Our Secondary Proved Me Wrong

I had commented on another thread before the Tech game that I thought our secondary was untested, and therefore, a liability. After watching the Tech game, I’m feeling very confident about our secondary. That was exactly the test I needed to see and they did not disappoint. They weren’t perfect for sure, letting a guy get behind them once or twice, missing a few tackles, etc. But against a Tech offense that nearly every game throws for a bajillion yards with ease, they held their own. Shimonek had a hard time getting the ball out quickly like Tech likes to do, and when he did have time, he had to throw the ball away a ton. I was super impressed with the effort this week on the defensive side of the ball as a whole, and in the secondary in particular and we’re going to need that kind of game again when we play Memphis and USF.

On a side note, if I played on that defense, I would be so pissed at that no-show from the offense. My blood was boiling for them! Holding Tech to 27 points without a turnover would have been a feat in and of itself. Doing that while the offense turns the ball over 5 times is other-wordly.

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I was impressed on the three big plays by TT. Each time the ball was run down before reaching the end zone. I’m glad our boys didn’t quit. They’re pretty fast too.

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The defense was constantly bailing out the team from mistakes the offense made.

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Agreed like the majority of our losses I am not going to lay it at the feet of the D. It was vastly more the visually offensive play by the offense that lost us the game

What about the secondary’s tackling? There were negative comments about it on the broadcast.

I noted the missed tackles and missed assignments in my original post. They weren’t perfect for sure, but to hold such a high octane offense to 27 points when the offense turns it over 5 times is impressive. I would chalk some of the mistakes up to being gassed since the offense had so much trouble extending drives. There is work to be done, but I was legit scared the Tech offense would light up our secondary. That didn’t happen.

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You take out those three big plays and they look even better.

As a whole I think we have a defense that will keep us in games. Now if we can solve the issues and questions on offense.

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I was impressed with our secondary play as well. Coutee is one of the most explosive players in the country, and outside of the long touchdown, they held him to 8.4 YPC. They missed some tackles on a catch by Cantrell in the red zone, but I firmly believe that any time you hold Texas Tech to 27 points and 100 yards under their season average, you should win the game. No way can you lay that loss at the feet of the D, especially when you consider that Ed Oliver missed considerable time in the 2nd half.

We had 5 turnovers, our offense played like dog shit for 3.5 quarters and we only gave up 27 points to Tech. That’s pretty damn good. I bet it ends up being well under their season average and the majority of teams won’t cough it up as much or be so inept on O.

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Most of them came later in the half/game, which I attribute to fatigue. Yes, it needs to improve, but it also reflect the ineffectiveness of the O.

Agree wholeheartedly.

The most impressive one was Isaiah Johnson running down Stockton (#4) and having to make up some ground to do it. Stockton is a 4.37 guy, and he had a head start. I doubt he’s had the experience of being caught from behind like that before.

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The long TD pass when the guy got behind us…blame that squarely on the HC and D Coordinator !!

TT did not substitute on that play and snapped the ball quickly, while we tried to substitute and the players were actually looking to the sideline for the play call as TT snapped the ball.

Our D was not ready for the play and CMA should have called a TO !!

Overall the D played well enough to win the game.

OTOH…the offensive plan/scheme is boring and unimaginative !!

No complaints about our secondary overall from me. Do I think they play a bit of a soft coverage, yes. But that hasn’t been a huge problem for us just yet.

You have to to a certain extent against spread pass-happy offenses. The idea is to keep them in front of you, which we did for the most part. I would like to see a little more pressure in the backfield. I’m good with only rushing 4, or adding a blitzing safety/nickel, but we might need to mix in a little chaos with disguised blitzes. Todd Orlando was so good at that. If the QB doesn’t know where the pressure is coming from, he doesn’t know where to start his progressions or how quickly to shuffle through them.

Not on Coutee’s 77 yard TD. The one on the quick snap. TT has done that before and the staff should have been ready for it.

They even talked about it in the practice interviews last week. That one is totally on the coaches.

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We used to do that to teams all the time in the Case Keenum era. Now when we run quick snaps, it’s always a hand off up the middle or off tackle to try to gain a yard. And even then I think our success rate is probably 50% (just a guess, but feels that way). Even with our slower receivers, I don’t know why we can’t quick snap and throw a back shoulder pass to the sideline. Like everyone else is saying, our offense is just way too predictable with Allen behind center.

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The secondary was great!

The D gave up 3 big plays and all or part appeared to result from our players not being ready for the play, not being lined and in facts the commentators said it appeared DC had not having called a play so nobody knew what to do. In at least 1 case the Defense was also exhausted from the heat. We should have called a timeout. I have not seen UH give up running plays like that in a very long time.

Without Kyle Postma our offense is scoreless in the second half of every game this season.

Kyle Allen has produced absolutely nothing in the second vs Arizona, Rice, and TxTech. He should have been benched before the 4th quarter began and Postma would have had enough time to win the game.Major waited until it was too late now Applewhite seems to be making every excuse imaginable to start Allen, again. I am very concerned!

#1 looked like he had a flashback to last year’s Navy game on one of those big plays (think it was a td). Just stood there waiting for the runner to come to him, then whiffed on the tackle.