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Upon Further Review- Louisville

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Lance Roffers said:
It was the way we schemed for the game to not let Louisville get deep, rush with only four, and force the QB to make good decisions. I’m the first half it worked great.

Second half, Louisville adjusted and I wouldn’t say I liked the way we played their adjustments.
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I appreciate the explanation. Can you clarify — “Second half, Louisville adjusted and I wouldn’t say I liked the way we played their adjustments”. You didn’t like Baker’s response schematically, you didn’t like the way our CBs played, or both?

Ivey was just so bad in the UAB game that I was expecting UL to go right at him. Of course we had Bolden on Atwell a lot which also surprised me. So I’m trying to understand if Baker devised a scheme that took the pressure off Ivey (and Couch to a lesser extent) or if UL didn’t exploit our weaknesses or if Ivey and the other CBs actually held up well in the first half? And then what happened that caused the breakdown in the second half?
 
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I love reading these. As an Australian, who didn’t grow up with the sport, these insights are awesome. I fancy myself as knowledgeable for an Australian, which means most of your grandmothers know more than me...but...

why are our linebackers taught to fit the run so poorly. It can’t be consistent mental errors. There has been no indication that this is going to improve over the years. Surely gap integrity is something that get worked on all the time.
 
mirasuegui said:
announcers kept mentioning all the chirping for both teams, but to be honest don't know how the defensive line kept their cool with all the holding and cheap shot at the knees :
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Quite frankly, this point is probably the best attribute i saw from the team. No one on the defensive line even made a gesture of disgust, they just kept playing
 
John77 said:
Cam’Ron Harris- His night was cut short when he landed awkwardly in the end zone, but before that he showed off speed I didn’t know he had by hitting 22.0 mph on his long run. That was the top speed registered by a RB this season thus far and will undoubtedly make him some money with the folks in NFL scouting circles who saw him more as a bruiser at the RB position.

Wow! That type of speed is no joke, had no idea he was that fast.

Lance - do you know how this is measured, is it by a third party source?
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Yes sir, they measure it through a third party service. It's essentially a GPS monitoring system that players wear.

Manny said their GPS metrics had him at 23.0 mph, which is insanely fast. I don't know that I believe that, as Matt Breida was the fastest RB in the NFL last year at 22.3 mph. The year prior, he led all NFL RB's at 22.09 mph.

The standard deviation on that has to be something like 0.8 mph, so to be an entire standard deviation ahead of the fastest RB in the entire NFL would surprise me, but the 22.0 is legit.



“Cam’s work in the weight room has allowed him to maintain his speed throughout the course of a [long] run.”

On his 75-yard run on Saturday, “he would have been pushed out of bounds three quarters of the way last year. He hit 23 mph on our GPS” on that run.
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Southern Oz said:
I love reading these. As an Australian, who didn’t grow up with the sport, these insights are awesome. I fancy myself as knowledgeable for an Australian, which means most of your grandmothers know more than me...but...

why are our linebackers taught to fit the run so poorly. It can’t be consistent mental errors. There has been no indication that this is going to improve over the years. Surely gap integrity is something that get worked on all the time.
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Our LB's are not taught that way, it's the way they are playing them.

Several things go into this:
  1. It's not easy to pick the right gap on a play so early in the play. There is a certain of natural feel that all great LB's have. Some of it comes from experience. Some of it comes from preparation (watching film and understanding tendencies). Some of it comes from instincts for the game.
  2. Players want to make plays. It's a natural tendency to see the RB with the ball and want to go smash him. It's hard to be thinking and playing fast and sometimes the LB's just want to smash, rather than staying back where they are supposed to for that play.
  3. Opponents are on scholarship, too.
  4. LB's read keys and offensive coordinators are so good at disguising the play and doing things schematically that make the keys the LB read off of look like something other than it is.
  5. Play-Action is really hard to handle for a LB. You are responsible for two areas on every play as a LB: your run gap and your pass responsibility (either coverage or pass rush). It's a lot to handle for any player and developing them is key.
  6. I do not think they are extremely well-coached if I'm being honest and some of that is just having a myriad of duties for each coach to handle or limited resources/time with each player. We are in an unprecedented time with lack of practice and on-field time for these players and we are replacing all of the LB's from last year (counting Romeo Finley). I'd expect improvement throughout the year.

That all said, they need to be better. Plain and simple.
 
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grover said:
I appreciate the explanation. Can you clarify — “Second half, Louisville adjusted and I wouldn’t say I liked the way we played their adjustments”. You didn’t like Baker’s response schematically, you didn’t like the way our CBs played, or both?

Ivey was just so bad in the UAB game that I was expecting UL to go right at him. Of course we had Bolden on Atwell a lot which also surprised me. So I’m trying to understand if Baker devised a scheme that took the pressure off Ivey (and Couch to a lesser extent) or if UL didn’t exploit our weaknesses or if Ivey and the other CBs actually held up well in the first half? And then what happened that caused the breakdown in the second half?
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Ivey played fine. He just needs confidence and to find the ball.

Couch was burnt toast in this game and gave up receptions almost every time they attacked him.

On the adjustments, Louisville went to an alignment that put Atwell in the slot to the boundary and used it to their advantage with switch routes, which put Bolden on Atwell in space and a pick route for Bolden to get through.

Pattern-matching is when the defensive backs switch who they are covering mid-route based on the route the receivers are running. It requires communication and has more breakdowns than straight man-coverage does. To do pattern-matching, you need smart defensive backs who communicate and a stable of defensive backs to use in the game.

Alabama runs pattern-matching on basically every third down and long. They also have more than five defensive backs on scholarship and the best defensive backs coach in all of football as their head coach, so that is difficult to replicate.

Basically, I'm saying Louisville adjusted to what Miami did in the first half and I don't like what Miami did in response (practically nothing but keep doing what they were doing). Most likely they did this to prefer a thousand cuts be executed rather than allowing the big play for a TD.
 
Lance Roffers said:
Yes sir, they measure it through a third party service. It's essentially a GPS monitoring system that players wear.

Manny said their GPS metrics had him at 23.0 mph, which is insanely fast. I don't know that I believe that, as Matt Breida was the fastest RB in the NFL last year at 22.3 mph. The year prior, he led all NFL RB's at 22.09 mph.

The standard deviation on that has to be something like 0.8 mph, so to be an entire standard deviation ahead of the fastest RB in the entire NFL would surprise me, but the 22.0 is legit.



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Awesome, appreciate the extremely thorough answer. Really interesting stuff.
 
LuCane said:
One thing I didn't see mentioned on that long Cam Harris run, and half-expected it to be mentioned here:

View attachment 131431

There are multiple pieces to why this big play happened. One of the big reasons was Cam's ability to press the line. It's understated and, for whatever reason, I haven't noticed it mentioned on the board yet. It shows great patience and feel from Cam - attributes he's been bashed for in the past. On this particular play, when Cam pressed the line, it acted as a freakin' vacuum to two defenders.
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Said the same myself while watching the game. He did the same last week. Cam has been impressive - better than I expected thus far.
 
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