I’m not giving them a grade of A, but I give them a lot of props for what they’ve done in the past two weeks and the second half.
I will give them for props for the tackling that they have done the last two games with an asterisk for number 20 today, that guy was just allusive. Otherwise I felt everybody was wrapping up their opponent really well and especially to our secondary which is been a glaring weaknesses of our defense.
As far as our defense and our defensive coaching staff in the second half, they have done a great job the last two games with making halftime adjustments and coming out and responding the way they should.
For those that aren’t aware, the defense only gave up 28 yards rushing second half. I know several people do not like CMD, but you have to give credit where credit is due. The last two games I feel like he has dialed up pressure, helped improve the tackling for several players, has made halftime adjustments, and had players respond to those adjustments.
Defense was put in a tough spot twice to start the third and they only gave up two field goals. In the second half they give up a total of 13 points, impressive considering they were put in the red zone twice if I’m not mistaken.
Hopefully this is a new trend going forward, and if it is it couldn’t have come at a better time as we try to lock up the west and hopefully the conference championship game.
Sidenote, thoughts and prayers go out to Courtney Lark. I couldn’t tell what the injury was but it either look like a broken leg or torn ligaments in the knee. Either way God bless, speedy recovery, and hopefully it will be ready to hit the field next year.
I was also impressed with CMA…end of game we ran 7:10 off clock in 12 plays…the defense deserves that.
As a result they faced “only “ 80 plays. Thought it showed some maturity …as opposed to last week.
Although some of the reverses with backwards pitches on the drive seemed a little risky for no reason
Pressure on the QB and open field tackling, particularly in the secondary, were WAY better today. Several bam bam pass breakups. IJ had a great overall game, way more complete with his tackling, ball awareness, he was busier than usual. He deserves a kudos just on improvement alone. OP is right USF has a good offense, they went toe to toe with UCF last year and beat Tech in their bowl. Today was shootout style and our defense played well enough to win.
Hopefully we can keep building on this maturity as you so perfectly put it and run the table. I saw a lot more platooning of our second and third stringers today and they showed signs of improvement as well.
There are still a lot of mistakes with over pursuing, but they still did a good job overall the second half.
USF scored 34 offensive points, and one score came off a turnover they got close to the red zone. I’m sorry but we’re not going to shut teams out with the kind of offense we have. I’d love to see us win games 57-0, but that’s not realistic. I definitely see improvement in the play of the secondary. They’re tackling and covering better. And D’Onofrio has done a great job of coaching up a walk on and former QB into a really solid inside linebacker duo.
Well said, USF is a solid team on both sides of the ball. They do make the mistakes like we do by playing down to opponents and then they turn it up later. They just couldn’t do that this time because we are a much more solid team on both sides of the ball than they have played this year.
I was worried before the game about their rushing attack since Oliver was going to be out. And the first half his presents or lack there of was definitely felt. Then of course as said before they really stepped up the second half.
Sam
Most don’t understand this or don’t want to understand it. When you run this offense at this pace…you aren’t going to have a dominant defense.
The only UH team that played faster was 2012 and the Defense allowed 36 points per game.
Someone will argue by pointing to one team with top 10 recruits for 4 straight years on offense and defense and say “but they can do it why not us.” I’ve given up arguing. Thankfully at games I have no reason to join a gameday thread and see the usual comments about giving up a first down when we don’t blitz or giving up a TD when we do blitz. An Aggie told me once that if you can’t find an ignore button, just use white-out on your screen.
Yeah I wrote about it in the game thread there were at least two 3rd and 3s for USF when they threw it instead of running. This was when the game was still close and they were having a lot of success in the run game. For the entire first half it seemed like they had at least 4 yards up the middle whenever they wanted it.
I listened to the daily stampede this week since the pawdcast guys were on it and Sterling Gilbert (OC) drives them crazy like our DC. Now I know why. Big picture they have a good offense but some of his play calls helped out our defense.
Just to point out how easily it can go bad and snowball…CTO defense has given up 378 yards and 31 points in 1st half…and UT hasn’t had an offense turnover…and OSU missed short FG
Should CTO be fired??? Lmao
I like to post this stuff just to point out that players performance has a lot to do with results…CTO is very good…CMD isn’t nearly as bad as some would like us all to believe
I appreciate your amazing FACTS from stats that you have laid out numerous times. I also feel your pain that you have had to laid out numerous times to no avail.
