New defense thoughts

beej67 said:
Wide open in the wrong spot. To get the muscle memory right for passes your routes are supposed to be crisp. If the QB has to pause a half second to track a guy down because he's not in the right spot, then the pass is late, or hurried.
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I like that in theory, but TQM's pass ain't nowhere near where the AB would've been if he'd done what you're saying he should've done. Just seems to me that is hard to know exactly how much blame goes where.
 
It’s frustrating how many of our passing plays result in receivers running free that never even get looked at by the QB. Part of that is probably pass protection and some still result in solid completions. But feels like so many missed opportunities.

Big ones that stick out in my head are Iowa ‘09 throwing a pick into double coverage while the AB was literally the only player on the left half of the field. Clemson ‘10 when nobody followed Hill off the snap and we threw a pick up the middle. UGA ‘16 when we were backed up and Stewart bailed us out with a contested catch but Searcy was streaking free for a TD.

Maybe this happens to other teams just as often. But it’s a tough pill to swallow as much as we’ve struggled to pass at times.
 
gtrower said:
It’s frustrating how many of our passing plays result in receivers running free that never even get looked at by the QB. Part of that is probably pass protection and some still result in solid completions. But feels like so many missed opportunities.

Big ones that stick out in my head are Iowa ‘09 throwing a pick into double coverage while the AB was literally the only player on the left half of the field. Clemson ‘10 when nobody followed Hill off the snap and we threw a pick up the middle. UGA ‘16 when we were backed up and Stewart bailed us out with a contested catch but Searcy was streaking free for a TD.

Maybe this happens to other teams just as often. But it’s a tough pill to swallow as much as we’ve struggled to pass at times.
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Without knowing the QBs prescribed read progression (which I'm hoping he is given by the coaches for each passing play) it's difficult to know whether or not there are "backside" routes that the QB is not even supposed to be looking at -- also the extent to which the coaches want to narrow the scope for a passer who is overwhelmed and "freezes" if asked to scan too much of the field too quickly. I don't know enough about CPJ's passing scheme to understand which of these two possibilities is more likely in TM's case. :dunno:
 
Does anybody around here understand defensive schemes? We've been an offense team for so long, I really feel like my knowledge about how defenses work has not developed through discussion board osmosis near as much as it has for offenses. Some discussion from a defense guru, with gifs of our defensive alignments and such, would be very enlightening. At least to me anyway.

I mean, I've stated several times that I never felt we were misaligned defensively or confused about our responsibilities during the game, and that was a positive, but I'm not too much higher echelon than 'idiot layman' when it comes to defense so my opinion doesn't have weight. I'd like to learn that shit better.
 
The only thing I know about defensive strategy is "flying around", "knowing where your supposed to go", and "high energy" are aparently good things.
 
beej67 said:
I think you guys are not looking at the full pattern here. The boundary A back runs a wheel. When we run wheels, they're basically always deep routes trying to catch a man coverage LB in a footrace mismatch. (and wheels are probably Johnson's favorite route IMO) The WR runs a hitch, and sucks the corner and safety into both guarding him. He's occupying space. The field side A back runs a shallow cross at the sticks, and he dorks up his route. If he runs a crisp route instead of lollygagging then he's wide open for an easy first down, but instead he starts trending back into a deeper area and ends up clogging up the same area the WR is in, basically neutralizing them both.

There were no missed WR reads on this pattern. I'm not sure there were any reads at all. It's just garbage route running by the field side AB.

Now, there's a question about who the hell TM was throwing to. I can't figure that one out at all. But it's not a WR read. The spot he threw to would have been open for the wheel about four steps earlier, but certainly not when TM threw the ball. If he was going to hit the wheel later, he should have waited another second or two to throw it, or put up a fade if he didn't have time.

If the field AB runs the proper shallow cross (a pattern about 4 yds deep) then he gets the first down on the catch and probably gets about ten more YAC.
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Agree with all of this.

Watching that play over and over, it looks like there's almost no way for teams to fully guard the route combination you see on that play. Not if they're respecting our run game. If they sit on the short routes, the wheel is WIDE open. If they slide outside for the wheel, the WR is open in the middle on the post or hitch. And if they guard both of those routes, the crossing AB is completely unguarded once he gets past the LB in the middle.

