The defense is hopeless...

[Larry]

...but **** it if the offense can't help'em out a little bit.

Miami has lost the time of possession battle in every single game of the season. On average, the 'Canes lose that battle by well over 10 minutes per game. The Notre Dame game, Miami's defense was on the field for nearly 20 minutes longer than Notre Dame's defense.

Run the ball a little bit more. Try and control the clock. Keep that swiss cheese defense off the **** field.

Miami's offense has been all or nothing this year...and while you got some guys putting together monster plays, which is fine, its putting our defense in a position to fail even moreso. They already lack talent, the coaching is what it is, and they asked to be on the field most of the game to boot.

Can't change the coaching, can't change the personnel, but the O could give these boys a little breather here and there. Duke Johnson, Mike James, and Eduardo Clements should have more than 142 combined carries. James and Duke are averaging 11 and 10 rushes per game respectively. Clements averaging a little over 2 rushes per game. Give these guys the ball more.

 

[McGahee2TheHouse]

Totally agree with you. While our offense was really boring last year, the slow pace really did help us out on defense (we never got blown out of any game if I remember correctly). No way can we afford to be putting such a ****** defense on the field so quickly. Our offense is the definition of feast or famine. Definitely was a factor in killing us on Saturday.

My question is why haven't the coaches adjusted and changed this, especially when it worked well last year?

 

[breakingbryan]

Controlling the ball would certainly help. And executing the offense would certainly help achieve controlling the ball. I think if we were consistent the gameplan would work.

We throw an abundance of screen passes, passes to RB's, dump offs, short underneath routes. I think the idea is to establish a rhythm and control the ball, but it doesn't work when you have a dropped pass or whiffed block or ball in the dirt every 3rd play. Not sure what else you can do to correct that besides run up the middle each time, and that only gets you so far, especially with our suspect run blocking on those plays. I honestly think execution is the problem on Offense, nothing wrong with the gameplan.

 

[McGahee2TheHouse]

Is our run blocking suspect because they actually can't block or is it because we throw the ball 1000 times a game and when we do run, they aren't in any sort of rhythm? I feel like you aren't going to have a good, consistent running game when you throw mostly and randomly sprinkle in a run or two.

 

[Canesfan1899]

I agree with you, would love to see us feature the running game more, but I don't want to lose the big plays either.

 

[JHallCanes]

Larry, teams tried daring us to beat them through the air. Now that we have shown we are capable we will see how the defenses pick their poison.

I agree we should be running the ball better but at the same time we have won a couple of games we probably shouldn't have by attacking what they gave us so its hard for me to complain.

 

[sniffin94]

we almost lost the NC State game due to **** poor clock management in the 3rd and fourth quarter. Up 7 points with the ball and we had drives taking less than a minute off the clock.

 

[canes1977]

The ONLY way we beat a decent team is if we make it a shootout. We are atop the ACC standings with the worst defense in the Country. Fisch needs to keep doing what he is doing and hope the Defense gets turnovers here and there because they arent stopping a sole regardless of how much time they are on the field.

 

[JHallCanes]

The ONLY way we beat a decent team is if we make it a shootout. We are atop the ACC standings with the worst defense in the Country. Fisch needs to keep doing what he is doing and hope the Defense gets turnovers here and there because they arent stopping a sole regardless of how much time they are on the field.

I mostly agree with this but you have to admit that with such a young group on D, the longer they are on the field, the worse it gets. I really do worry about them wearing down as a whole as the year goes on as well, and making games like UVA, Duke, and USF much more interesting than they should.

I just don't know that we have much choice.

 

[miami_yak]

This looks to me like we are going to this defense all year no matter what so these guys get as many reps in it as possible. I feel that Golden knew it was going to be a long year on defense but was going to take the short term losses for long term gain. I am trying to take the long term look as well but man is it painful. I'd rather see us man up and and release the hounds because I think we have the speed for this but also because it is easier to these young uns to stick their men wherever they go on the field than play a zone; a whole lot less thinking involved. I hope we see improvement by the end of the year and definitely next year.

 

[AlexCane]

Fisch has been adamant about running 70+ plays on offense, as opposed to the 60-62 they ran on average last year. I like up-tempo and the aggressiveness, but not sure it fits with the overall picture right now.

 

[McGahee2TheHouse]

Fisch has been adamant about running 70+ plays on offense, as opposed to the 60-62 they ran on average last year. I like up-tempo and the aggressiveness, but not sure it fits with the overall picture right now.

I don't think it does either. While it has helped us win games, it has helped us lose them too. Double-edged sword.

 

[tcgrad1014]

Fisch has been adamant about running 70+ plays on offense, as opposed to the 60-62 they ran on average last year. I like up-tempo and the aggressiveness, but not sure it fits with the overall picture right now.

I don't think it does either. While it has helped us win games, it has helped us lose them too. Double-edged sword.

But the fast paced offense hasn't caused us to lose any games this year. The 2 games we've lost would have been losses regardless of what kind of offense we ran.

 

[Canesfan1899]

The ONLY way we beat a decent team is if we make it a shootout. We are atop the ACC standings with the worst defense in the Country. Fisch needs to keep doing what he is doing and hope the Defense gets turnovers here and there because they arent stopping a sole regardless of how much time they are on the field.

