This was a really good defensive result. But its really telling how good our defense can be when honestly I felt like we didn't even really play all that well. Like I think we can improve a **** load from this performance, and we held them to 6 points and for the most part, shut their offense down when it mattered.
I'm still completely annoyed af with the amount of playing time Charles Perry, Darrion Owens, and Mike Smith are getting. There is nothing any of you can tell me that will get me to change my mind on this. They play way too much. And it wasn't our Lbs getting tired and/or getting caught in the hurryup and not being able to sub starters back in. Diaz is just purposefully playing the backup LBs for entire series, and its ******* terrible. They didn't play nearly as bad as they did vs Toledo, but its such a clear step down from the starters that its infuriating. And I much rather have Bandy on the field and run nickel than have any of those backup LBs on the field. At this point its a major concern for me, because they will **** up when we play better teams like FSU, VTech, etc.
And again, Diaz keeps trying to do too much with his blitzes. We were getting really good pressure with just our 4 man front imo. And yet Diaz continued running crazy blitzes and having the De's drop into the flats quite often. I'm really not a fan of just how often Diaz has been doing this. At some point he needs to just realize the DL is our biggest strength and we have the best DL coach in the nation....let them get it done. And just sprinkly the crazy pressures in.
Our Passing Defense was really solid today, but Duke really isn't a good passing team. There is no question in my mind Malek Young is our best CB. But he seriously needs to get his head around. Thats going to be the difference in him getting called for DPI's and getting interceptions. Dean played well in his limited snaps, and I'd like to see him get more opportunities. Still doesn't seem like we are letting our DBs jam at the LOS. Delaney wasn't picked on today so thats an improvement. I was impressed with Redwine today, he played really well and had a tough job being that we were running base defense when they had 3WRs on the field, and he was often responsible for guarding the slot WR from 10 yards off the ball.
Offensively, Richt ******* sucked calling plays in the 2nd and 3rd quarter. Like holy **** he was terrible. Literally all Duke was doing was blitzing every ******* play and he couldn't adjust for ****. like seriously, it took him ******* 2 quarters of crap offense for him to call a **** slant, and I think he only ran a screen to Walton like once!. Thats just unacceptable play calling in those 2 quarters and the kind of **** that will single-handedly lose us games vs better teams. Secondly he absolutely refused to go under center. The RPO outside handoff to Walton was clearly NOT working at all, but he kept chugging away at it for no gain. Like seriously we couldn't go singleback more often? I really don't get Richts playcalling sometimes...he calls like a perfect 1st quarter then follows it up with absolute trash the next two.
And most importantly the OL just got wooped on. In the passing game they had a tough task because from the 2nd quarter on, Duke was basically blitzing heavily every play, but they need to step it up. The run game was absolute **** and they couldn't push the Duke DL whatsoever. It seemed like they blocked better when we went undercenter, but Richt refused to run unless it was in Shotgun. I said it all Offseason, but the OL is the most critical unit for this team. IF they pay like they did today, we will lose some games this season. If they play well, then defenses are really going to struggle stopping our offense.
