Our Defense vs. Their Offense

EastboundJacket

EastboundJacket

Damn Good Rat
Joined
Nov 27, 2013
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Let's talk football again:

I'm not worried about our O vs their D. Our offense has been chugging right along and should continue to do so against ND. If not, and they can shut us down, we have bigger problems- we won't have a very good year. It's not like they're the best defense we'll face all year, not by a longshot, honestly. They're good, but we're supposed to be an elite offense.

My analysis before this game goes to our defense vs. their offense. To me, it'll be a big test for the 2015 defense. The 2014 defense, with all of its early struggles, found a way in the big games to give the offense a chance. Mostly through turnovers. Our 2015 defense should, in theory, be more talented and shouldn't need to rely on turnovers to get stops. But will they? Honestly, we don't really know. We played Tulane and Alcorn St. We played fine. But I ask: how do you think we'll do?

To me, they lost a lot of starters. Yet their RB STILL looks good, which speaks of the talent and depth they had before injuries. Then of course there's Kizer. He looked fine, but he only had 1 drive. Do we even know anything about how the matchup between our D and their O will turn out?
 
Just another thing to throw into the discussion on their offense, I've been hearing that their oline is extremely stout.
 
Our defense will get a few picks. We seem to be good at baiting QB's to throw where we want. In the grand scheme of things, the two quarterbacks we have faced so far were more experienced and probably better than what ND is going to trot out there Saturday. We need to take advantage of his inexperience and jump on them early and not let off the gas.
 
JJacket said:
Our defense will get a few picks. We seem to be good at baiting QB's to throw where we want. In the grand scheme of things, the two quarterbacks we have faced so far were more experienced and probably better than what ND is going to trot out there Saturday. We need to take advantage of his inexperience and jump on them early and not let off the gas.
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So you think Alcorn's State QB is better than Notre Dame's backup QB? Doubtful.
 
MGTFan said:
So you think Alcorn's State QB is better than Notre Dame's backup QB? Doubtful.
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Yes, I do. He has thrown hundreds of more passes in actual games than ND's QB. Hell, just the reps give him an advantage. 6'6", 220 lbs, senior. He was 26-33 last week, obviously against weaker competition than us.
 
JJacket said:
Yes, I do. He has thrown hundreds of more passes in actual games than ND's QB. Hell, just the reps give him an advantage. 6'6", 220 lbs, senior. He was 26-33 last week, obviously against weaker competition than us.
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The Notre Dame offensive line will make an average QB look like a super star. If you put Alcorn State QB behind that I'm pretty sure he would have had a better day.
 
Akinji07 said:
The Notre Dame offensive line will make an average QB look like a super star. If you put Alcorn State QB behind that I'm pretty sure he would have had a better day.
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Which still leaves us with the problem of their OL/QB combo having a big OL. Fortunately, Tulane also had a very large OL. I'm hopeful it made for good practice. But we've yet to see an opponent throw accurately on us.

Key here will be not fumbling and keeping that young QB on the sidelines to maximize the pressure on him when he does hit the field.
 
Akinji07 said:
The Notre Dame offensive line will make an average QB look like a super star. If you put Alcorn State QB behind that I'm pretty sure he would have had a better day.
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Definitely this. If Alcorn's QB was on Notre Dame's squad right now, he might have a chance to start, IMO. He was just getting bull rushed against us and had no time.
 
The Gotsis twins are doing reconnaissance missions in South Bend this week.....do we have any updates from them?
 
I'm very curious to see how our D-line does against their O-line.

I think we'll hold up OK against the run game on most plays. Looking for Gotsis to improve here, he's great when he gets in the backfield and disrupts, not as great playing back and making the tackle at the line (this is in my opinion, I haven't heard many talk about it).

I foresee any non-PJ Davis linebacker getting caught in the wash a few times and the safety making the stop to prevent an explosive run play.

I'd expect a young QB to have several incompletions due to inaccuracy, jitters, miscommunication, slow decision making -> throw aways. Throw in a pocket collapse or two from our D-line too. If we can get into some 3rd and longish, then we can see some blitz packages and I will be disappointed if we can't get off the field on 3rd down.

Their WR #7 will be a go-to guy and our go-to guy will be on him. This is a HUGE matchup for DJ White and I look forward to seeing how it plays out.

For as long as I can remember, we haven't covered the tight end. Not sure how this plays out.
 
I'm sure ND is going to score on us, but Tech will have two advantages. First, our offense is going to be grinding out slow drives all day that use up clock, keep our defense rested, and prevent their offense from getting into any rhythm. Second, Kiser in his first college start will make some mistakes. Maybe not a lot, but enough that we won't need to score on every possession and we aren't going to lose the turnover battle.
 
I watched the UVA replay last night. The new QB isn't any worse than the old one. I'm more worried about their running game than their passing game. I'm afraid losing the QB might shift them into a better overall game plan, and they try to clock-control us.
 
beej67 said:
I watched the UVA replay last night. The new QB isn't any worse than the old one. I'm more worried about their running game than their passing game. I'm afraid losing the QB might shift them into a better overall game plan, and they try to clock-control us.
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If Kelly wasn't talking out of his drinking problem, then this will not be the case. He publicly and strongly asserted that they would be throwing the ball and putting the game in the hands of their QB a lot. He said the game plan doesn't change because they need to score points.
 
There new RB (prosise i think its is?) looks like an athlete playing RB. In fact I think he was moved from WR before the latest injury for depth. He looks good in the open field and can certainly do damage if he gets the edge, but I'm not sure he's going to make the right reads/blocks/cuts that a seasoned RB would.

There WR Fuller is dangerous. Very fast. He will test us deep and we'll need to get pressure on the new QB to avoid WRs having time to break free. None of their other WRs have really done anything. Some intimidating frames and recruiting rankings there, but not much production to fear (you could say the same for our WRs though).

OL looks good but I'm not sure they are any better than the Clemson/UGA/FSU/MSU lines we saw to end last season. I imagine we'll look like we're getting pushed around at times and look like we're holding our own and getting pressure at others. I don't think they'll dominate us in the trenches by any means.

QBs the wildcard. Made a few good throws when forced to last week but it's a small sample size? Usually all we need is 2 or 3 big mistakes from the QB to start to impose our will and pull away. With the way I think our O vs their D will shape up he's going to have to play a VERY good game to beat us.

Our O is better than their D.
Their O is probably better than our D, but who knows until we see Keizer.
 
gte490v said:
I'm very curious to see how our D-line does against their O-line.

I think we'll hold up OK against the run game on most plays. Looking for Gotsis to improve here, he's great when he gets in the backfield and disrupts, not as great playing back and making the tackle at the line (this is in my opinion, I haven't heard many talk about it).

I foresee any non-PJ Davis linebacker getting caught in the wash a few times and the safety making the stop to prevent an explosive run play.

I'd expect a young QB to have several incompletions due to inaccuracy, jitters, miscommunication, slow decision making -> throw aways. Throw in a pocket collapse or two from our D-line too. If we can get into some 3rd and longish, then we can see some blitz packages and I will be disappointed if we can't get off the field on 3rd down.

Their WR #7 will be a go-to guy and our go-to guy will be on him. This is a HUGE matchup for DJ White and I look forward to seeing how it plays out.

For as long as I can remember, we haven't covered the tight end. Not sure how this plays out.
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We put a special coverage together for Ebron a couple years back. That's about it.
 
Deke said:
Just another thing to throw into the discussion on their offense, I've been hearing that their oline is extremely stout.
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They look that way. We're gonna have to play like no tomorrow.
 
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