A trend on defense that needs to change

Miami04

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Nov 5, 2011
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I brought this up on Twitter a while back because it kept feeling like we started out every game by giving up points. So I did some research. I went back the last two years and looked up how often under Baker the opposing team scored on their opening drive. I did this against only P5 schools.

10 out of 18 games we gave up a first drive score, that is 55% of our games.

That’s an awful figure and even more scary when you throw in that only 3 of those 10 were FG. Which means in 39% of our games we gave up opening drive touchdowns.

we were very bad about making the opposing team settle into a game. I know we need to see a lot of changes but we can’t keep playing from behind week after week. And if we want to take the next step we need to score, stop the other team and score again. Not end up tied.
 
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I swear it felt like we gave up points on the opening drive every game. Even FSU got 3 on their first drive lol
 
every team scripts their first drive (in most cases first few) so it's literally the best a team can do on offense with usually new wrinkles that the defense hasn't seen.

Nationwide I would imagine that the % is a lot higher than that

we definitely had our defensive issues but I'm not sure that this is a reflection or indicator of that
 
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every team scripts their first drive (in most cases first few) so it's literally the best a team can do on offense with usually new wrinkles that the defense hasn't seen.

Nationwide I would imagine that the % is a lot higher than that

we definitely had our defensive issues but I'm not sure that this is a reflection or indicator of that

Like someone above said, it would make more sense to compare this stat to the national average.
 
There is an ugly trend of taking way too long to adjust to what the opponent is doing. Giving up yards and even points on the first possession is somewhat understandable because those drives are often scripted and it’s literally an offense’s best chance to catch a defense off guard. However, it shouldn’t be 21-0 before your DC realizes that Oklahoma State is throwing the ball on almost every down and he should probably give man to man coverage a shot. Part of game day coaching is identifying what’s working and what’s not and shifting your game plan if need be.
 
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Did you compare that with the nationwide average?

I don’t know if there is a place to get that stat but I did the research on my own. So I decided to look at three other random teams. I picked a bad team (Duke) a middle team like us (UNC) and a great team (Clemson)

How often they give up a first drive score:
Duke 40%
UNC 36%
Clemson 27%

So we are giving up a score on the first drive 15% of the time more than one of the worst teams in P5.
 
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