Former Players Chime in on D'Onofrio

[Big Sky Cane]

“I want to see a lot more blitzing, but if you don’t have that corner who can play man to man on a consistent basis, you can’t do much blitzing. The players are not maximizing their ability, but you have to put that more on the players. The onus is on them.”\

I disagree here. I think Howard and Gunter can play man to man.

Not bashing coaching but I disagreed with that quote too. Our coverage issues are generally, to the naked eye, not associated with the corners. They've been pretty solid, with most of the damage being done underneath against the backers. There have been situations where the corners have blown zone coverages, but have been pretty solid in M2M.

We have left ourselves exposed though in man when we blitz. We generally are not getting home and when that occurs we are getting gashed on the regular.

If we didn't play 10 yards off the receiver, our guys would be able to get on their man faster.

I suppose you want our backers to play "bump-n-run" against WR's in a bunch set too?

No, but put in a CB who can. This is why other teams win against us in a drag route or quick in route. Very few LBs can cover WRs in m2m coverage.

I'd love to see that CB technique.

 

[SmokeyRone]

What did Cuse and everyone else do to shut out Wake Forest's offense? Does Cuse just have that much more talent on D than us? How did D1AA schools stop UNC and VT? More talent?


Duke turned the ball over 5 times at VT, and held VT to 10 points.

 

[moshated305]

Players first, then plays. Talent isn't where it needs to be but the scheme does not put these kids in position to make plays consistently. Trying to run a 3-4 2 gap scheme without the personnel. We basically have different players starting on different defenses. Are we a 3-4 or 4-3? I don't think the staff knows the answer to that question.

 

[LVCanesfan]

Not bashing coaching but I disagreed with that quote too. Our coverage issues are generally, to the naked eye, not associated with the corners. They've been pretty solid, with most of the damage being done underneath against the backers. There have been situations where the corners have blown zone coverages, but have been pretty solid in M2M.

We have left ourselves exposed though in man when we blitz. We generally are not getting home and when that occurs we are getting gashed on the regular.

If we didn't play 10 yards off the receiver, our guys would be able to get on their man faster.

I suppose you want our backers to play "bump-n-run" against WR's in a bunch set too?

No, but put in a CB who can. This is why other teams win against us in a drag route or quick in route. Very few LBs can cover WRs in m2m coverage.

I'd love to see that CB technique.

It's called switching who you are covering (think basketball on a pick play). It's more of man-zone at first then quickly transforms to m2m. You need guys who can react quickly. Do we have the guys to do it. Honestly, I am not sure, because I haven't seen us try it yet. Anything is better than playing 8-10 yards off the ball. I would at least try m-z to m2m before just giving up easy yards.

 

[Big Sky Cane]

If we didn't play 10 yards off the receiver, our guys would be able to get on their man faster.

I suppose you want our backers to play "bump-n-run" against WR's in a bunch set too?

No, but put in a CB who can. This is why other teams win against us in a drag route or quick in route. Very few LBs can cover WRs in m2m coverage.

I'd love to see that CB technique.

It's called switching who you are covering (think basketball on a pick play). It's more of man-zone at first then quickly transforms to m2m. You need guys who can react quickly. Do we have the guys to do it. Honestly, I am not sure, because I haven't seen us try it yet. Anything is better than playing 8-10 yards off the ball. I would at least try m-z to m2m before just giving up easy yards.

I understand that, and Al described the issues with the bunch sets in one of his interviews this week. I was just saying you can't play bump against a slot receiver in a bunch set. That would be a cluster**** of all cluster****s. I didn't say you couldn't play man against it.

 

[SFbayCane]

Duane Starks gets it.

His post game rant on QAM was solid. Dude was totally on-point. We have a high school JV caliber defensive scheme.

 

[NorthEastCane]

"burned out and out of gas" is how I would describe every Cane team in November for 10+ years. For the love of god Swasey has been killing this program forever and somehow he keeps surviving. Al will NEVER beat an elite team with the current joke S and C staff.

Secondly, I HATE the stunts. I'm glad they mentioned that. They are taking already slow guys, asking them to gain weight, and then instead of collapsing the pocket while speedy LBs blitz, they have these slow heavy guys stunt all the time and never come close to creating pressure.

Thirdly our LBs are shamefully bad as a group, and Perryman hasn't gotten any better. He's just slower and stiffer now (our kids aren't able to add strength while maintaining explosiveness, it's one or the other with Swasey)

Our talent sucks in many areas, but it shouldn't be giving up 500+ yards a game in the ACC. That's on the staff, teaching, development, and scheme.

I don't think they're physically burnt out. They look mentally shot. Doing the same thing, expecting different results, getting torched by the 100th rated offense in football has to be trying on you.