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Run Defense

407cane

407cane

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Offense for all of it's red zone faults may not be our Achilles heel if we can't get some traction in rush defense

Last year we gave up 133 per game with 3.5 Average

This year we've given up 183 per game with 4.3 Average


We did do very well against GT with no threat of passing, but gave up 185 yards to Duke on the ground then 260 to Syracuse and 200 + to FSU.

Considering the schedule looking, definitely my biggest concern for the team right now.

I know the Syracuse game was a ton of qb scrambles and can maybe be atrributed to scheme but after UNC we have VT and Notre Dame who both have mediocre pass offenses and both will be trying to run it down our throats.

If we can stop the run we go undefeated. If not Notre Dame will rush for over 300 on us


What do you guys think ?

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The reason syracuse ran for that much is because we were focusing on their superior passing threat.

Notre Dame is one dimensional, all they know how to do is run it down people's throats. The reason they won versus USC last week is because USC interior DL is injured and they were starting young inexperienced guy. Meanwhile Notre Dame has almost all seniors on their offensive line. It makes a huge difference.

Look at how well we did versus GT's running. I know it's not the same offense as Notre Dame, but we are more than fine at stopping the run when that's the main weapon.
 
Run defense should be fine as long as our linebackers clean up the tackling issue and take gap integrity seriously.
 
I think it's a product of what the offense's strength is. if it's passing, we are taking away the passing game. if it's running, we are focused on stopping the run. I don't think you can look at it like, Syracuse ran all over us. they ran on us b/c we were willing to concede some rushing yards to stop their pass.
 
In each game we gave up a few big runs, but pretty much shut it down when we needed to. Dan is right, Syracuse wasn't beating us running the ball so we focused on shutting their passing game down.
 
407cane said:
Offense for all of it's red zone faults may not be our Achilles heel if we can't get some traction in rush defense

Last year we gave up 133 per game with 3.5 Average

This year we've given up 183 per game with 4.3 Average


We did do very well against GT with no threat of passing, but gave up 185 yards to Duke on the ground then 260 to Syracuse and 200 + to FSU.

Considering the schedule looking, definitely my biggest concern for the team right now.

I know the Syracuse game was a ton of qb scrambles and can maybe be atrributed to scheme but after UNC we have VT and Notre Dame who both have mediocre pass offenses and both will be trying to run it down our throats.

If we can stop the run we go undefeated. If not Notre Dame will rush for over 300 on us


What do you guys think ?

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Click to expand...
We also had 3 losses last year at this point... I favor this year's numbers

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I'm not much for looking at stats unless you compare those stats properly to view them in context. Are the teams we're giving up better rush numbers to better at rushing the ball than the teams we played better run defense against last year? Did we give up more in the passing game last year? What about scoring defense, which is the most important defensive number? Not sure about any of this, so saying we're giving up 0.8 yards more per rush this year than last year isn't really all that telling.

I'm sure that if we can get our tackling cleaned up the rush defense will improve dramatically. We didn't miss tackles last year. Our secondary was probably responsible for cleaning up those rushing numbers with their sure tackling last year.
 
not hard to see when you have an expert football eye like me.


it's the LBs constantly out of gaps.


it's Diaz's coaching


needs an LB corch
 
I think the real difference is that we give up a few BIG runs each game. Our defense stops the majority of runs for short to no yardage. Take the FSU game for example, more than half of their rushing yardage came on three big runs. But it wasn't like the running game was picking up crucial third downs for them. Syracuse wasn't running all over us until then end of the game (after 80 plays) and most of their yards came on big runs by the QB.

We cut down on a few of the big plays and I think you'd look at our rushing defense a lot differently.
 
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Duval904 said:
not hard to see when you have an expert football eye like me.


it's the LBs constantly out of gaps.


it's Diaz's coaching


needs an LB corch
Click to expand...

I don't have an expert football eye, but I agree with you on this. LB play has been pretty bad and it seems like it's mostly due to discipline. They are constantly out of position. Would be nice to see safeties play in the box a little more to help out too. Whatever happened to the safety blitz Manny used last year?
 
dirtyred786 said:
Duval904 said:
not hard to see when you have an expert football eye like me.


it's the LBs constantly out of gaps.


it's Diaz's coaching


needs an LB corch
Click to expand...

I don't have an expert football eye, but I agree with you on this. LB play has been pretty bad and it seems like it's mostly due to discipline. They are constantly out of position. Would be nice to see safeties play in the box a little more to help out too. Whatever happened to the safety blitz Manny used last year?
Click to expand...

sounds like you have the magic eye, Hoyt.
 
Despite the DL having a few issues as well I can't blame them for everything, as I see them playing very hard, and getting a push up front.