What that means is that the issue with our passing game isn't playcalling. It's that our players either physically can't or don't know how to do everything properly. We're either getting pressured before the routes can develop, running poor routes, throwing a poor pass, or dropping the ball when it actually gets there.
 
beej67 said:
Does anybody around here understand defensive schemes? We've been an offense team for so long, I really feel like my knowledge about how defenses work has not developed through discussion board osmosis near as much as it has for offenses. Some discussion from a defense guru, with gifs of our defensive alignments and such, would be very enlightening. At least to me anyway.

I mean, I've stated several times that I never felt we were misaligned defensively or confused about our responsibilities during the game, and that was a positive, but I'm not too much higher echelon than 'idiot layman' when it comes to defense so my opinion doesn't have weight. I'd like to learn that öööö better.
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I’m no guru on either side of the ball. But some basic knowledge of a 3-4 and interviews with Woody/CPJ over the last year...

Strategy
Attack. Disruption in the backfield. The buzzwords have been “flying around” “less thinking” this off season. So we’re going to be less of a read/react defense and more of an attack-where-we-think-they’ll-be defense. That means more negative plays, more big plays, and fewer death marches. We’re going to be getting off the field quick one way or another.

DL
In previous read/react schemes our DL has been tasked with absorbing blockers to create space for LBs to make plays. This was especially true with Groh’s 3-4. In Woody’s scheme, however the DL attacks gaps. Which is why we’ll be going after quicker DLs without as much emphasis on height/size. Which given how much trouble we’ve had recruiting big DTs is music to my ears.

LBs
LBs are responsible for filling gaps that the DL doesn’t take. We’ll almost always be bringing 1/2 LBs with pressure to make it a 4/5 man front anyway. I’m not as familiar with the *Stinger* position but assume we treat it as most teams do a LB/DB hybrid that is employed to counter spread offenses that run multiple formations in hurry up. So he’ll be tasked with coverage/run/blitzing on any given play. Campbell was blitzing from the Stinger position on the lone sack last week. Imagine this role will be filled with one of the better athletes on the team each year.

DBs
Don’t think our DBs won’t change too much, but honestly don’t know enough to say.

That’s my understanding. Could be mistaken. And obviously more informed fans could go into a lot more detail.
 
johncu said:
Agree with all of this.

Watching that play over and over, it looks like there's almost no way for teams to fully guard the route combination you see on that play. Not if they're respecting our run game. If they sit on the short routes, the wheel is WIDE open. If they slide outside for the wheel, the WR is open in the middle on the post or hitch. And if they guard both of those routes, the crossing AB is completely unguarded once he gets past the LB in the middle.

What that means is that the issue with our passing game isn't playcalling. It's that our players either physically can't or don't know how to do everything properly. We're either getting pressured before the routes can develop, running poor routes, throwing a poor pass, or dropping the ball when it actually gets there.
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It's a beautiful play on paper, that requires no option route garbage. We just need to execute it.

So the question for me is how much we practice executing it, versus how much we practice executing, say, option or similar.
 
gtrower said:
I’m no guru on either side of the ball. But some basic knowledge of a 3-4 and interviews with Woody/CPJ over the last year...

Strategy
Attack. Disruption in the backfield. The buzzwords have been “flying around” “less thinking” this off season. So we’re going to be less of a read/react defense and more of an attack-where-we-think-they’ll-be defense. That means more negative plays, more big plays, and fewer death marches. We’re going to be getting off the field quick one way or another.

DL
In previous read/react schemes our DL has been tasked with absorbing blockers to create space for LBs to make plays. This was especially true with Groh’s 3-4. In Woody’s scheme, however the DL attacks gaps. Which is why we’ll be going after quicker DLs without as much emphasis on height/size. Which given how much trouble we’ve had recruiting big DTs is music to my ears.

