I agree the team is decimated with injuries on defense, but we still need a new DC. Coach D is too conservative of a play caller. And when he does blitz they are not disguised very well. It just seems like opposing Qbs pick up the defense too easily. When is the last time we have has an INT over the middle? We haven’t had many and it shows that our DBs and LBs are being read to easily by the offense.
Our defense would have been better without all the injuries, and we might have gone into the championship game undefeated in conference, but If we played the vanilla defense as we did against Tech in the championship game, I am starting to think UCF would have destroyed us even with a healthy D-line. I have come to the conclusion blitz disguising is so crucial agaisnt passing heavy teams.
That’s not a realistic comparison to the players we have lost. Half our defensive players have missed numerous games or are out for the season, including the Outland Trophy winner, the most experienced defensive back, a linchpin DE, an ILB transfer slated to start who went out in the opener, our best pass rushing DL, and others. I still think we have to field a more representative defense than we did against Temple, but there’s no way they would have traded their injury situation for ours.
My one counter to the lack of depth on defense is that the coaches knew that there was a lack of depth prior to the season. This shouldn’t have been a mystery to them, hell, it should definitely not have been a mystery to them after last week’s game.
So, as coaches, you have to make adjustments and prepare for these kinds of things. Throw in some different looks, throw in some wrinkles and see what happens. Go with 2-4 or 1-5 front sets at times if need be, send more blitzes, try something different. If it doesn’t work, oh well, it isn’t like doing the same things over and over is working with all the injuries anyway. Hell, as I was telling my son after the failed onside kick, it might have been better to let them score fast so that we’d have more time to try and score and try an onside kick again.
Briles lost 2 of his top 3 RBs and had only half of his 2 deep WRs healthy by the end of the game, and we still put up 49 points on what was supposed to be a pretty decent defense. Briles has his faults, but he’s not afraid to try new things and still attack the opposing defense with who he has out there.
Our current DC just doesn’t want to, or can’t, adjust from his scheme. That rigidness is killing our season at this point.
Not sure he was making the comparison to our players as much as their coach was able to overcome their issue with depth. Also we were still poor against the run with Ed. The edge in particular. Losing Ed just made them able to run up the gut in addition.
Yes, and I have concluded that we need a new DC. But having injuries and being decimated are two different things. In the second half our entire starting DL was out. Our best reserve DE had been lost for the season. Our top reserve NT wasn’t 100%. Sometimes injuries can simply be too much to overcome. But we could have stacked the line and made them beat us through the air. They likely would have, but I could have lived with that a lot better than getting repeatedly gashed by runs inside the tackles.
Spot on! There have been no adjustments. We don’t know injury status but they do. They knew Carter and Ed were out and Fleming was banged up. So a back up plan should have been made. There was NONE.
Ultimately Logan Hall went to DT and did a pretty good job all things considered and then later with Blake but you could tell a lot of the adjustments weren’t planned. CMD has failed to adjust on the fly, prepare the team properly, and develop talent.
And spotting the other guys 14 points certainly didn’t help matters. Lost in all of the special teams/defensive failures is the reality our offense still played lights out. Briles was short handed as well but he made the adjustments. Take away that 14 points we handed Temple and UH wins the game.
Hope we can get all our heads turned around by Thursday night. The crowd will be sparse. We’ll have our 25,000 die hard fans. It’s the Cougar way. And it will be even colder than last night’s game. Game time likely in the 30s. All the excuses anyone needs.
Exactly!!! If you are the defensive front 7, it is demoralizing to have the opposing offensive line physically dominate the game by running the ball down your throats (ie this is what Temple did to us). Over the course of the game it can seriousily affect your will to win. Since we know we are undermanned, if possible you have to force the offense to go to the passing game where there are more opportunities for mistakes (ie errant throws, drops, wrong routes, etc). Just to easy to hand the ball off while your offensive line manhandles the defense almost every play.
Happened after Bryson got a little upset after a fair catch in the 3rd. Demonstrably flipped a ball behind him in disgust. Don’t blame him, he had 20-25 yards of open field in front of him on every kickoff.