2019 ooc

Miami fans want us on the schedule too, but for a different reason.

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This is make or break year for D’Onofrio. With the talent he has we should expect way fewer yards allowed passing and ppg < 20. More aggressive play.

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i think its moreso because they hate coach D’Onofrio.

Yards passing allowed has very little to do with evaluating a good defense in the real world. It’s for people that just view box scores. Lack of big plays allowed, red zone scoring, forced turnovers, all are more important. If a team spends 3 minutes off the clock going from 20 to 20 and then gets sacked on third and long to force a long field goal or punt, that is a defensive victory.

The only real kink in the bend but don’t break defense, is if the offense doesn’t pull it’s own weight, the defense begins to break. Also, we have plenty of talent on the defensive line, but I’m not sold on our LB and CB depth. It’s going to be a patchwork defense for the first few games with several transfers stepping in.

You can bet Sumlin knows this and will be planning different looks they won’t be showing against BYU to test our communication.

This reminds me of the game versus Texas Tech last season. Our defense played great except a few huge plays (and our offense played poorly).

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Exactly. 6 of their 13 first half points came after our 4 first half turnovers. Unfortunately our second half started with INT, punt, punt, punt, punt. Anyone that looks at only the boxscore, sees Texas Tech with 500 yards and 3 big plays and comes to the conclusion, our defensive scheme cost us the game, hasn’t watched enough football.

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I was imprecise. I want to see our secondary shut down the dink and dunk passes that teams used last year because we gave them 5 or 6 free yards. We have the people to do that by playing tight man to man. And I agree Sumlin will have definitely have some special UH looks to give us. Will be a very good gage of our defense.

No I know what you meant. You want to take away the long game, the short game and everything in between. If you are Alabama and you are two deep with future NFL players at every position, you can attempt to do that. If you are Houston and you are playing Rice, you can afford to do that. If you are Houston and you are playing teams with athletes at the same level as your athletes, you can’t shut down the dink and dunk without paying for it dearly on the scoreboard.

The best thing about the dink and dunk is so many things can go wrong and you have to get it right 10 out of 12 times just to get into field goal range. A receiver slips, drops the ball, an errant throw, pass batted down at the line, etc happening just two times in three downs eventually happens almost every drive. Once in a while, when the opposing offense gets too comfortable, you disguise a coverage and let your safety jump the pass and turn it into a pick 6.

Now on the other hand, if you allow the dink and dunks and then every third and long, your coverage plays soft enough for an uncontested 8 yard reception just beyond the marker, you are bending too much. You can’t play the bend but don’t break defense and also allow teams to bail themselves out every time they fail to move the ball on 1st and 2nd down. It seems like under D’Onofrio, the third and long prevent defense was happening too often.

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Teams, the better passing teams at least, got it right a bunch last year and I don’t recall us jumping any short sideline routes last year. Seems like, according to you, the best defense against the dink and dunk is for the offense to screw up. That’s no defensive game plan if you ask me.

And what is wrong with wanting to shut down everything? You don’t need 2-deep NFL talent to do that unless you are playing against NFL talent every week. And who’s to say our secondary won’t be in the NFL? I’m not saying we don’t give up a big play, it happens. But you don’t concede anything short, long, or mid-range!

I think this will come down to how aggressive D’Onofrio wants to be with blitzes. We have the talent on the DL this year to free up Big Ed more often. If teams choose to double him, they should pay dearly for it with Chambers and other good depth along the DL. If the ball is coming out quicker because the pass rush is better, that SHOULD mean the corners can play tighter man to man coverage and maybe be able to jump the hot reads. I’m even more in favor of this knowing we have Anderson at safety to help out over the top.

10 out of 12 times is over 80% completion percentage. No one does that. So if an incomplete for any reason is an offensive screw up, it’s not exactly rare even in the best offenses.

Actually, they didn’t. The teams that scored on our defense did so after making halftime adjustments. The didn’t dink and dunk us into submission.
Texas Tech, Tulsa and Memphis had a combined ONE TD drive of more than 1 yard in their first halves. In the second half of those games, they were hardly dink and dunk drives. For example, Tulsa’s only TD drive of more than 5 plays was when they were running out the clock and didn’t throw a single pass. The Memphis second half included 7 completions over 20 yards, a kickoff return TD, a pass interference, a personal foul and an unsportsman like conduct. There is no evidence that playing 5 to 8 yards off the line of scrimmage caused any of our second half defensive problems. I challenge you to find a single sustained TD drive last year in which the majority of plays were completions of 0-8 passing yards.

In our five losses, our offense had 7 INTs and 8 fumbles. One being a pick six and another a fumble six. Three more resulting in TD drives of less than 10 yards. That takes a toll on a defense mentally and mistakes happen.

Even with the mistakes, our defensive passing efficiency ranked 44th. Our third down conversion defense ranked 72nd however. Our fourth down conversion defense ranked 111th. Our opponents got a remarkable 14 first downs on 22 attempts. All of this should point to that our problem isn’t giving up too many short passing plays on first and second down right?

I don’t know the statistics (and don’t have time to look it up right now), but it felt like teams converted 3rd downs at will on us last year. And the majority of the time it felt like those conversions came on short passes just past the sticks while our DBs were lined up beyond the sticks and their first steps were backwards. The actual stats may destroy my feel, but that’s what it felt like to me and I think that’s where @section230rocks is coming from.

It might have felt like that, but it wasn’t what happened. For example just taking a glance at Fresno State, only one 3rd down was completed on a short pass. Two were completed on longer passes and a couple were runs. Against Tulsa, not a single 3rd and short was converted on a pass play. However there was a third and 13 that was converted. Against Memphis, they converted two 3rd and short on short pass plays. So obviously it does happen sometimes. When you see the defense playing that way all game in wins, it’s not a problem but still gets logged into the memory. Then when they finally give up a couple of 3rd and short, it just verifies what you were waiting to happen all season.

Fair enough. Just further proof that we each create our own realities based on what sticks in our minds from our experiences.

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If I had a chance to ask one question about our defense to Applewhite it would be about halftime adjustments. There is an alarming difference in our defensive numbers in the first and second half in most of the games. So all I would ask is “were our opponents making great halftime adjustments against us or were we changing our defensive philosophy for the second half of those games?”

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So do you have a job? I don’t have time to analyze each game play by play, but I guess you do. Kudos, and I’ll shut up. I still don’t like the way our corners lined up last year.

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we do not make half time adjustment on offense or defense. That is the reason we look so bad in the second half of most of our games.

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Let’s go!

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For the record, points allowed by the defense per quarter in our 5 losses. (I didn’t count a kick return TD or the 3 TDs allowed after turnovers where the defense took over inside it’s own 10 yard line)

1st: 6
2nd: 30
3rd: 38
4th: 55

Also our offense had 15 turnovers in our 5 losses, 9 of which came in the second half. The rest is a debate of correlation and causation. Did offensive turnovers put more pressure on the defense causing them to make more mistakes or did the defense allowing more points put more pressure on the offense cause them to make more mistakes?

I hope it was the offense, since we changed that.

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Word on the street is that we’re bringing in PVA&M next year for that last OOC game.