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Defensive Improvements we need to see.

As far as RPO's are concerned, it doesn't matter what concept you use to defend the pass, RPO's are still a *****. That's why it's the fastest growing concept in football right now.
 
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brock said:
Another issue is i think we play our Safeties too deep sometimes which allows for a little too much space in the defense. A lot of times the slot receiver for the opposing team could just sit in an open crease of the defense and it would always be there because of the alignment of the safeties or linebackers covering the area
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Isn't that the point of the striker in part...better alignment and athleticism to cover the slot in order to negate those slot pass plays that cost us dearly last season? It's not just a matter of putting a more athletic guy over top of the slot wr, dude actually needs to be aligned pre-snap properly.
 
LuCane said:
The biggest defensive theme for the year is how well we mix and match zone blitz (less, I hope), zone without blitz and man coverages. With our 3rd down DL package, there should be less reliance on "needing" the blitz, but I understand that's Coach Diaz's MO. So, if and when he brings Safeties and LBs, let's hope they're unpredictable and used more sparingly.

Teams are going to continue to quick pass us one way or the other. Why help them?
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Or just don't Blitz at all. Thinking of the FSU game last season, there were instances where if we had just gone to a simple man under 2, the kid wouldn't have completed a pass over 7 yards. Instead, we blitzed and gave him lanes for big plays and even a touchdown to the tight end late in the game. The same to an extent can be said against Pittsburgh.
 
First....fundamentals.

We need to tackle better. That's a mindset above all else. The best defenses (high school, college, NFL) do three things: they swarm to the ball, take good angles, and tackle. To me, the test of good tackling is... does the first guy to the ball carrier bring him down?

With this defense, that hardly ever happens. Watch Alabama play defense sometime - their first guy more often than not brings the ball carrier down. That's coaching. A lot of times, we have a guy in position to make a play, but we give up free yards by not finishing. So instead of 3rd and 11, we end up in 3nd and 4... for example.

Good tackling is a mentality. It's a mindset we need to improve.


Second, we get "dinked and dunked" too much with inside slant routes... and that's mostly scheme IMO. I'm gonna disagree with you guys who are saying we're too aggressive.... we're not aggressive enough IMO. It seems our mentality is to bring pressure with the front 7, and prevent the big play behind that. So our mindset is to go balls out for the TFL, but if we don't get that we're trying not to get beat deep, and we're willing to give up the short stuff.

I don't like that. I think we need to be aggressive at all levels.

When we're playing a team like Wisconsin, we need to just let our athletes prove that they're better than their athletes.... and stop trying to be cute with blitzes and pressure packages. Let our guys jam, reroute receivers, and for god's sake take away the middle of the field. If their slow-*** receivers beat us deep, so be it.

Go re-watch that game, or the Virginia game. Too many times we're giving up leverage on inside slants and quick passing plays in general. We allow too many short screens turn in to long gains. We give up the easy plays by trying to take away the big plays.

Another thing is we need to change up our coverages more often, because Virginia gave Wisconsin the blueprint and we never adjusted. We need to keep them guessing, and put confusion in the mind of opposing quarterbacks who seem to have too easy of a time making reads.

All that being said, I love that we're an attacking defense, and we're night and day better than we were under Golden. Aggression is a mentality that hypes everyone up and makes the whole team better.
 
Coach Macho said:
The gripe that I'm referring to has nothing to do with what happens during RPO's though, it's what we do versus standard pass plays.

How many times are our Linebackers going to stand at 7 yards and stare at the quarterback while receivers run behind them uncontested?

I'm assuming our Linebackers are not taught to get their eyes on receivers. They're taught to eye the quarterback and break on the ball. (which seldom works anymore)

I hate spot-dropping. I think it's prehistoric and too easy to defeat. Some Defensive Coordinators still prefer it however, and I guess they have their reasons. Nobody will ever be able to convince me that it's a better approach. And considering the fact that the best defenses in the NCAA and NFL implement pattern-matching instead of spot-dropping, I stand pretty solid in my opinion.
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“pattern-matching”

Coach for the uninitiated could you please further explain this concept.

Thank you
 
Torocane said:
“pattern-matching”

Coach for the uninitiated could you please further explain this concept.

Thank you
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"There are two schools on teaching zone defense. pattern matching, and spot dropping. Spot dropping is exactly what it sounds like: dropping to a landmark on the field while reading the QB's eyes. It is simpler to teach than pattern matching, which requires a lot of study and practice. Pattern matching is basically a set of rules that help zone defenders play a man within their zone, and on some occasions play a coverage that will not look like the original call."

Rufio's Playbook: Pattern Matching in Zone Defenses
 
"I’ve often described modern offensive football running along the same evolutionary line as the NBA. The spread-option offense has crossover principles to the fun and gun pace and space style we see throughout basketball. As the two sports offenses have begun to mirror each other, so to have the best way to defend them. The NBA employs a variety of matchup zones, and football defenses have implemented pattern-match coverages; a hybrid form of zone and man defense.

Defenders are responsible for their zone, like any traditional zone defense, but they remain close to the receivers who enter those zones and depending upon the route run by a receiver and the structural weakness of a particular zone defense, the defender will transition into man-to-man coverage."

Nick Saban, Kirby Smart, and Pattern-Match Coverages
 
Here's the big secret - at the college level, there's NO SUCH THING as a truly "great" QB.

It takes years in the NFL to learn how to properly read a defense after the snap. That's why rookie QB's rarely ever start - even the highly drafted ones. IMO we should build our defensive philosophy around that reality.

That means mixing up our coverages and creating confusion in the mind of opposing QB's. It means ******** up their reads my doing different things out of the same defensive alignments. We have too many "tendencies" right now... I'd like to see us eliminate those.

Fact is - no defense is 100% sound. Every coverage scheme has weak points that a great QB can exploit. But there isn't a single QB in the college ranks right now who is good enough to do that play after play on a consistent basis... especially under pressure. All they can do is work against our "tendencies" in their pre-game preparation.

If a college defense could figure out how to move the "holes" in the defense around every single play in a totally random way and eliminate all tendencies, that defense would be extremely hard to throw the ball against for a 20 year old QB.

If the same alignment and same offensive play call leads to a big play on one down, and then to a pick on the next... I believe that gets in to the head of a college QB and if you have them second-guessing themselves... and then you've already won the war.
 
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1st play UNC was in Quarter-Quarter-Half (AKA Cover-2)...Bandy was the CB to the half side, responsible for the flats, so He made the play He was supposed to make. The WR motioned, Pinckney shifted, but I agree He looked confused after the snap.

Still don't understand that dum@$$ coverage with McCloud in a walk-away position & Redwine behind em'.
 
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