I mostly agree with this but you have to admit that with such a young group on D, the longer they are on the field, the worse it gets. I really do worry about them wearing down as a whole as the year goes on as well, and making games like UVA, Duke, and USF much more interesting than they should.

I just don't know that we have much choice.

I don't think we do have a choice. The offense wants to push the pace of the game to wear out opposing defenses. The huge downside of that is when you go 3 and out you aren't taking any time off the clock and putting a weak defense back on the field.

I would like to see Fisch start to use a little more ball control to help the defense, but at the same time have enjoyed how aggressive the offense has been. It would be nice to see our defense play with a little aggression. It's not like it could get much worse.

 

[McGahee2TheHouse]

Fisch has been adamant about running 70+ plays on offense, as opposed to the 60-62 they ran on average last year. I like up-tempo and the aggressiveness, but not sure it fits with the overall picture right now.

I don't think it does either. While it has helped us win games, it has helped us lose them too. Double-edged sword.

But the fast paced offense hasn't caused us to lose any games this year. The 2 games we've lost would have been losses regardless of what kind of offense we ran.

I never said anything about causation. I said HELPED. You don't think our inability to sustain drives and keep the one of the worst defenses in CFB off the field didn't aid our demise in those two games? Okay....

 

[jevoasis]

Here is where having a DECENT TE would make a world of difference. With the development of the WRs and some solid RB play, the TEs should be open in the middle of the field for 7-9 yds almost every play...unfortunately, our TEs can't catch worth a ****, and its basically as if we just don't have any and can't work the middle of the field efficiently.

 

[DeadPoets]

We'd be 1-5 if we "controlled the ball" more.

The main reason Jedd installed hurry-up in off-season was because he wasn't getting enough plays in per game (his words).

He wants the ball more & in better field position... but if it ain't gonna happen then he's going to run up-tempo. I got no problem with it.

 

[tcgrad1014]

Fisch has been adamant about running 70+ plays on offense, as opposed to the 60-62 they ran on average last year. I like up-tempo and the aggressiveness, but not sure it fits with the overall picture right now.

I don't think it does either. While it has helped us win games, it has helped us lose them too. Double-edged sword.

But the fast paced offense hasn't caused us to lose any games this year. The 2 games we've lost would have been losses regardless of what kind of offense we ran.

I never said anything about causation. I said HELPED. You don't think our inability to sustain drives and keep the one of the worst defenses in CFB off the field didn't aid our demise in those two games? Okay....

Aided in our demise? If we lost those games by one possession, and our defense ran out of gas on the last drive of the 4th quarter because they were on the field too long, I could see your point. But we lost by a combined score of something like 100-20. We were steamrolled. And we couldn't run the ball against K State or ND anyway, so ball control wasn't even an option. We were headed behind the wood shed regardless of what Fisch did.

 

[sniffin94]

Fisch has been adamant about running 70+ plays on offense, as opposed to the 60-62 they ran on average last year. I like up-tempo and the aggressiveness, but not sure it fits with the overall picture right now.

I don't think it does either. While it has helped us win games, it has helped us lose them too. Double-edged sword.

But the fast paced offense hasn't caused us to lose any games this year. The 2 games we've lost would have been losses regardless of what kind of offense we ran.

I never said anything about causation. I said HELPED. You don't think our inability to sustain drives and keep the one of the worst defenses in CFB off the field didn't aid our demise in those two games? Okay....

Aided in our demise? If we lost those games by one possession, and our defense ran out of gas on the last drive of the 4th quarter because they were on the field too long, I could see your point. But we lost by a combined score of something like 100-20. We were steamrolled. And we couldn't run the ball against K State or ND anyway, so ball control wasn't even an option. We were headed behind the wood shed regardless of what Fisch did.

There are times when clock management and a slower style is needed. We got lucky as **** in the nc state game. With the deflected td and the final play, both were extremely lucky. We needed to use more clock in the fourth quarter specifically in that game because we were playing with a lead. Without the luck, it would have been a disaster. There is no reason Morris should have been sbnapping the ball with 28 seconds left up 7 with the ball in the 4th quarter.

 

[McGahee2TheHouse]

Fisch has been adamant about running 70+ plays on offense, as opposed to the 60-62 they ran on average last year. I like up-tempo and the aggressiveness, but not sure it fits with the overall picture right now.

I don't think it does either. While it has helped us win games, it has helped us lose them too. Double-edged sword.

But the fast paced offense hasn't caused us to lose any games this year. The 2 games we've lost would have been losses regardless of what kind of offense we ran.

I never said anything about causation. I said HELPED. You don't think our inability to sustain drives and keep the one of the worst defenses in CFB off the field didn't aid our demise in those two games? Okay....

Aided in our demise? If we lost those games by one possession, and our defense ran out of gas on the last drive of the 4th quarter because they were on the field too long, I could see your point. But we lost by a combined score of something like 100-20. We were steamrolled. And we couldn't run the ball against K State or ND anyway, so ball control wasn't even an option. We were headed behind the wood shed regardless of what Fisch did.

Dude, trust me. I am the first one to realize that our problems lie largely with our defense. But to ignore the fact that our offensive style doesn't exasperate the problem is just asinine. How many times did we run the ball in those two losses?