Our defense is bizarre

[Rellyrell]

But at this point in the season, everyone has played the cupcakes and has gotten deep into conference play.

There’s a couple of differences however:

1. We’re one of the few that’s played a FCS opponent, plus a weak G5 schedule, &

2. After we played UF, we were 51st in Total Def, then we climbed up the ranks becoming a Top 10 Def after facing FAMU, Ball State, & USF, then we slid down out of the top 20 facing VT, Cal, Illinois, then we played FCS FSU which put us back in the top 15, and then Duke slid us back out.

Here’s my point:

Let’s be clear, we haven’t faced a QB worth a **** this season.

Here’s the O’s we’ve faced:

-UF (69th)
-FAMU (FCS - 59th)
-BSU (110th)
-USF (90th)
-VT (73rd)
-Cal (76th)
-UL (18th)
-FSU (132nd)
-Duke (105th)

UL makes sense why the Def struggled, but these other teams? Nah. It appears any QB w/ a semblance of a pulse tend to get us; ****, even in the FAMU game they were moving it a bit b4 the talent gap dominated them. The reason being too much pressure is put on the DL to get home & create havoc. If they don’t, that back end is sus af.

The objective fans were worried about the secondary from the jump, but I won’t rehash that.

Another thing I see r the teams we’ve played get away from what’s working in the 2nd half if they have a lead. They play not to lose vs. going for kill shots.

-Against VT, Pry gifted us 6 extra point by squib kicking to end the half giving us great field position for a FG, & not padding the lead w/ a FG when he was up 2 scores.

-Against Cal, Wilcox subbed out a hot QB deep in the RZ, stalling a TD drive, losing 4 points

-Against UL, English started to play soft on Cam, allowing Cam to catch fire & eventually will us to victory

-Against Duke, Manny did what Manny does. The slants, slips, screens were working, yet they made Murphy into something he’s not, a deep ball thrower killing his confidence as he was getting picked off.

All in all, Cam deserves the Heisman b/c bro has covered over a lot of flaws, including the defense. How many come backs have we’ve seen from him this season? Anyways, this off season we need to recruit/portal secondary & DT like crazy b/c it’s a real issue.

 

[SSCanes]

By bizarre you mean horrible?

 

[OrangeBowlMagic]

Looking forward to this! Side note, but curious if in this breakdown you might add how many Defensive stops are required at min. per game. Do we need 4 / 5 maybe?? If not part of your breakdown all good, was just curious what the stats state here. Thanks!

That depends on what our offense does but yeah it’s a valid discussion. We don’t need to shut teams out. But at some point in games, we have to get stops. Obviously.

 

[bobbydigius]

Our schedule isn’t tough outside of UL and we continue to let these middling teams score 30 plus on us every game. We are a dumpster fire on defense. Filter out the ACC defensive stats just in conference and it isn’t pretty relative to our talent on paper.

 

[Pennmed Canefan]

I’m not sure we struggle in drop zone. We don’t play it and we assume we must be bad because we don’t try. But we need to because we are getting killed by same concepts playing what we play.

We did well with it last game though Duke not a great test.

 

[S.CarolinaCane]

I'm sure other people will use more colorful adjectives to describe it LOL

The stats do not match the eye test.

On paper, we look like an average/above average defense.

Total defense: 310.7 ypg (19th)
Scoring defense: 22.6 ppg (52nd)
Rush defense: 95.2 ypg (8th)
Pass defense: 215.4 ypg (63rd)
Pass efficiency defense: 113.1 rating (18th)
Yards per play: 5.0 (37th)
3rd down defense: 30.1% (12th)
Takeaways: 15 (31st)
Sacks: 27 (11th)

Some of the those metrics are even elite.

But it's no surprise that the problem is we give up way too many explosives.

Scrimmage plays over 40 yards: 10 (90th)
Scrimmage plays over 50 yards: 7 (112th)

And while we're really good on 3rd down, we often have to stop teams four times.

4th down defense: 57.9% (83rd)

We've also faced the 30th most 4th downs (19; the leader has faced 27), so teams are going for it a lot in order to keep pace with our offense.

We all know what the problems are. The question is are there any big fixes this late in the season?

Jadais Richard going down hurts. Hopefully Damari Brown can come back before the ACCCG. Getting competent nickel play would make a world of difference with OJ emerging as a solid outside corner.

Porter needs to go back to his natural position outside.

Patterson seems to be earning minutes at SS. He gets knock-back when he's in the game, which is refreshing when other guys are getting carried for 3-4 yards.

Did Kiko put on weight this offseason? He looks sluggish this year. Might need to limit his snaps.

