Defense - coaching or talent?

Others have already made this point, but not all those stats were compiled against equal competition.

AFA and BSU's stats are impressive against any competition. But that doesn't mean they would have the same results against our schedule. Other schools you list like Virgina, Clemson, Virginia Tech, etc. actually do have more talent.

I don't buy that it is totally talent either. But you can't discount it as a contributing issue.

P.S.
Didn't we raid the defense to shore up our OL? Could any of those players make our defense better if they swapped back? ( I assume CPJ has taken the tradeoff into account when switching someone from defense. But I wonder if CPJ's acceptance of the situation is due to the fact that he made the choice to bolster offense with defensive talent.)
 
lonestarjacket said:
Others have already made this point, but not all those stats were compiled against equal competition.

AFA and BSU's stats are impressive against any competition. But that doesn't mean they would have the same results against our schedule. Other schools you list like Virgina, Clemson, Virginia Tech, etc. actually do have more talent.

I don't buy that it is totally talent either. But you can't discount it as a contributing issue.

P.S.
Didn't we raid the defense to shore up our OL? Could any of those players make our defense better if they swapped back? ( I assume CPJ has taken the tradeoff into account when switching someone from defense. But I wonder if CPJ's acceptance of the situation is due to the fact that he made the choice to bolster offense with defensive talent.)
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So the teams that AFA and BSU play don't have the talent that AFA and BSU have?

At least in Air Force's case the talent of opposing teams should be close to the teams they play...just the same as the teams we play.

I never understood the argument for belittling a coach because he coached for a lesser quality team...it's not like those guys are playing teams far inferior to them and putting up those numbers.
 
I remember somebody doing this under Gailey for the offense and defense. They ranked us against out opponent's other 11 opponents in offense and defense. Against UGA, we would be somewhere around 10 on points allowed to UGA (I think they scored more against USC and Ark.). Against Vandy we could be 11, worst among FCS teams. I would expect us to finish around 10-12 against most of the opponents we've had. We would also finish 1 in points scored against most of our opponents.

We had a dearth of big uglies this year, that's for sure. Chan brought in some great skill players in the Nesbitt/Dwyer/Bebe class, but he did a horrible job with big uglies. Still, our linebackers played far worse than they were capable of and it just seems like every single week we have to simplify and retool and learn fundamentals like staying in their zone and not overpursuing yourself out of the play. It just stanks to high heaven like how Hewitt can't get his team to inbound a ball.
 
Speaking of AFA, I saw some video of them against Navy and they truly defend the TO as well as anybody. So defenses can definitely get better against the TO with specific techniques, and it all can't be written off to "assignment football."

Much of the success can be attributed to individual technique over scheme. They shed cut blocks by pushing over the blocker. They force the option but stay in the play; one DE attacked the B-back to force the QB keep but wheeled and caught the QB from behind. You could tell they had put more work into stopping this offense than typical defenses. (They face it twice a year and with their own offense.)
 
StingThing said:
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!
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I don't know about budgets, but there are a lot of other factors we have going for us. If you were a promising young DC candidate, would you prefer to coach at a program with a dominant offense that keeps the ball most of the game. How about coaching at a program with a new head coach that had won conference COY awards his first two years on the job? Maybe they all only care about money, but Tech has a lot of other things going for it.
 
Defense, like offense, is part coaching and part talent.

The question to me is, "Are we getting more than our talent should give us, or are we getting less than our talent should give us?"

The answers are EASY.

Offense: We are getting more, thanks to coaching.

Defense: We are getting less, thanks to coaching.
 
Can someone please explain something to me.....I am truly looking for an answer here.

If our problems on defense are coaching, and the unit with the most issues is the DL, who is responsible for coaching that unit?

I assume that Coach Smith is the one responsible for teaching them technique, assignments etc. What is Coach Wommack doing that trumping/superseding the coaching of Giff?

Why do people want us to promote the coach who is coaching the unit people say is performing the worst, which in this thread is blamed on coaching?

Am I missing something?
 
ATLGT14 said:
Can someone please explain something to me.....I am truly looking for an answer here.

If our problems on defense are coaching, and the unit with the most issues is the DL, who is responsible for coaching that unit?

I assume that Coach Smith is the one responsible for teaching them technique, assignments etc. What is Coach Wommack doing that trumping/superseding the coaching of Giff?

Why do people want us to promote the coach who is coaching the unit people say is performing the worst, which in this thread is blamed on coaching?

Am I missing something?
Click to expand...

U might have a point. I dont' like it.
 
ATLGT14 said:
Can someone please explain something to me.....I am truly looking for an answer here.

If our problems on defense are coaching, and the unit with the most issues is the DL, who is responsible for coaching that unit?

