When several players who showed promise (in other schemes) start looking like complete JAG's week after week that's coaching. That's scheme. That means you have guys out of position.
Who showed promise in other schemes? These players are not "regressing," they were never good to begin with. You all just hype these kids up based on "insiders" from Greentree or some ridiculous game you play on paper.
I have heard this SCHEME bull**** every year since we lost to Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl. Randy was to vanilla. Whipple to was to risky. 2 gap, 1 gap. The common denominator is our talent level has sucked for years. I don't give two ***** who will or is playing in the NFL.
But if the NFL is your guide, we haven't had a 1st round pick in 5 years.
On Defense here are the players drafted in the top 4 rounds:
2nd Round - Brandon Harris
3rd Round - Allen Bailey, O Vernon, Spence, DVD
4th round - Colin McCarthy, Daryl Sharpton
Brandon Harris, Spence, and DVD are not in the league.
Allen Baily has 20 career tackles and 2 sacks.
Vernon and McCarthy are the only 2 doing anything.
Sharpton is average. Hasn't had more than 35 tackles in season.
We had 2 ******* players drafted last year..Mike James and Brandon McGee in the 6th and 5th round.
We sure as **** won't have any defensive players drafted this year unless perryman comes out although he is probably a 4th rounder.
The two defensive players with the most NFL talent on the team on defense are Bush, who has been hurt all year, and AQM, who has a shot to be a 1st rounder one day.
How is that talent?
Last 3 years NFL Drafts Top 4 rounds-Defense
North Carolina = 7
Florida St = 5
Georgia Tech = 4
Clemson = 6
UVA = 2
BC = 1
NC St = 1
Miami = Big Fat ******* Zero
Any if you look at any moc drafts for 2014 and 2015, GT has two LB projected as 1/2 picks. FSU has 6. Clemson has 2.
MIAMI = 000000000000
But the lack of elite talent is only problem #1.
The biggest problem is the drop off from our so called NFl talent to guys like Highsmith, Green, Renfrow, Cain, Porter, Robinson, Rodgers, Cornelius, Gaines. These guys are undraftable 2/3 star recruits who we all hold in such high regard yet it is debateable if they would even be on the two on ALL of our major conference opponents.
You can't scheme your way out of that. Sorry Coach. Go back to the drawing board with your tired talking points.
This team's best players are freshman and sophomores. The cupboard was left empty when Shannon left and we are still haunted by his last two defensive classes. Golden has done a good but not great job of recruiting defense so he takes some of the blame but time will tell is Jenkins, Howard, Bush, AQM, Figs, Grace, Burns, Hamilton, McCord become impact players as the mature.
So after that ramble...here are the real problems.
1. We have a bifurcated team. Our best athletes are true freshman and sophomores and our most experienced guys are barely BCS level talent. If you are a coach, as I was for many years as a volunteer, you will clearly understand the difficulty of putting together a gameplan with your older guys not being athletic enough to execute and your younger guys not experienced enough to eliminate mental errors. You can't implement 2 systems so you are asking AJ Highsmith and Deon Bush to accomplish the same strategic goals. That is not a good spot to be in. The complaint was we were playing to much zone and now we are playing a bunch of man coverage and we are getting smoked on the ground. That is the downside of man coverage. It is very dangerous when you have a front 7 like ours. The good old blitz....who are you going to blitz? Gaines? Highsmith? They are to slow to put any pressure on the QB. If you blitz perryman, you now are putting Gaines or Cornelius in potential bad match ups as they are mismatch against just about every position player other than the Center. You want to disguise and get exotic, it can be complex for the young guys and they will make mental errors or you can have a slow and unathletic Highsmith get out of position because he can't get to his spot. We can't get pressure on the QB with our front 4 so you we are forced to send 5 or 6 which leaves huge holes in the defense in zone, or bad matchups with LBs and Safeties on RB and TE. See FSU game and Eric Ebron. To make matters worse, our blitzes arent effective because our players aren't atheltic enough to get pessure and not one DL commands a Double team so the protection can easily slide and go man up on the rushers.
2. I just ran through every game since and took out FAu and Savannah St. Our offense in 100 series has had only 43% of the drives last over 2 minutes and 25% were less than 3 minutes. That is the downside of our inconsistent QB and our boom or bust offense. Add in the turnovers and quite frankly, our defense is tired. If you know what the **** you are talking about, it is clear that our defense is worn out. The guys named above take the most snaps. The freshman are hitting walls. It is fatigue that leads to missed tackles and blown assignments in crunch time, and that is exactly what is happening in the last 3 games.
It is a pipe dream if you think that a change in scheme would do anything for our defense. They are untalented and beaten down. Add in that our offense is missing its 3 most explosive players in Duke, Dorsett and now Coley....you end up losing to DUKE.
I am tired of hearing your scheme BS. Our DL slants and stunts half the game so your 1 gap vs 2 gap argument is garbage. But you KNOW WHAT THE **** YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT....SO CARRY ON.