We dropped 8 a few times, and Murphy looked confused. I know we struggle in zone, but we're going to have to mix it in if for no other reason than to make the QB think for a half a click.

Pray to Jobu that Damari Brown can return healthy and settle things down in the secondary.

We limit the explosive plays, and we have as a good a shot as any team to win it all.

The 27 sacks for 11th rank is the one that pops out to me, because I feel like our DL, and pass rush in general, is really lacking through the last 4 or 5 games.

 

[mr.h]

I blame the other team’s offenses.

 

[S.CarolinaCane]

I'm sure other people will use more colorful adjectives to describe it LOL

The stats do not match the eye test.

On paper, we look like an average/above average defense.

Total defense: 310.7 ypg (19th)
Scoring defense: 22.6 ppg (52nd)
Rush defense: 95.2 ypg (8th)
Pass defense: 215.4 ypg (63rd)
Pass efficiency defense: 113.1 rating (18th)
Yards per play: 5.0 (37th)
3rd down defense: 30.1% (12th)
Takeaways: 15 (31st)
Sacks: 27 (11th)

Some of the those metrics are even elite.

But it's no surprise that the problem is we give up way too many explosives.

Scrimmage plays over 40 yards: 10 (90th)
Scrimmage plays over 50 yards: 7 (112th)

And while we're really good on 3rd down, we often have to stop teams four times.

4th down defense: 57.9% (83rd)

We've also faced the 30th most 4th downs (19; the leader has faced 27), so teams are going for it a lot in order to keep pace with our offense.

We all know what the problems are. The question is are there any big fixes this late in the season?

Jadais Richard going down hurts. Hopefully Damari Brown can come back before the ACCCG. Getting competent nickel play would make a world of difference with OJ emerging as a solid outside corner.

Porter needs to go back to his natural position outside.

Patterson seems to be earning minutes at SS. He gets knock-back when he's in the game, which is refreshing when other guys are getting carried for 3-4 yards.

Did Kiko put on weight this offseason? He looks sluggish this year. Might need to limit his snaps.

We dropped 8 a few times, and Murphy looked confused. I know we struggle in zone, but we're going to have to mix it in if for no other reason than to make the QB think for a half a click.

Pray to Jobu that Damari Brown can return healthy and settle things down in the secondary.

We limit the explosive plays, and we have as a good a shot as any team to win it all.

One more point, we are not playing top end offenses week in and week out. So those stays should honestly be a lot better, when you consider how good the offenses are that we have played.

We're making bad offenses look decent, if not good.

This is a problem.

 

[mcnaire2004]

Disagree.

Guidry was good last year. I just think we have compounding talent issues in the secondary.

We lost three productive players that got drafted, and did not replace them with commensurate talent. Damari's injury didn't help matters, either.

Na, he had a few good games and made some impressive adjustments (3-3-5 comes to mind) but the D was leaky and got cooked plenty.

Last year the secondary got cooked as well and had very little depth.

 

[mcnaire2004]

Stats are important because they put things in context. Our fans don't watch every game from every team, so the eye test is limited.

In this case, the stats support what everyone agrees on- the defense isn't playing anywhere close to good enough to accomplish the team's goals.

Disagree. We agree that stats aren't very good. But they are good enough for the slurpers or armchair analysts to come back later with some clever show of progress.

Did you not have some post this summer that heavily implied because of our defensive line talent that the defense as a whole would be great?

 

[CanesAreAble]

Na, he had a few good games and made some impressive adjustments (3-3-5 comes to mind) but the D was leaky and got cooked plenty.

Last year the secondary got cooked as well and had very little depth.

It's not his fault the cupboard was bare.

I don't think firing Guidry suddenly makes Diyoni Hill and Jaden Harris good in coverage.

 

[mcnaire2004]

It's not his fault the cupboard was bare.

I don't think firing Guidry suddenly makes Diyoni Hill and Jaden Harris good in coverage.

It's someone's fault the cupboard is bare!!

 

[nycane]

subtract plays where hill, Richard, Harris, or kiko botched coverage and see how many big plays we give up.

 

[JHallCanes]

Duke scored 10 in the 2nd half. They took the opening kickoff of the half right down the field and scored. But from that point on, we smothered them.

I’m planning to make a thread this week highlighting the 2nd half performances of both units in the 2nd half of games. It’s pretty staggering.

As I mentioned, Duke got the ball out of the half yesterday, went down, and stuck it in the endzone. And Miami still won the 2nd half 36-10. Wtf.