LBs
LBs are responsible for filling gaps that the DL doesn’t take. We’ll almost always be bringing 1/2 LBs with pressure to make it a 4/5 man front anyway. I’m not as familiar with the *Stinger* position but assume we treat it as most teams do a LB/DB hybrid that is employed to counter spread offenses that run multiple formations in hurry up. So he’ll be tasked with coverage/run/blitzing on any given play. Campbell was blitzing from the Stinger position on the lone sack last week. Imagine this role will be filled with one of the better athletes on the team each year.

DBs
Don’t think our DBs won’t change too much, but honestly don’t know enough to say.

That’s my understanding. Could be mistaken. And obviously more informed fans could go into a lot more detail.
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Yeah, I get all that. That part's easy.

Woody runs a "1 gap" 3-4. Looked to me from the Alcorn game that we usually presented an even front, meaning we generally had one of the OLBs (I don't know Woody's terms here, I presume one is the Sam, Groh called the other one Jack I think) on the line rushing, for four total rushers (an even number). I didn't pay too much attention to our coverages, but I'd like someone to break those down for me. Cover 1, Cover 2, Cover 3 (hopefully it's not C3, that defense is garbage) Man under/over, all that crap. I don't understand that stuff very well, and I don't understand run fits at the LB level as well as I would like, as they relate to gap control.

My intuition about the Groh years, which were 2 gap defenses, is that the LBs got their heads lost in gap control sometimes instead of in ball hawking. But I think everybody had their heads lost under Groh.
 
beej67 said:
Yeah, I get all that. That part's easy.

Woody runs a "1 gap" 3-4. Looked to me from the Alcorn game that we usually presented an even front, meaning we generally had one of the OLBs (I don't know Woody's terms here, I presume one is the Sam, Groh called the other one Jack I think) on the line rushing, for four total rushers (an even number). I didn't pay too much attention to our coverages, but I'd like someone to break those down for me. Cover 1, Cover 2, Cover 3 (hopefully it's not C3, that defense is garbage) Man under/over, all that crap. I don't understand that stuff very well, and I don't understand run fits at the LB level as well as I would like, as they relate to gap control.

My intuition about the Groh years, which were 2 gap defenses, is that the LBs got their heads lost in gap control sometimes instead of in ball hawking. But I think everybody had their heads lost under Groh.
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Our even front basically looked like a 4-3 against Alcorn with the Jack (Alexander/Henderson) rushing the QB basically every play. One of the purported advantages of a 3-4 is the ability to vary and disguise blitzes, so I'll be curious to see how much more of that we do against better competition. As it was, our only sack of the game came when Campbell blitzed from the Stinger position and was not accounted for.

As for coverage, I didn't pay any attention to that either. I was completely zoned in on our pass rush and underneath coverage, since that is where we seem to have struggled for 10 years now.
 
beej67 said:
Can someone summarize this in five words or less?

Is the "stinger" our strong safety, or our Jack, or our Sam?
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technically, none of the above. in Woody's 3-4, the jack is like a sam in other schemes. typically plays n the strong side. 2 ILBs are Wil and Mike. the stinger is the 4th LB, on the outside, more hybrid safety than the jack, who is more DE/LB hybrid (Vic Alexander.) then you still have 2 safeties, a free and a strong.

this is a pretty good look at a 1-gap 3-4 and I think pretty close to what Woody runs. http://breakdownsports.blogspot.com/2014/10/football-fundamentals-one-gap-3-4-Defense.html

Below is where they line up although they might flip left-right, depending on strength.

BQvoIua.jpg
 
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gtrower said:
It’s frustrating how many of our passing plays result in receivers running free that never even get looked at by the QB. Part of that is probably pass protection and some still result in solid completions. But feels like so many missed opportunities.

Big ones that stick out in my head are Iowa ‘09 throwing a pick into double coverage while the AB was literally the only player on the left half of the field. Clemson ‘10 when nobody followed Hill off the snap and we threw a pick up the middle. UGA ‘16 when we were backed up and Stewart bailed us out with a contested catch but Searcy was streaking free for a TD.

Maybe this happens to other teams just as often. But it’s a tough pill to swallow as much as we’ve struggled to pass at times.
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Ricky Jeune was wide open at the end zone on a pass play against UGAg last season, busted coverage, and we threw to the sideline into coverage
 
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