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Corey Heatherman revisited..

Xavier Lucas is playing with one arm - he cant tackle or use his hands. The middle of the field is really bad. We dont get our hands on passes. Guys are wide open. Not sure what happened to Bryce - as he was supposed to be elite Safety and Center fielder.

Watch Indiana play zone, then watch us….the IU DBs are all over every pass, hands on the balls, or right there for quick tackles. Our zone play is bad. Maybe its time we try man press, but again, without OJ, a one armed Lucas, and no Antoine its difficult.

What happened to Damari Brown? At his size and measurables he should have been the one assigned to Jelani Thurman.

The DTs were supposed to be elite and take games over. They show up from time to time - but neither is showing 1st rd pick ability yet with any consistency.

Petrino and Bill have coached a lot of football. They implemented an effective gameplan to use the clock, limit possessions, make us need long drives by keeping everything in front of them.
 
OrangeBowlMagic said:
Film don’t lie.

Neither does the best edge duo we’ve ever had here. It’s the reason I was “down” on the defense all summer. Although I didn’t think it’d be this bad. But a lot of people don’t understand, if you can create constant pressure with 4, calling defense is literally easy. It just is. The secondary is awful but all of this is predicated on not being able to get pressure with 4. 5 and 99 are insanely strong and never get moved off their spots in the run game, but they don’t get a ton of pressure on the middle. And Lightfoot has been good, but the edge group is MILES worse than last year. How could they not be, the two we had last year were literally the best we’ve ever had.

The DL can’t generate enough pressure. He’s not really able to generate it in other ways. We can’t cover anyone with our nickels and backers. And we are poor tacklers. All that adds up to a mediocre defense. Teams know how to attack us and they have the time to do it.

I’m almost inclined to say let’s start playing some odd fronts and get more DBs on the field. If nothing other than getting different looks out there. Sacrifice something in the run game to help these kids cover. Again, yet another team who did **** in the run game, their backs had 21 carries for 68 yards. But it doesn’t matter much if you’re gonna let Billy Edwards get 10 yards every time he throws it.

28/34 for 341 yards is flat embarrassing. Thank god for our offense, I’d bet a QB with those numbers wins about 98% of their games. Give up something in the run game if you have to and just get on the edges. 10 yards a throw to that group is gross. Tight end and backs ate our lunch.
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You’re correct mesi and bain covered up some issues but the dline isn’t the problem here.

If teams got the ball out this fast last year they wouldn’t have been as effective as they were, no pass rush is beating a qb getting the ball out to someone wide open in 2 seconds

This issue showed up at times last year too but the adjustments he made then and the secondary was better. Now the secondary isn’t as good and there is more film out no dline can cover this up.

We saw when the first read wasn’t open the qb looked shook and got sacked them fumbled. The takeaway from this game or this year should not be the dline, it should be heatherman simply gets out schemed because he is relying on too much spot drop zone coverage. This is 2026 that will get picked apart
 
Calinative said:
Crazy idea - what if we didn't start the worst Pass Defending linebacking tandem in the country for 90% of snaps..... lol

Wiley is already done here. They refused to play/develop any other LBs. The DB rotation is idk what is going on. Saw Damari Brown and Ryan Mack outside together so ******* often it was disgusting, but that wasn't all that relevant to this specific game since it was mostly LBs and Poyser+Dunnigan getting picked apart....
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If I was Wiley I'd consider leaving too. Toure at least impacts the game. Chase isn't starting caliber. Injuries have robbed him. Wiley flashed every time he has played at some point you have to let the young man make mistakes because Lord knows we're letting everyone else do it
 
L A M P said:
Any doubts? Was last years success mainly due to elite talent? Is this years failure lack thereof?

Just curious. Not flaming or excusing. I’m conflicted.
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Etheridge is the piece that is missing in all of this. He was not only a great DB coach, but also our defensive passing game coordinator. All of our DB’s have regressed from last season. That is not a coincidence.
 
Steve44 said:
Xavier Lucas is playing with one arm - he cant tackle or use his hands. The middle of the field is really bad. We dont get our hands on passes. Guys are wide open. Not sure what happened to Bryce - as he was supposed to be elite Safety and Center fielder.

Watch Indiana play zone, then watch us….the IU DBs are all over every pass, hands on the balls, or right there for quick tackles. Our zone play is bad. Maybe its time we try man press, but again, without OJ, a one armed Lucas, and no Antoine its difficult.