28-17 with 10 minutes left in the 3rd quarter and the final should have been 60-31 us. 43-3 in 25 minutes against a guy known for his defenses

I said this yesterday but a buddy of mine that roots for another team texted me “Miami ****ed my parlay”

I’m like you clearly haven’t watched us play much. Just wait.

 

[BigWindyCane1]

I don’t know what the standard is, but allowing 10 points in the second half against one of the worst offenses in college football is nothing to feel good about. It’s better than 21 points in the first half, but it is not the standard of excellence that the Canes should strive for.

When Mish Powell plays slot, teams target him as a pass defender and tackler in space just as they targeted DP2 yesterday. I think the coaches are committed to playing DP2 in the slot, and hope that he improves. I think Richard played well recently, and the Canes will miss him. If Damari can come back, that will help a lot but if Damari doesn’t come back against GT or (at the latest) Wake Forest, then I think that they will try to redshirt Damari.

It seems that Guidry has an issue with playing Patterson, but the way Patterson plays when he is in the game, Guidry has no choice but to increase his snaps. I think Stafford and Washington will also see some snaps at corner, and maybe Dylan Day at safety or nickel.

At LB, everyone knows that Kiko is being targeted in the pass game and plays that require him to move down the line of scrimmage laterally. I don’t think this is a result of Kiko declining from last season, I think it is just that opponents are targeting his weaknesses and avoiding his strengths. It is up to Guidry to game plan for that.

Also,the Canes have been victimized by poor defensive communication. That often falls on the MLB and safeties, but I saw at couple of instances at the game were the other defenders just seem to ignore the call or their assignment. That is on the players, but hopefully, can be corrected.

Guidry has 3 more games and a bye week before the ACC-CG, so he has some time to get some of these things straight.

 

[lurker]

I’m not sure we struggle in drop zone. We don’t play it and we assume we must be bad because we don’t try. But we need to because we are getting killed by same concepts playing what we play.

We did well with it last game though Duke not a great test.

Yea we are in man every time the other team scores or makes a big play. I can think of one play where it looked like we were maybe in cover 4 and one of the safeties stupidly dropped down in the box leaving his zone open for a touchdown.

 

[lurker]

I don’t know what the standard is, but allowing 10 points in the second half against one of the worst offenses in college football is nothing to feel good about. It’s better than 21 points in the first half, but it is not the standard of excellence that the Canes should strive for.

When Mish Powell plays slot, teams target him as a pass defender and tackler in space just as they targeted DP2 yesterday. I think the coaches are committed to playing DP2 in the slot, and hope that he improves. I think Richard played well recently, and the Canes will miss him. If Damari can come back, that will help a lot but if Damari doesn’t come back against GT or (at the latest) Wake Forest, then I think that they will try to redshirt Damari.

It seems that Guidry has an issue with playing Patterson, but the way Patterson plays when he is in the game, Guidry has no choice but to increase his snaps. I think Stafford and Washington will also see some snaps at corner, and maybe Dylan Day at safety or nickel.

At LB, everyone knows that Kiko is being targeted in the pass game and plays that require him to move down the line of scrimmage laterally. I don’t think this is a result of Kiko declining from last season, I think it is just that opponents are targeting his weaknesses and avoiding his strengths. It is up to Guidry to game plan for that.

Also,the Canes have been victimized by poor defensive communication. That often falls on the MLB and safeties, but I saw at couple of instances at the game were the other defenders just seem to ignore the call or their assignment. That is on the players, but hopefully, can be corrected.

Guidry has 3 more games and a bye week before the ACC-CG, so he has some time to get some of these things straight.

Yes, the idea that Powell can play the slot is laughable to me. Maybe he can do it in a zone but what have people seen to make them think he can man up on the slot?

 

[305_separatist]

I don’t know what the standard is, but allowing 10 points in the second half against one of the worst offenses in college football is nothing to feel good about. It’s better than 21 points in the first half, but it is not the standard of excellence that the Canes should strive for.

When Mish Powell plays slot, teams target him as a pass defender and tackler in space just as they targeted DP2 yesterday. I think the coaches are committed to playing DP2 in the slot, and hope that he improves. I think Richard played well recently, and the Canes will miss him. If Damari can come back, that will help a lot but if Damari doesn’t come back against GT or (at the latest) Wake Forest, then I think that they will try to redshirt Damari.

It seems that Guidry has an issue with playing Patterson, but the way Patterson plays when he is in the game, Guidry has no choice but to increase his snaps. I think Stafford and Washington will also see some snaps at corner, and maybe Dylan Day at safety or nickel.

