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Blake Baker

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jerive31 said:
North Carolina averaged 193 yards rushing per game in 2018, 238 against South Carolina last week, 97 against us. Maybe you don't consider that "taking away", but holding a team to 50% of their usual production in any area is a good thing to me. It's not the only thing, naturally, but perhaps this is just comes down to a matter of perspective.
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21 carries for 106 yards from top two rushers and 10 for 76 from their top guy with a long of 22yrds. That's not stopping their run.
 
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We are allowing 10.5 yards per pass attempt, which is tied for 126th in the nation along with Akron.

The good news is that we are superior to Massachusetts (10.6), Florida Atlantic (10.7) and last place Buffalo (12.0)

Good thing we aren't Buffalo

The defense was guaranteed to regress, whether Diaz returned as coordinator or not. The sad aspect is that we wasted two excellent defensive seasons in 2017 and 2018. Early in the offseason I posted that we would be at least a half yard worse in defensive yards per play this season, and probably more than that. Allowing only 4.3 yards per play last season was fantastic, following the 4.77 from 2017. We were 12th nationally in 2017 and 3rd nationally in 2018.

We didn't surrender huge pass plays the past two seasons. In looking at all the situational stats, the biggest change I see is that we are incredibly vulnerable when the opponent is backed up on its own end, specifically inside their 40 yard line. Last season we feasted in that situation. We allowed only 4 pass plays beyond 25 yards while managing 6 interceptions and 0 touchdown passes allowed. This season we have already allowed more 25+ passes in that scenario (5) than all last season. We have surrendered 2 touchdowns with an equal 2 interceptions.

Of course, one of those long touchdowns was the catch and barrel against Florida after the fake punt, but once you start making adjustments and rationalizations you are losing already. We didn't miss all those tackles in the secondary last season.

I suggest we find superior players. Defensive tackles who get in the quarterback's face shorten plays and cleanse everything around them. I don't want to be hearing about the next Jon Ford type. Hyping the mediocrities gets old after all the ferocious interior guys this program has enjoyed. The '70s were tolerable and enjoyable largely because we had dependable allotment of beasts at defensive tackle throughout the decade. That why we pulled some of those upsets and nearly shocked Oklahoma twice.
 
Manny needed to realize his defense was not good enough last year and hire someone better than him as DC. He did not and first and biggest fail as HC. He did a Al Golden pride thing. Had JJ brought his wishbone with him from OKS he would have destroyed the program. But he was a HC and saw Howard’s offense was superior. Manny though his defense was the best — it looked good compared to horrible offense. Unfortunately Manny is a nole so he will not quit for the sake of the program.
 
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RC26 said:
Gotta give credit where it’s due. He ran that RPO very well and with pressure in his face. That kid is going to be goood.
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easy to do when the defensive playcalling is trash
 
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DemCanesByke said:
Manny and co are the only defensive coaches that I thin blitz too much. 3 and anything longer than 7 they are going to blitz
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If Baker & the defensive coaches would pull their heads out of their a@@es, they would play Rousseau & Hill over Patchan. They would also let Garvin get after it. That way they could get significant pressure from the base defense and not have to blitz as much. They aren't using their best assets and it's killing them. Yes, Patchan is a senior but he isn't elite at this level. He's certainly not even a good pass rushing threat. He's basically an experienced JAG at this level. The personnel decisions & game plan (for the UF game at minimum) have taken a defensive line that could be wreaking absolute havoc and turned it into something pretty average/passive. That is hugely disappointing.

On offense & defense, let's stop being so conservative & trying to avoid mistakes. Let's be aggressive & get after it. It can't get much worse than 0-2 so let's air it out on Offense, bring in Lingard as RB1 (we need elite speed at that position) & get after it on defense. Play Rousseau & Hill more!!
 
caneworld said:
Not to worry...it is just the norm.... we have a penchant to make every rookie or second string QB look like the second coming of Joe Montana.. they soon fade out after that.
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No, it’s not. But you keep believing.
 
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jerive31 said:
It's not an excuse so much as its pointing out what we have to address. The gameplan against Florida was great, IMO, because we took away their strength and dared them to beat us with their weakness. As has been discussed plenty on this board already, if we make any of about 7 plays in that game, we win. Against North Carolina, I'll cede that we appeared to underestimate Howell as a QB, but we still took away their running game, so the plan worked somewhat. It could have been better. We made adjustments in the 2nd Q, didn't make them in the 4th. That's on coaching, sure.

But what isn't on coaching, yet, are the poor attempts at tackling. If we're at Week 10 and it's still a problem, I'll point to coaching then. Most of these guys who played last year were great at tackling then but aren't this year. Is that only on coaching?
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Well said. I think a big issue was we DID underestimate Howell as a QB. That coupled with mistakes by young guys caused a lot of our problems. This game was UNC’s Notre Dame game and they had all the emotional momentum.
 
Diaz took the next step when he eliminated delayed safety blitzes and learned what sticks defense was.
We should not have to be teaching another DC the same thing.
And why are we spying everyone like they’re mike Vick? Be aggressive and oh idk STICKS DEFENSE in 4th and a whole field? Fire that *******
 
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