What happened to Damari Brown? At his size and measurables he should have been the one assigned to Jelani Thurman.

The DTs were supposed to be elite and take games over. They show up from time to time - but neither is showing 1st rd pick ability yet with any consistency.

Petrino and Bill have coached a lot of football. They implemented an effective gameplan to use the clock, limit possessions, make us need long drives by keeping everything in front of them.
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Well said. We stunk it up for the most part last night, but I’ll say this Petrino has his football reputation for a reason and it showed.
Reality is we have a mediocre defense and an amazing offense. We’ll see how far it will take us.
 
Dude only rams a couple coverages and they’re easy as **** to identify pre snap picture. Same is true of the blitzes.

The ultimate problem is you have a photograph of the play pre snap that doesn’t change and both safeties and LBs that are less than useless in coverage and CBs who are 15 yards off the nearest WR. Minor adjust to a heavy blitz look and the other problems are still there.

Manny never married pressure with coverage either. Dude is figured out
 
What I’ll say.. I noticed when the camera pan to him last night something look different.. he didn’t seem to have that same fire and look we are use to seeing. Maybe an over read by me.. but something seemed off
 
TouchMoney26 said:
tackleing wasn't there problem my boy, them catching the ball time after time again with nobody within 8 yards of the wr is the problem
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I said it was one of their problems and it clearly was. 7:55 in the first quarter. Moten missing the clear sack which resulted in the touchdown. Do I think the DBs lining up 10 yards away from the WR was a bigger issue?......YES! Tackling has been an issue all year though, and it was again today.
 
Numb Nuts said:
1. The injuries are a bigger reason than you think losing OJ and Antoine is massive. Now we have to play 27, 0, 2, and 24 WAY more than we should. A defensive backfield of Poyser, Dunnigan, Bryce, Lucas, OJ, and Antoine beats the **** out of 0, 27, 2, and 24.

2. 9 and 1 in coverage is a BIG problem. OC’s are targeting them in the passing game even on “running downs” because it’s easy

3. The missed tackles. 2nd and 8’s are 2nd and 3’s because the first guy on the perimeter isn’t making the play.

^^^^ those are the main issues with the defense
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would you say that because of #1, guys are having to play positions they aren't good at and are not comfortable playing? They truly looked lost many times tonight. I hadn't noticed that as much prior.
 
Tackling is night and day different than last year. Last year opponents’ short passing games was swarmed and punished. This year all our defenders and tackling timid and taking awful angles.
 
OrangeBowlMagic said:
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complete joke. The only thing worse than being passive is being aggressive in a predictable way. We’ve got got. I don’t know how you switch to pattern matching zone in the middle of a season with LBs who can’t cover or get proper depth, but even when we go to something other than this obsessive Cover 3, our guys are flat footed. On one of the few plays a WR made - the crossing TD to Shipp where their QB eluded Moten - we had a Safety stand almost flat footed in the middle of the field while Shipp crossed his face. No anticipation. No angle. No understanding. Teach tape on exactly how not to play Safety. Not quite 2024 missteps and running in the other direction, but absolutely crazy to watch with our current athletes. I’m sick.
 
Numb Nuts said:
Last season our pass rush win % was 40% (4th in the nation)
Going into tonight, we were at 38%.

After 8 games this season we have 24 sacks which will be in the top 10.

After 8 games last season we had 15.

And we are #1 vs the run this year after 8 games. I truly don’t think not having Bain and Mesidor is the issue through 8 games.
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Wow those are shocking stats.
 
drewm3i said:
The DB blitzes on the edge have been awful - unlike Manny, Hetherman never brings pressure up the middle, nor stunts/twists/slants defensive ends into the middle to come free and collapse the pocket on the QB. I hate his defensive scheme - it is truly abysmal. With Manny at DC, we likely boat race FSU and UNC.

The only time this defense works and makes sense is in heavyweight bouts - we should fare okay next week IMO.
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It’s funny we went from me griping about Guidry running way too many games with 3/4two years ago to now saying “ **** , a stunt or twist would be nice here”. Something to throw the OL off with. Some mug blitzes would also help DT’s get home. We’re at the point of desperation , doing the same ole **** isn’t enough. We can’t win with defense this bad. Either adjust scheme or players. What I saw last night rivaled the UNC game in 2020.
 
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