At LB, everyone knows that Kiko is being targeted in the pass game and plays that require him to move down the line of scrimmage laterally. I don’t think this is a result of Kiko declining from last season, I think it is just that opponents are targeting his weaknesses and avoiding his strengths. It is up to Guidry to game plan for that.

Also,the Canes have been victimized by poor defensive communication. That often falls on the MLB and safeties, but I saw at couple of instances at the game were the other defenders just seem to ignore the call or their assignment. That is on the players, but hopefully, can be corrected.

Guidry has 3 more games and a bye week before the ACC-CG, so he has some time to get some of these things straight.

We have what we have. Guidry got a pay increase and promotion this year. He delivers on improving this D from *bad* to serviceable, he earns it. If not he should be fired imo. Yes the talent in the secondary seems like the biggest issue but he’s not doing them any favors.

Get the basics right, stop getting overly cute and overthinking game plans, give more burn to the underclassmen before the post season so they can develop more and step up.

 

[JHallCanes]

I don’t know what the standard is, but allowing 10 points in the second half against one of the worst offenses in college football is nothing to feel good about. It’s better than 21 points in the first half, but it is not the standard of excellence that the Canes should strive for.

When Mish Powell plays slot, teams target him as a pass defender and tackler in space just as they targeted DP2 yesterday. I think the coaches are committed to playing DP2 in the slot, and hope that he improves. I think Richard played well recently, and the Canes will miss him. If Damari can come back, that will help a lot but if Damari doesn’t come back against GT or (at the latest) Wake Forest, then I think that they will try to redshirt Damari.

It seems that Guidry has an issue with playing Patterson, but the way Patterson plays when he is in the game, Guidry has no choice but to increase his snaps. I think Stafford and Washington will also see some snaps at corner, and maybe Dylan Day at safety or nickel.

At LB, everyone knows that Kiko is being targeted in the pass game and plays that require him to move down the line of scrimmage laterally. I don’t think this is a result of Kiko declining from last season, I think it is just that opponents are targeting his weaknesses and avoiding his strengths. It is up to Guidry to game plan for that.

Also,the Canes have been victimized by poor defensive communication. That often falls on the MLB and safeties, but I saw at couple of instances at the game were the other defenders just seem to ignore the call or their assignment. That is on the players, but hopefully, can be corrected.

Guidry has 3 more games and a bye week before the ACC-CG, so he has some time to get some of these things straight.

That last part about 3 games left to figure it out

It’s not happening. We will all be better off if we just accept this is how it is

You don’t play 9 games one way and then suddenly change

If we haven’t solved the issues over the last 6-7 months we aren’t gonna solve it before Georgia Tech. We might have a fluky game here or there (Guidry held GT in check last year) but it will only be because **** happens in college

Good news is the defense will let Cam shatter every record imaginable at Miami and probably win him a Heisman so there’s that

 

[Cylo]

I'm sure other people will use more colorful adjectives to describe it LOL

The stats do not match the eye test.

On paper, we look like an average/above average defense.

Total defense: 310.7 ypg (19th)
Scoring defense: 22.6 ppg (52nd)
Rush defense: 95.2 ypg (8th)
Pass defense: 215.4 ypg (63rd)
Pass efficiency defense: 113.1 rating (18th)
Yards per play: 5.0 (37th)
3rd down defense: 30.1% (12th)
Takeaways: 15 (31st)
Sacks: 27 (11th)

Some of the those metrics are even elite.

But it's no surprise that the problem is we give up way too many explosives.

Scrimmage plays over 40 yards: 10 (90th)
Scrimmage plays over 50 yards: 7 (112th)

And while we're really good on 3rd down, we often have to stop teams four times.

4th down defense: 57.9% (83rd)

We've also faced the 30th most 4th downs (19; the leader has faced 27), so teams are going for it a lot in order to keep pace with our offense.

We all know what the problems are. The question is are there any big fixes this late in the season?

Jadais Richard going down hurts. Hopefully Damari Brown can come back before the ACCCG. Getting competent nickel play would make a world of difference with OJ emerging as a solid outside corner.

Porter needs to go back to his natural position outside.

Patterson seems to be earning minutes at SS. He gets knock-back when he's in the game, which is refreshing when other guys are getting carried for 3-4 yards.

Did Kiko put on weight this offseason? He looks sluggish this year. Might need to limit his snaps.

We dropped 8 a few times, and Murphy looked confused. I know we struggle in zone, but we're going to have to mix it in if for no other reason than to make the QB think for a half a click.

Pray to Jobu that Damari Brown can return healthy and settle things down in the secondary.

We limit the explosive plays, and we have as a good a shot as any team to win it all.