Defense - coaching or talent?

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JelloYacketDeleted062020

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Here are the Top 20 Defenses (Total Defense):
1 Florida
2 TCU
3 Alabama
4 Ohio St.
5 Texas
6 North Carolina
7 Oklahoma
8 Penn St.
9 Air Force
10 Iowa
11 Nebraska
12 Arizona St.
13 Virginia Tech
14 Clemson
15 South Carolina
16 Boise St.
17 Tennessee
18 Army
19 Utah
20 Rutgers

Here are the Top 20 in Scoring Defense:
1 Florida
2 Alabama
3 Nebraska
4 Penn St.
5 Ohio St.
6 TCU
7 Oklahoma
8 Air Force
9 Texas
10 Iowa
11 Virginia Tech
12 LSU
13 Rutgers
14 North Carolina
15 Pittsburgh
16 Central Mich.
17 Boise St.
17 Mississippi
19 Cincinnati
20 Boston College

Do we have worse talent than Air Force, Iowa, Nebraska, Arizona St, Virginia Tech, Boise St. (probably due to their offense and crappy schedule), Army, Utah, Rutgers, Pittsburgh, Central Michigan, Ole Miss, Cincinatti, and Boston College?

To me, our talent gap is not that big.
 
Does depth fall under talent?

There have been a lot of obstacles...imo Wommack needs two seasons to get it together. I think there are going to be some growing pains regardless is who is at the helm though.
 
Its coaching and its been coaching. We have better personel on defense than we've had in a lot of past seasons and we're horrible.
 
If you recall, these losses were all in Tenuta's first 3 years, following all the attrition and flunkgate.

2002: 51-7 to UGAg
2003: 39-3 to Clemson, 41-17 to Duke,
2004: 34-13 to UNC, 27-3 to Miami, 34-10 to VPI, 30-10 to UVA

Still had that 51-7 beat down to VPI in 2005, and that 31-7 wax job by Clemson in '05 and '06 respectively.

Even Tenuta had growing pains his first 3 years. In all fairness, Wommack needs time.

BOR, you and I disagree on this. We had good talent on the DL last year, and they did a very credble job. When we got beat last year, it was generally thru the air.

I'll say now that I think our DB talent is a good bit over rated, except for Burnett, and he can't do it all. I think our LB talent is average, and our DL is too young to tell.
 
Air Force, Utah, Central Michigan, Army and Boise St play in lesser conferences. In the case of the service academies, their guys may not be the biggest or fastest, but you know they are tough and disciplined and when playing against smaller schools that is often enough. Boise St and Utah out recruit and out coach every other team in their conferences, they are further ahead in their conferences than UF and Alabama are in the SEC
That said, this is obviously a difficult comparison. I personally think that our problem is three-fold. 1.) we have had a talent drop-off on the defensive side of the ball, 2.) We have gotten dinged up pretty bad on Defense this year and dont have alot of depth, 3.) We have been outschemed in many games.
Item 1 is partly due to the coaching transition and partly due to a lack of proper recruiting or preparation of younger players by our coaches. Item 2 is part of football and until we are a football factory (which will most likely never happen...but that is a separate discussion) we will not be as deep as some of the schools we play. Item 3 is solely on the head of our DC. We haven't faced any great offensive coordinators who outsmart alot of teams, we let teams like Vandy and Wake score more points than they did against the bottom teams in their respective conferences.
 
I say we keep Wommack just because other schools, with deeper pockets, are looking for DCs this year. Within our budget, honestly who are we gonna get with a better track record? If you look at Wommack's resume he has some impressive years!
 
It's coaching...Wommack looks like he is in an AARP meeting up there in that booth and he has that deer in the headlight look...
Give me a kickbutt DC on the sidelines kicking that defense's arse, ala Bud Foster, Muschamp and Mickey Andrews (A few years back when he was in his prime)
That is what we need...ASAP if we want to play for the MNC...Look at the top 4 teams (UF, Al. Texas, TCU) as Mack Brown said a couple of weeks back, they all play great defense...
PJ even said, before the VT game, we needed to play defense like VT and Bud Foster, flying around and attacking the ball. That was his wish, on how our defense should play...
We will NEVER have that with Wommack.
 