I assume that Coach Smith is the one responsible for teaching them technique, assignments etc. What is Coach Wommack doing that trumping/superseding the coaching of Giff?

Why do people want us to promote the coach who is coaching the unit people say is performing the worst, which in this thread is blamed on coaching?

Am I missing something?
Click to expand...

I'm not the most perceptive on football, but the issue seems to have been with LB's and not the DL. The DL does have serious personnel issues this year and it shows when they're continually blown off the ball. The LB's on the other hand are nowhere to be found. They run every which way except where the ball will be.
 
I think most people are on the promote Giff train based upon his body of work with the program (recruiting and recent success of DLs) since he's been on board as well as his past experience gained under prominent coaches and/or DCs.
 
unforgiven108 said:
So the teams that AFA and BSU play don't have the talent that AFA and BSU have?

At least in Air Force's case the talent of opposing teams should be close to the teams they play...just the same as the teams we play.

I never understood the argument for belittling a coach because he coached for a lesser quality team...it's not like those guys are playing teams far inferior to them and putting up those numbers.
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Who is belittling a coach?

I am just pointing out an obvious flaw in the logic. The premise is that AFA has less talent than we do yet is able to perform better. My point is the talent comparison is irrelevant. AFA may have superior talent relative to their competition than we do to our competition. The stats alone don't prove anything.

You can't have it both ways. You can't use the assumption that AFA's talent is on a lower level than our talent as an indictment of our coaches and yet not take into account that the competition isn't the same either.

We can assume our defensive talent is superior to AFA in absolute terms but we can't make the same assumption in relative terms.

When you hurriedly read my post you must have missed this sentence.

AFA and BSU's stats are impressive against any competition.
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Does the trend of our performing better on D in the 2nd half portend coaching or players? Look we are definitely undermanned (2 current players on D would start for our '90 team....2!). We are young and small, especially the front 7. Our secondary sans MB can't tackle for crap and they are watching MB do it everyday. Is CDW coaching them differently than MB? Does he coach Egbuniwe differently than he does Morgan? How many of our starting LBs would start for VT, ugag, Clemson, or Miami? Possibly, no make that likely...Burnett eventually, but that's it. I've been watching our troops since '62, and with the exception of the late 70's and early 80's, this may be our weakest LB group. We are young on D and yet look at the priority recruiting on D is getting. There's a reason.

Unfortunately, I believe we have issues with both talent and coaching. We just don't hammer people much anymore. I'm talking about the oohs and ahhs you hear from bone jarring hits. We also don't swarm to the ball like most really good defenses do and like ours have in the past. And finally, you just don't see the all important aggression and passion on our D. If we are going to make mistakes, let's at least do it full speed. I think most of this is coaching. The really good news is: CPJ is not one to tolerate a weakness that prevents him from reaching only the highest of goals. We have to have faith in his second to none competitive nature. If he keeps CDW, go with it and support it. If he doesn't, go ahead and rejoice, but don't expect miracles within the same time frame CDW has had, because we won't have the hosses for about 2-3 more recruiting classes.
 
It's a combination of both but I'd have to tip the scale toward poor coaching. There are lots of teams that do more with less than what we have.
 
It comes down to coaching.. I'm so used to having a great defense with a decent offense.. Now we have a stellar offense and our D blows.. Now there have been games where our guys get the job done, but we need improvement all around... We need a defense that can get opposing offenses off the field and allow our offense to put up yards and points.. I really believe Wommack has to go.
 
I stopped saying it's the "lack of talent" once I realized our defense is completely inconsistent. I also didn't like the fact that it took Wommack almost three full quarters to adjust to stop the run up the middle.
 
I asked this in another thread and didn't get an answer so I'll try again. I'm not as football savvy as most of you. Could somebody please explain our 4-2-5 scheme and why we had to switch.

From what I understand, the 4-2-5 is a simple defense to run. It allows for more speed and versatility in defensive plays but yet hard to read. Works great against spreads. Sounded perfect for us to run. Yet, we had to change to a 4-3 early in the season to "simplify" the defense for the players. Was that a case of going with what the players were already familiar with? This is what concerns me about CDW.

If the 4-2-5 is a simple defense and we all agree that our players are more intelligent than most, what's the deal? Am I misinformed about the 4-2-5? If not, why were our players confused about their assignments? Were they confused because their assignments were not properly taught?
 
floridajacket said:
I'm not the most perceptive on football, but the issue seems to have been with LB's and not the DL. The DL does have serious personnel issues this year and it shows when they're continually blown off the ball. The LB's on the other hand are nowhere to be found. They run every which way except where the ball will be.
Click to expand...

Both have issues. The DL was not existent against UGA.
 
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