. Was surprised when we didn't sprinkle in some gap exchange/blitzes from the LBs/DEs. It's the way to address the spread-option, but it'd have also helped us out. I don't think this is a tactical issue. It's a philosophical decision.

More often than not, I think we're going to setup to allow offenses to self-destruct. If we come up on an offense that's clicking or an O-Coordinator who stays one step ahead of our D, then we're just gonna get into a track meet and have to outscore 'em. At least we won a game we would have lost the past few years.

I completely agree that it is a philosophical decision by this staff. The decision is basically whether the philosophy is going to be read and react or attacking and dictating on the defensive side of the ball. When a defense is constantly reacting to what an offense is trying to execute there is often hesitation and indecision. Granted that's not always the case because experience plays an important factor. I'm of the belief that as the underclassmen gain more experience in coach D's scheme they will play faster as a unit. Nothing takes the place of game reps I don't care how much simulation a defense gets from the scout team. Live action is where true experience is gained. And game planning for the spread option is in itself a unique animal.

I think you have to take a closer look at how other teams where defending GT earlier this season. From a philosophical standpoint, GT faced mostly one gap, penetrating fronts. That's the difference, IMO. Although I couldn't tell if Miami was playing an over or a solid front, I thought back to the Jimmy Johnson 4-3 over-slide front that he used to smash OU's wishbone. The key was to defend the 'bone inside, out. Miami stuff the fullback dive with the DT's and MLB. Without going into details, you know the techniques the DT's and MLB played upfront. And, although Miami's MLBers have historically received major praise for being able to play sideline to sideline, their success was fundamentally grounded in the fact that they were able to help anchor the interior gaps. The tackle to tackle gaps. That's actually the main responsibility for the MLB in the 4-3 over front. Anything else is gravy and just adds juice. By controlling the interior gaps with penetrating DT's and an anchoring MLB it allowed the entire defense to play fast and downhill. The result...destruction.

 

[UMFarArcher]

I only got to watch the game live once, but it seemed GT was getting outside and turning the corner on us quite well.

I have no idea what adjustment was made, but whatever it was, they didn't get outside and turn the corner on us anymore.

We kept them bottled up pretty much inside the hash marks.

 

[JimmyJohnsonsHair]

Remember when UVA scored 50 points against our defense running the same pass to the tight end play all game long? Let's be happy we have a coaching staff that is actually capable of making adjustments.