Is it Roof, or the players?

QB pressure will improve secondary play, 3rd downs not being converted, and some take always. Just like on offense, nothing matters if the line sucks.
 
Bill Connelly with the S&P+ rankings looked at correlation between recruiting rankings and next year's football success. He found the correlation was much stronger on the defensive side.

I took the Rivals rankings since 2002 and then compared the defensive S&P+ to the four-year running average. The four-year averages are skewed by the #19 class in 2007. The 2010 recruiting average included 2007 even though most of that class left one way or another by then.

What I take from the analysis is:

- The defensive ranking has been in a 50-70 range since the 2006 class graduates. This includes one Tenuta year. Our 2007 defense was #63.
- The general indication is that Wommack and 2010-11 Groh did worse than the recruiting rankings. 2012 was the best CPJ defense, but I would have to assume that's all credit to Kelley. Roof's defense has done about as well as our recruiting rankings.
- If you think the recruiting rankings are biased against GT, then perhaps Roof should do 10-20 spots better to match our recruiting rankings.
- OTOH, if our recruiting is actually averaging around 60, then CPJ has certainly outperformed recruiting. The question is whether the world's best recruiter could get, say, consistent top 40 classes. Our rankings 2002-06 BTW were 63, 53, 79, 65, 60.

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A buddy of mine inside the F$U program has indicated there is a desire to dump both Kelly and their OL coach after the season.

I suggested a straight up trade.
 
Not giving Giff Smith a shot at DC and bringing in Womack was CPJ's biggest mistake in the 9 years he's had as head coach. And it happened in Year One.

When you have a guy that's actually recruited a top 15 class at a school like GT...you need to find a way to keep him around at all costs.
 
We apparently need players who can grow arms four feet longer so they can properly cover people on 3rd down when they're told by their coaches to drop back into soft coverage and tackle people after they get the first down.

Gosh Ted, why don't you recruit players with 7ft long arms that can actually get us a 3rd down stop with the plays you're calling?
 
beej67 said:
We apparently need players who can grow arms four feet longer so they can properly cover people on 3rd down when they're told by their coaches to drop back into soft coverage and tackle people after they get the first down.

Gosh Ted, why don't you recruit players with 7ft long arms that can actually get us a 3rd down stop with the plays you're calling?
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I'm not exactly an expert on different schemes, but my general understanding is we have these different options for coverage on third and long:

1. Close coverage with help over the top, which means not blitzing.
2. Soft coverage with blitzing, which keeps a long play from happening.
3. Close coverage with blitzing, which runs a big risk of a long play.

For the correlations Bill Connelly did, he said that defense had higher correlation with recruiting but also PASS defense had a higher correlation than run defense. In other words, "you can't teach speed." DB's go to camps throughout high school and the fastest DB's are pretty well-known.

If we don't have a fast enough DB, then there's a big risk with close coverage AND blitzing. So sometimes DB's play soft so we can blitz, but then we have issues with getting to the QB in time. And I have seen some very big plays given up by our defense. In the Pitt game in 2014, Roof called a blitz where our fairly slow DE had to cover the RB in a wheel route. Since the blitz didn't get to the QB in time, the DE was badly beat and the RB either went for a TD or at least got 40+ yards.

Not an expert on defensive scheme, but my read is the CB's soft coverage is not the issue. The issue is the blitz not getting to the QB and not getting off blocks. That's been a big issue with the DL going back to 2014.
 
floridajacket said:
I'm not exactly an expert on different schemes, but my general understanding is we have these different options for coverage on third and long:

1. Close coverage with help over the top, which means not blitzing.
2. Soft coverage with blitzing, which keeps a long play from happening.
3. Close coverage with blitzing, which runs a big risk of a long play.

For the correlations Bill Connelly did, he said that defense had higher correlation with recruiting but also PASS defense had a higher correlation than run defense. In other words, "you can't teach speed." DB's go to camps throughout high school and the fastest DB's are pretty well-known.

If we don't have a fast enough DB, then there's a big risk with close coverage AND blitzing. So sometimes DB's play soft so we can blitz, but then we have issues with getting to the QB in time. And I have seen some very big plays given up by our defense. In the Pitt game in 2014, Roof called a blitz where our fairly slow DE had to cover the RB in a wheel route. Since the blitz didn't get to the QB in time, the DE was badly beat and the RB either went for a TD or at least got 40+ yards.