TangoHotelWhiskeyGolf said:
That said, this is obviously a difficult comparison. I personally think that our problem is three-fold. 1.) we have had a talent drop-off on the defensive side of the ball, 2.) We have gotten dinged up pretty bad on Defense this year and dont have alot of depth, 3.) We have been outschemed in many games.
Item 1 is partly due to the coaching transition and partly due to a lack of proper recruiting or preparation of younger players by our coaches. Item 2 is part of football and until we are a football factory (which will most likely never happen...but that is a separate discussion) we will not be as deep as some of the schools we play. Item 3 is solely on the head of our DC. We haven't faced any great offensive coordinators who outsmart alot of teams, we let teams like Vandy and Wake score more points than they did against the bottom teams in their respective conferences.
Click to expand...

Agree. The only three serious OC's we've faced al year did a job on us - those being Whipple, Mullen and Fisher. The rest are barely marginal, and several put up career numbers on us.

No reason for Vandy to do what they did. No reason for Wake to do what they did. No reason for UGAG to do what they did.

It's a combination of things, coaching being one of them.
 
It's coaching. Time DeRuyer from AFA FTW!!


I have a counter-question. Has our defense shown moments of greatness? The answer is yes. That proves that we have the talent and not the consistency from quarter to quarter. That is NOT a personnel problem.

IF we were good in the first few games and progressively got worse with injuries, then it would be a talent issue. But that's not the case. We have shown moments of greatness in each game. That just proves that it's bad coaching and we have the players to make the plays.
 
cajunjacket said:
It's coaching. Time DeRuyer from AFA FTW!!


I have a counter-question. Has our defense shown moments of greatness? The answer is yes. That proves that we have the talent and not the consistency from quarter to quarter. That is NOT a personnel problem.

IF we were good in the first few games and progressively got worse with injuries, then it would be a talent issue. But that's not the case. We have shown moments of greatness in each game. That just proves that it's bad coaching and we have the players to make the plays.
Click to expand...

Then you have to ask why the variance from game to game. That is the way young players play. Mental discipline is an acquired skill.

Our front 7 can be pretty good when they want to be. Oddly, they showed this the other night against UGAg, who did very little after that long run by King. Our DB hasn't been good at any time all season. Now in fairness, that's where the bulk of the injurues have been, too.

IMO, Wommack needs another year to make his case that he needs an extension. If not, then cut him loose and get someone else, or promote Giff and give him a shot.

EDIT: Now if, due to coaching transition, an establshed DC comes available, I'd say get him and let Wommack go. There's enough data out there to let him go this year, but I think that's a bit risky w/o knowing who you can get to replace him, and his talent level hasn't been great, except DL last year.
 
How do our second half stats stack up against the competition?
 
Its definitely a combination of factors. Before the season, many of us thought with the talent we had returning we'd be in for a bunch of shootouts. Well, that has happened. To complicate matters, we've lost an additional 6 starters throughout the year. These things cannot be discounted when evaluating Wommack.

He's not completely off the hook, however.

Many of us overestimated T.J. Barnes readiness in the preseason. By the time he's a jr, he'll be a force. By that time the new DT's will be ready to contribute as well. We are recruiting the heck out of the secondary. The future is bright on D.

The jury is out on Dave W. How do you fire a guy after a year you win 10+ games?
 
or promote Giff and give him a shot.[/QUOTE]

That would be a big gamble at this point..We need a proven DC or an NFL asst. that is real good.
Garner at Uga and Smith may both be career assts. we do not know that for sure. I'm not for on the job training at this point. Evidently Richt is not either...The hope is, to win big now.
 
stinger78 said:
If you recall, these losses were all in Tenuta's first 3 years, following all the attrition and flunkgate.

