Gibbs and Orlando had much more talent at corner than we have currently. Jackson, HWilson, BWilson are leaps and bounds above what we have out there now.
Winchester is always said to have a ton of talent, but still hasn’t shown it this year. He was passed over as starter this year for a kid that had never played corner before and a former walk-on.
KWill is talented, and did not play today. Instead, we went with a 4th LB most of the time (Godfrey or Anenih) in that role. Could be because our depth isn’t great there with our current injury situation.
Garrett Davis is a safety, we don’t really have a problem at safety except for depth. Guys getting beat consistently are the corners.
Isaiah Johnson has talent, but also makes mistakes as this is his 1st year at the position. Expect him to be really good next year.
Just remember that Orlando’s and Gibbs’ defenses gave up points and yards as well. We were torched by Navy, SMU and Memphis last year and Cincy the year before. During Gibbs tenure, BYU ate us up two years in a row, Cincy got us pretty bad, and the D wasn’t great in either bowl game.
Again, 21-0 is not insurmountable for a good passing offense.
I was glad ECU decided to try to run it a few times. We have been nails in our run D.
But when we are getting torched why can’t we try something different? That’s all.
When we played Penn State in the Ticket City Bowl PSU bragged about their great D and stopping the run. The only run of the first half was the last play of the 2nd quarter. Case had 299 yards passing, and we won handily.
I’m not saying I’m not glad we won. I’m just saying, why can’t we try something different when we are getting torched?
Glad we get a week to heal. See you all in New Orleans.
It’s the defensive coordinator and he should be replaced. The scheme is predictable and just plain ridiculous. Personnel positioning is same as what he had at Miami, just mind boggling.
a bad ECU offense threw 468 yards , Memphis threw 471 yards and Tech 321 yards against UH.
UH may have resolved the quarter back issue , it’s time to advertise the defensive coordinator position.
I really don’t see CMA replacing D’Onofrio after this year and maybe we should see if the defense improves in year 2 under him. Also it’s easier said than done when it comes to replacing coordinators. I have not done much research about any of these guys this is just a list of coordinators that we might have a realistic shot at.
Pete Golding- UTSA (11th in Total Defense)
Orlando Steinauer- Fresno State (15th in total defense)
Vic Koenning-Troy (22nd in total defense)
Scott Hazelton- Wyoming (23rd in total defense)
Chuck Heater- Marshall (24th in total defense)
Notes:
Mark D’onofrio- Houston (92nd in total defense).
-Every person on this list is scheduled to make less money than D’onofrio this year(about $400,000).
-Pete Golding is scheduled to make about $190,000 in 2017.
-Wyoming is #1 in the country with 24 forced turnovers
-UH is #50th in the country with 14 turnovers forced.
Wyoming and Fresno St defensive coordinators are in the first year at that school.
The problem with replacing d’onofrio is is he was signed to a three year deal, not the customary two year deal for coordinators. That means we would have to buy out two years at $800k total and I don’t see that happening.
Last week it was the oc. This week the dc. Others that you guys have wanted to fire are headcoach, rbcoach, wr coach, the ad, the president, the weatherman, and most everyone else. Good grief.
Take a breath and quit being angry white men. Everybody knows how smart you are. Relax and watch it come together over the next couple of years. Enjoy the process. Quit trying to force it and play around with it first.
On paper, there is nothing wrong with D’Onofrio’s philosophy or scheme. It should work just fine. The problem lies in its application.
Good defensive players have an aggressive attacking mentality. This scheme essentially requires that to be coached out of them. It becomes a problem when the situation requires more aggressive play calls - it is difficult for many players to “flip the switch” mentally. It is why we have a hard time getting off the field in a 3rd and short or when making a stop will halt the momentum built up by an opposing offense.
That was/is the brilliance in Orlando’s schemes. It takes advantage of a player’s natural inclinations (attack) instead of stifling them (read and react), and accommodates for its aggressive nature by masking where the attack is coming from.
To be clear, all good defenses have elements of both, but the best ones IMO free up players to make more plays without thinking too much.
calm down a bit. They passed like 68 times yesterday. Of course they are going to make some yards. They had to pass because their running game sucked, less than 70 yards.
