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Defensive rankings through 6 games

Cookie917 said:
I think everyone agrees it needs to improve, drastically but your we were 100% or close game 1 is just wrong.

OJ went out the second snap of the game, CB 1 gone.

CB3 (Slime) was already out

O'Connor was not supposed to play, he was hurt, his mom posted about him trying to give it a go but he was forced into action because of OJ and played about half the snaps and I assume its all he could as Damari got way too many.

Out of the 61 defensive snaps X only played half and was hurt on that punt.

So CB1, 2, and 3 were out before half, had TF Dunnigan starting in his first game, O'connor at 50% and Thornton being forced to play coverage and Bryce out of position, all in week 1. Not close to 100%.
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Now question is why is DB gettin so hurt?

I watched Fitzgerald injury against FSU and he tried to tackle boggs and Im like that is softest injury I seen in awhile, what is going on? lol
 
JZCane0825 said:
Total Defense - 7th
Opponents yards per play - 22nd
Opponents total yards per game - 15th
Passing yards per game - 90th
Rushing yards per game - 2nd
Total first downs per game - 15th

The takeaway? Our depleted depth at corner is torpedoing what has otherwise been an elite defense through half a season.
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Not saying it can’t be cleaner, especially with some depth and health back in the secondary.

But in 4 ACC games the average passing attempts per game is 40.5 which is astronomically high. All while giving up 18.5 ppg against ACC opponents.

Numbers through the air will 100% be skewed. 18.5 ppg average on 40.5 attempts per game is not efficient.
 
skyman said:
Now question is why is DB gettin so hurt?

I watched Fitzgerald injury against FSU and he tried to tackle boggs and Im like that is softest injury I seen in awhile, what is going on? lol
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yeah idk if it was a stinger or what cuz he hit em and immediately ran off the field with his arm dangling like he couldnt move it. OJ same thing. X, no clue what happened, it seemed like a hammy when he ran off the field and pulled up but everyone else said forearm, just a weird year injury wise. No idea what O'connors injury was but he seems fine. Slime was rumored a knee and he had those issues in HS, Brown unsure if he is hurt again or just riding pine at this point.

But anyone who thinks losing him and Poysner did not impact that FSU game are fooling themselves, Poysner makes all our checks, the backup person doing that is likely Bryce, instead you had either a TF doing it or Thornton who has been in the system less than 10 months. No bueno.
 
Cookie917 said:
yeah idk if it was a stinger or what cuz he hit em and immediately ran off the field with his arm dangling like he couldnt move it. OJ same thing. X, no clue what happened, it seemed like a hammy when he ran off the field and pulled up but everyone else said forearm, just a weird year injury wise. No idea what O'connors injury was but he seems fine. Slime was rumored a knee and he had those issues in HS, Brown unsure if he is hurt again or just riding pine at this point.

But anyone who thinks losing him and Poysner did not impact that FSU game are fooling themselves, Poysner makes all our checks, the backup person doing that is likely Bryce, instead you had either a TF doing it or Thornton who has been in the system less than 10 months. No bueno.
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I agree with everything you said except...

Who dafuq is POYSNER?! 😂
 
AlexCane said:
What's your point? It's a reality. If Mensah goes down or Mali, will that not affect the offense? It's not like we lost a 4th stringer. It is entirely unreasonable to expect that you lose a starter, and a good one at that, and that it will have no effect on the defense.
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our backup CB's should be better than 90th. Also the time is now, and if the pass D doesn't improve talking about injuries isn't going to make us feel any better after we lose. the pass D must improve now. no more excuses.
 
JZCane0825 said:
Total Defense - 7th
Opponents yards per play - 22nd
Opponents total yards per game - 15th
Passing yards per game - 90th
Rushing yards per game - 2nd
Total first downs per game - 15th

The takeaway? Our depleted depth at corner is torpedoing what has otherwise been an elite defense through half a season.
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Most teams we face are also playing from behind all game. Makes a huge difference. Rush D is not as good as we think and Pass D is not as bad.
 
ShadowSpring said:
what I am saying is it's more than just a returning CB here. teams have been passing on us since drive 1 against Stanford. OJ went out in drive 1 but when do we start to realize it's more than replacing a CB? We have other good CB and our pass D should be better.
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No doubt, 0/1/9 are still problematic in pass defense and of course, everything goes to **** when our DL doesn't get home - which happened quite a bit earlier in the year.
 
flips said:
Health in the secondary is a big issue, but I also think we aren't getting nearly as much pressure from the middle of the defense, which is hurting our pass defense. Moten has the only sack from our DTs this year. Can anyone track the difference between the # of pressures from our interior DL (including the DEs kicked inside on the Nascar package) and inside blitzers this year versus last?
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McGahee2TheHouse said:
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Thanks. I would wager we aren't getting much from the DEs slid inside on 3rd down and long too. And I swear we would occasionally send Jakobe, Wes, or Toure on blitzes in the a or b-gaps last year, but not so much this year. I don't think there has been much of a drop off WRT pressure from the edges from last year. QBs can just step up in the pocket a lot more, and we almost never quickly collapse the pocket from the inside.

Edit: like I know Moten hasn't done much pass rushing, but he's also almost never on the field on 3rd and long. Crazy idea, but maybe our best pass rushing DT should get some 3rd and long snaps going forward?
 
Last edited:
So many factors. Everyone's touched on some. I would also like to mention game script and Poyser's targeting.

Teams know they can't run on us (FSU the first team to run for more than 80 yards against us), so they are stubborn on airing it out. Clemson game is a great example where their passing numbers don't tell the full story. Wake Forest had to throw to come back and we played soft knowing the clock was our friend.

I have to imagine Poyser missing the FSU game played a role in our pass defense's worst game of the season. Dylan Day did not show up well on the rewatch. A young secondary got even younger and communication on the back end is so important.

Get OJ back and let's see what we have. We're not perfect, but no one is
 
ShadowSpring said:
no more excuses. the pass D is crap. time to fix it.
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Wait! I have more excuses!

Guess which team ranks 137th in opponents passing play percentage at 61.25%? If you guessed Miami, you'd be correct.

So if you take a handful of injuries to like 5 of our best 7 defensive backs, toss in a pass rush that isn't as lethal as it was last season and add a pinch of teams pass against us more than anyone else in the country, you'll get a bad passing yards against number.

Context matters my friend!
 
The real number is that we are 56th in the country at 6.26 passing yards per attempt.

Not great, but I think it’s reasonable considering the injuries and how we are playing bend don’t break defense.
 
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