2002: 51-7 to UGAg
2003: 39-3 to Clemson, 41-17 to Duke,
2004: 34-13 to UNC, 27-3 to Miami, 34-10 to VPI, 30-10 to UVA

Still had that 51-7 beat down to VPI in 2005, and that 31-7 wax job by Clemson in '05 and '06 respectively.

Even Tenuta had growing pains his first 3 years. In all fairness, Wommack needs time.

BOR, you and I disagree on this. We had good talent on the DL last year, and they did a very credble job. When we got beat last year, it was generally thru the air.

I'll say now that I think our DB talent is a good bit over rated, except for Burnett, and he can't do it all. I think our LB talent is average, and our DL is too young to tell.
Click to expand...

You're telling the story of our worst defensive games under Tenuta. Every DC has bad games, including Bud Foster, Will Muschamp, and Frank Spaziani.

What you're not saying, and what's most important is the overall defensive ranking. With Tenuta, it didn't matter what kind of personnel attrition we suffered from year to year, we ALWAYS had a top 25 defense and often times top 20. The only exception was the first year when we had to transition to his system.

A DC who has his defense consistently ranked near the top is all we can ask for. And, it's the one thing we SHOULD be asking for right now.
 
GEETEELEE said:
How do our second half stats stack up against the competition?
Click to expand...

This is the only answer you need.

If it was talent alone then NO adjustments we made at halftime would matter two squats. However, we DO make adjustments that works in the second half.

That means we have the talent to stop teams, but for WHATEVER reason Wommack can't put together a gameplan or scheme to actually stop teams in the first half, and then a lot of games either he, or CPJ (i'm not sure how involved CPJ is in this), can get it turned around.

There is something wrong there besides a lack of talent.
 
GEETEELEE said:
How do our second half stats stack up against the competition?
Click to expand...

I think in looking at the total body of work it's hard to compare the first half vs the second half of the season. The front end of our schedule was loaded with top 25 teams.........the second half, not so much.
 
stinger78 said:
If you recall, these losses were all in Tenuta's first 3 years, following all the attrition and flunkgate.

2002: 51-7 to UGAg
2003: 39-3 to Clemson, 41-17 to Duke,
2004: 34-13 to UNC, 27-3 to Miami, 34-10 to VPI, 30-10 to UVA

Still had that 51-7 beat down to VPI in 2005, and that 31-7 wax job by Clemson in '05 and '06 respectively.

Even Tenuta had growing pains his first 3 years. In all fairness, Wommack needs time.

BOR, you and I disagree on this. We had good talent on the DL last year, and they did a very credble job. When we got beat last year, it was generally thru the air.

I'll say now that I think our DB talent is a good bit over rated, except for Burnett, and he can't do it all. I think our LB talent is average, and our DL is too young to tell.
Click to expand...


Look at what we scored in those games. It's easy for the opponent to score that many points when we keep handing back the ball.
 
stinger78 said:
Agree. The only three serious OC's we've faced al year did a job on us - those being Whipple, Mullen and Fisher. The rest are barely marginal, and several put up career numbers on us.

No reason for Vandy to do what they did. No reason for Wake to do what they did. No reason for UGAG to do what they did.

It's a combination of things, coaching being one of them.
Click to expand...

That's an interesting angle, I hadn't thought about our performance against marginal teams. I can understand the injury argument explaining our lack of experience in some positions, but to me we've got guys with the physical skills to be good. A good example is Tarrant - he's obviously a great athlete. But time and time again I see him out there flailing away at offensive players because he's out of position. Certainly, some players will take to teaching better than others, but it truly seems like he's received minimal coaching. Same for our LB's. Our DE's have been crashing down on the read option all year, and teams FINALLY started exploiting it (Vandy). If Miss. St. would've done the same we would've lost to them.

All of these "technique" things seem to be coaching to me, at least majority coaching. If we had a bunch of guys that couldn't keep up on the field but they were at least making the right reads and using good technique I think I could tell the difference.
 
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