Not an expert on defensive scheme, but my read is the CB's soft coverage is not the issue. The issue is the blitz not getting to the QB and not getting off blocks. That's been a big issue with the DL going back to 2014.
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I go with option 3. This way you put the QB in the situation of making the perfect throw and the WR making the catch...doesn't always happen plus, you add the possibilities of creating TO's which we do not do with regularity. Check our +- TO ratio the last two years. I would rather get burned on occasion, get our offense back on the field to try to match the scoring rather than the frustrating bend but don't break philosophy TR seems to employ.
 
I found an easy solution for Teddy's D. DVR the game and FF through commercials and Teddy's D.
 
BeerNutts said:
I was only limiting the discussion to CPJ era, nothing more. Guess I should've been more clearer.
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Gotcha.

It also seems to me that the "big names" we get from a recruiting perspective (Kallon & the Denzel kid from Northview) haven't produced to the level many hoped.

I'm not trying to say anything bad about these guys. I know various factors come into play that impact a player's ability to contribute.

I'm just saying that the "recruiting wins" we have made on the DL have fallen short, too.


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GoldSox said:
Gotcha.

It also seems to me that the "big names" we get from a recruiting perspective (Kallon & the Denzel kid from Northview) haven't produced to the level many hoped.
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Denzel McCoy? He had a medical issue, IIRC. Your point still remains though.
 
Maybe not correct, but I have thought that PJ might lean toward more recruits for his offense than the defensive side.
 
Kinda starting to blame the offense we run on why our DEF sucks. Can't recruit high level guys because they are told by everybody else that they are only going to practice against cut blocking and midgets.
 
There is some validity to that point, no doubt about it.

Counter argument is that the scout team runs pro-style, spread, etc...but based on how bad our actual team is the scout team really cant be giving these guys a good look.
 
JoeCakeEater said:
There is some validity to that point, no doubt about it.

Counter argument is that the scout team runs pro-style, spread, etc...but based on how bad our actual team is the scout team really cant be giving these guys a good look.
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Boston College had the best defense in the country last year, and their offense was ööööing TERRIBLE. No possible way their scout team was better than ours, regardless of scheme. Our offense has no bearing on our defense, unless you believe that kids are falling for lies and negative recruiting.
 
johncu said:
Boston College had the best defense in the country last year, and their offense was ööööing TERRIBLE. No possible way their scout team was better than ours, regardless of scheme. Our offense has no bearing on our defense, unless you believe that kids are falling for lies and negative recruiting.
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I am starting to. Couple it with "gotta take calculus with them nerdy Asians and no girls in the A she she" and I don't think we just start out in a real deep hole recruiting wise.

not as deep as your moms hole though
 
GoldSox said:
I agree with you 100% that adding a higher caliber DL would make a big difference. I'm not sure if I understand your point in tying this missing element to CPJ. Are you suggesting that he has somehow impacted our ability to recruit DLinemen?

To be honest, beastly DL have been few and far between at Tech for some time now. Even the best defensive line in recent memory (the one CPJ inherited when he took over) didn't include highly-recruited guys on the interior.

From a recruiting perspective, Richard and V. Walker were winning lottery tickets, as I recall.

Morgan and MJ were more highly regarded, but I even think MJ was scouted by most to be a TE.


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the Tomlinson guy now at Ala , the Notre Dame guy, and the DE at Arkansas from Huntsville,al. were all all "just misses"--all would have made big difference
 
johncu said:
Boston College had the best defense in the country last year, and their offense was ööööing TERRIBLE. No possible way their scout team was better than ours, regardless of scheme. Our offense has no bearing on our defense, unless you believe that kids are falling for lies and negative recruiting.
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Yeah, hard to imagine kids falling for that. Look at all the adults who are smart enough to see through lies and negative political ads.

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On the recruiting stuff, I'm weary to see a hypothesis test of GT's recruiting. By "hypothesis test," I mean CPJ is fired and a new coach installs a more "normal" offense. The new coach may also be younger and look more dynamic, to get hopes up.

Firing CPJ or for that matter firing Ted Roof could satisfy my favorite dictum "Something must be done. This is something. Therefore it must be done." Ted Roof is at least very likely on a year-to-year contract, so we don't have to pay him not to coach.
 
johncu said:
Boston College had the best defense in the country last year, and their offense was ööööing TERRIBLE. No possible way their scout team was better than ours, regardless of scheme. Our offense has no bearing on our defense, unless you believe that kids are falling for lies and negative recruiting.
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Our defense has sucked every year that we've run the spread option except for the first. Just a fact. I believe that if we ran a more conventional offense then our defense would get better looks in practice. Just because other teams exaggerate it to negative recruit us doesn't mean that there isn't at least some validity to it.
 
We are currently #109 in DefFEI. It's not just recruiting.
 
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