For those loving Orlando’s defenses, in 2016 we gave up:
Memphis - 409 passing yards and 146 rushing yards
Tulsa - 365 passing yards
OU - 323 passing yards
Navy - 306 rushing yards
SMU - 178 rushing yards
In 2015, we gave up:
Cincy - 523 passing yards
FSU - 397 passing yards
Tulsa - 326 passing yards and 130 rushing yards
Louisville - 325 passing yards
Tennessee Tech - 312 passing yards
Navy - 312 passing yards and 147 rushing yards
Texas State - 302 passing yards
Memphis - 212 rushing yards
UCONN - 156 rushing yards
SMU - 151 rushing yards
Vandy - 141 rushing yards
Tulane - 112 rushing yards
And Gibbs 2014:
Cincy - 348 passing yards and 152 rushing yards
BYU - 323 rushing yards
Pitt - 227 rushing yards
UNLV - 170 rushing yards
Tulsa - 158 rushing yards
UTSA - 142 rushing yards
UCF - 127 rushing yards
Memphis - 125 rushing yards
Tulane - 124 rushing yards
Gibbs 2013:
BYU - 417 passing yards and 264 rushing yards
Cincy - 401 passing yards and 172 rushing yards
UTSA - 365 passing yards and 128 rushing yards
USF - 311 passing yards
Vandy - 211 rushing yards
Rutgers - 204 rushing yards
UCF - 188 rushing yards
Rice - 174 rushing yards
Louisville - 129 rushing yards
Southern - 104 rushing yards
Temple - 100 rushing yards
Here’s the reason why we won games:
2013 we had a 43/18 turnover ratio
2014 we had a 30/22 turnover ratio
2015 we had a 35/14 turnover ratio
2016 we had a 18/25 turnover ratio
2017 we have a 17/17 turnover ratio
Here’s the thing, I’m not saying that D’Onofrio is the right DC for us, but I’m also not trying to fire him right now when we aren’t even one year into his tenure. Yes, the defense fell apart against Memphis; it did that last year as well. Yes, ECU went over 400 yards passing yesterday; most of that was well after the game was in hand and a good chunk of it was when our starters were out late in the game
We’ve played 4 of the top 20 passing offenses in college football this year and 5 of the top 12 offenses (h/t @WoodMarkCos). Our starting CBs are a guy that had never played CB before and a former walk-on. We have to boost our talent at that position if we are going to be able to shut teams down as we don’t have DJ Hayden, William Jackson, Brandon Wilson, and Howard Wilson out there anymore.
I am not done with the DC but I do start to worry when I see A team like ECU complete multiple 3rd and 10+ yards, I believe 3 on one drive alone and this was not in garage time.
See there, your definition of working goes against what is most important in football. The final score. Only one other school has held Texas Tech to less points and no one else has held SMU to less points.
“They just are not good teams.”
First you say it never works, then you change it to “good teams.” How about USF then? Didn’t USF have some crazy long streak of scoring 30 points or more?
You really narrow it down don’t you. Passing teams that aren’t in the top 25 don’t count. Top 25 teams that don’t pass enough don’t count. So your complaint is that this defense is terrible against top 25 teams that pass a lot? If that is the only weakness of our defense, I’ll take it!!! Of course the only data you have to point to then is the second half against Memphis.
You want to throw out the defensive coordinator based on a bad second half against Memphis and ignore all the good defensive games. Good thing you are not in charge.
The soft zone approach and keeping the receiver in front of you approach was what helped us almost beat Tech and got us beat by Memphis. It is a bone-headed defensive philosophy that keeps the defense on the field way too long and allows teams like Memphis to come back and beat us. We are lucky that ECU is not any good or this could have been another loss.
LOL, we beat a team like a drum and the most active thread is one whining about passing yards. This is why I generally stay away from UH message boards. We held them to 20 non-garbage time points, which is below ECU’s season average. We basically dared them to get in the end zone with the 4-6 yard passes and while it worked a few times (see: their 20 points) it certainly didn’t work well enough to keep this closer than a laugher.
We lost 5 all conference caliber DBs (The Wilsons, WJax, McDonald, Trevon Stewart) the last 2 years and are not shockingly somewhat worse for it. No program, particularly a program like ours, can just instantly rebound from losing those caliber of players.
Please don’t whitewash the fact that Orlando’s D (which was awesome) got absolutely smoked by Memphis, Navy, and SMU last year.