Our Defensive Adjustments were not that Great.....

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MEatGT

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Ok, first off I will admit that I am happy we have a coach who makes adjustments, but I am seeing all of these posts about how good we did on defense in the second half. Am I missing something because all I remember is us catching some very lucky breaks in the second half.

Here is a recap of FSU's missed drives:

After we fumble: the two receivers hit each other, great defense there, should be FSU first down and prob TD. Good defense, right?

After we have the 73 yard bomb: First play is a 50 yard run by FSU, then we hold them to field goal from pretty good defense. Not bad, I will be honest, we held ground after giving up a big play, but still.

After we have 8 minute drive: they are rolling and then get called for holding to make it 3rd and 13, still get 10 yards and then mystifyingly punt it on 4th and like 3. Bad defense again, and FSU should have gone for it.

After we fumble: they drive to our 30, then we get a sack/fumble from a weird defensive front. Good adjustment, but they were still running all over us.

After The Theft drive: They just roll downfield and score on the worst man-to-man coverage/bad pass interference I have seen in a while, turn around Peterson! But they still rolled us.

In conclusion, defense still sucked second half, got lucky with holding call and I will admit did good on the sack/strip, but still, we have tons of work to do, do not sugarcoat this.
 
Yes, FSU really shot themselves in the foot. Our defense had a couple good plays in the second half, but overall our best defense was our offense and them dropping passes.
 
The only area that the defense improved in the 2nd half, which some are attributing to FSU's mistakes is the QB pressure. We definitely got more pressure on the QB in the 2nd half. It was still a horrible looking defense that relied on FSU to make mistakes. But, nonetheless, it was better.
 
Your list sounds like good defense to me. Good defense doesn't necessarily mean all good plays, it means you get enough good defensive plays strung together during a drive to end the drive. We did that. We gave up yards, but we managed to string a few good defensive plays together enough to stop drives.

If we can do the same thing vs VT we've got a good shot at winning, because VT has the same tendencies (dropped passes / etc) that FSU does.
 
On the two FSU receivers running together: Did anyone look to see if it was our coverage that caused the confusion? If you can force two guys into the same space, it cuts down on the QBs choices.
 
The main reason our defense was able to play better, was because I think that in the first half they were unsure what to do and slow to react (even before they got tired). In the second half there is a noticeable difference in how they were flying around. They were able to get pressure, able to get to the ball carrier faster.

The defense was still bad, don't get me wrong, but they were night and day different in first half to second half. Holding a very good FSU offense to 3 points for nearly the entire second half no matter HOW it's done is a good adjustment in my eyes. Did FSU make a couple of mistakes? Yea, sure they did. But they made the same types of mistakes in the first half, but because the defense was playing better they were unable to overcome them.
 
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WracerX said:
On the two FSU receivers running together: Did anyone look to see if it was our coverage that caused the confusion? If you can force two guys into the same space, it cuts down on the QBs choices.
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no.. those receivers were BOTH running all alone and were confused as to who was more open so they both tried to catch it... GT's db's didnt force anyone to do anything saturday night

The D was completely bailed out by FSU's mistakes/dropped balls/penalties and our offensive prowess. Seeing the entire field from the endzone made it very evident that our coverages were poor at best... receivers were open early and often.... It was like NCAA 2010 on JV
 
killerbuzz42 said:
no.. those receivers were BOTH running all alone and were confused as to who was more open so they both tried to catch it
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Not true, they were both underneath our coverage. That much I remember. I think the outside FSU receiver was out of position (the one who cut inside to bat down the pass). But I'm not sure.
 
MEatGT said:
Ok, first off I will admit that I am happy we have a coach who makes adjustments, but I am seeing all of these posts about how good we did on defense in the second half. Am I missing something because all I remember is us catching some very lucky breaks in the second half.
Click to expand...

I won't try to tell you that our defense was good in the second half. But it was significantly better than in the first half. Some of that was that our offense gave them more time to rest by staying on the field longer (anyone else remember that one of the flaws of the "run and shoot" was how fast the team scored thereby putting the defense out on the field with less rest). And some was some good adjustments that confused Ponder a bit and got more of a pass rush on him. But a few things I'll address directly:

1) After the long drive they got called for holding. Generally speaking holding occurs when the offensive player is beaten by the defensive player and has to tackle him or grab him in order to keep bad things from happening. A holding call is caused by some good defensive play so don't try to make that into an "FSU mistake" all by itself.

2) Punting on 4th and 3 perhaps was the wrong call but generally speaking that's what you do when the field position doesn't favor you. Part of how you stop another offense is by trying to force them to go farther to score. If you do that then there's usually more chances for the offense to fumble or make mistakes or for your team to come up with a big play. Our defense WAS playing better in the second half and that convinced FSU that they would be better off playing the percentages of stopping an opposing offense after punting than after missing a 4th and 3. Give our defense credit that FSU felt uncomfortable going for it at that point.0

3) we started getting to Ponder better because our guys were doing a marginally better job of fighting off the blocks and we changed some formations that kept Ponder from getting rid of the ball to quickly. We did make adjustments to the formations and that combined with some better play by the DL got us to Ponder more often and forced some poor throws and some rushed throws.

Like I said, I'm not suggesting we played great defense in the second half. But I am suggesting that we played much better defense in the second half. Some, not all, of the FSU mistakes were caused by changes we made.
 
I'm not sure what posts you are refering to. In my analysis I gave big props for the halftime defensive adjustments but also brought up the fact that FSU shot themselves in the foot on two occassions that cost them 1st downs and possibly points. My main point was I was happy to see us play a lot of different people and try out different schemes. If you don't think our adjustments helped get pressure on Ponder in the 2nd half, you didn't see the same game I did.
 
Geez, guys. FSU's offense was rolling and Ponder was hitting everything. You can take any good offense and have them play without a defense at all, and they'll miss a few passes.

At this point, we should just put our effort into stopping the run and then play extremely aggressively against the pass. We'll give up a few big plays but also intercept a couple. Taylor just isn't that good.
 
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