The two major issues I see is as follows:

1) Despite how much I love Shaq for his wonderful attitude, and will to work. He has to play better. Lately, it seem's like he's gotten caught up in proving some toughness point OL'men, rather than focusing on getting off of his blocks to make a play... And he's reading run vs pass in slow motion this year.

Solution: Read it quicker, and stuff the OL in the hole to take the running lane away, and/or get off the block quicker, as it only takes 1 second for the RB to get into the secondary.

2) Although our OLB's have made several plays, by dipping inside earlier in the year... They're actually abandoning their outside leverage in doing so, and when it happens enough on film - teams will give a false read to take advantage of those habits.

Solution: Time to get back to being sound on the Outside, especially since Shaq doesn't have the foot speed to get there on outside runs.

407cane said:
Offense for all of it's red zone faults may not be our Achilles heel if we can't get some traction in rush defense

Last year we gave up 133 per game with 3.5 Average

This year we've given up 183 per game with 4.3 Average


We did do very well against GT with no threat of passing, but gave up 185 yards to Duke on the ground then 260 to Syracuse and 200 + to FSU.

Considering the schedule looking, definitely my biggest concern for the team right now.

I know the Syracuse game was a ton of qb scrambles and can maybe be atrributed to scheme but after UNC we have VT and Notre Dame who both have mediocre pass offenses and both will be trying to run it down our throats.

If we can stop the run we go undefeated. If not Notre Dame will rush for over 300 on us


What do you guys think ?

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
 
The Franchise said:
I'm not much for looking at stats unless you compare those stats properly to view them in context. Are the teams we're giving up better rush numbers to better at rushing the ball than the teams we played better run defense against last year? Did we give up more in the passing game last year? What about scoring defense, which is the most important defensive number? Not sure about any of this, so saying we're giving up 0.8 yards more per rush this year than last year isn't really all that telling.

I'm sure that if we can get our tackling cleaned up the rush defense will improve dramatically. We didn't miss tackles last year. Our secondary was probably responsible for cleaning up those rushing numbers with their sure tackling last year.
Click to expand...

Posted this stats look in the other thread:

I think yall are blowing this Run Defense way out of proportion.

Vs Syracuse our defense won as many Run plays as Syracuse won. We allowed 9 Run plays over 10yards (this accounted for 206 of their 264 yards or 78% ). Our Defense held them to 31 Runs of 5 or less yards, 25 of which were for 3 or less, and 9 of which were for no gain or lost yards. Plus we completely took away their Passing game. And one of the ways we did that was getting so much pressure. That pressure was a result of DL stunts and blitzes, which make it incredibly easier on the offense to get big run plays. But still we did very good on 80% of all run plays as we held them to 58 yards on 41 of their rushing attempts. Also some of those 10 plays that they got 206 yards on were the qb scrambles.

And vs GTech sure we gave up 220 yards rushing, but their season average vs the other 4 P5 teams has been 450.25 yards/game. So we literally held them to under half the yardage they've been averaging in the rest of their P5 games. How is that not great run defense?
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I agree our tackling can be improved. The angles some of our players take to the ball when its going outside can be improved also. Last thing would probably be the overpursuit of our DL at times, but Imo thats not too bad since its clearly a result of us trying to get so much pressure in the pass game - so I think its a fine tradeoff.
But honestly, If Only Zach McCloud improved in the run game, I think our defense would be improved a lot. Pinkney is playing at an extremely high level. Shaq if playing very good, missed a few plays, but I am not worried about him stepping his play up at all. The weak link in this run d has been the SLB. McCloud has just not played well. He's gotta step it for VTech and ND.
 
Eh, the only game where I was really upset at the run defense was Florida State. The were literally lining up in the I and gouging our defense for big gains. Syracuse QB scrambles could have been limited a bit better but the priority was playing man coverage and rushing the passer so that stuff will occasionally happen.

Tackling could stand to improve but I'm not panicking about the run defense too much.
 
Like I said before and now Richt has said it. We're doing to many twist and stunts which is getting our DL especially our DT trap blocked which is opening holes on running plays. Like the zone blitzing, we need to cool down on the stunts and twist rushes and do those more on obvious passing situations.

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VT's run offense is a big concern for them right now. They can't run in-between the tackles. Let them try and run it down our throats
 
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Hey I agree with you all I'm just saying it's definitely up for discussion. 185 yards to Duke is eh.. then 200 to FSU and 250 to Syracuse is a lot.

Like I said some schematics for sure but ranked 11th in the ACC is concerning because Notre Dame is running all over everyone not named Georgia

I'm sure we can pull it together but definitely room for improvement

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OP you're right to be concerned. These guys are trying to explain away horrible Run D.


ND is going to murk us in the run game. they may not need to pass
 
We may want to consider kicking McIntosh out to DE against Notre Dame.

DE Thomas
DT Molten
DT Norton
DE McIntosh
 
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