Quit complaining about the defense

cajunjacket

cajunjacket

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Our defense, although not stout at all in the yardage game, is excellent at forcing turnovers. We shut down UNC last week when they were still flying high. Yes, I know UVA shut them down this week too, but that doesn't mean anything. You can't compare teams based on common opponents. We have proven that time and time again.

The way many of you are feeling about our defense right now is the way that about every team feels about their defense after playing us, Florida, (insert spread option team here). The spread is a great offense. It's extremely hard to defend. People are starting to notice it. Look at how Les Miles used option plays on numerous occasions against UGA and even NFL teams are putting in a Wildcat front which is essentially a variant of the option.

The option produces yardage, but with great yardage comes great risk. The risk is turnovers. We exploited that risk last night against Mississippi State. Mississippi State reminded me of us last year in some of our losses. Put up big yardage, but too many costly turnovers to win. I give a ton of the credit to our defense.

Another thing that many of you are forgetting is that our offense is one of our best defenses because we are really clicking now and starting to win the time of possession battle. Someone was talking about how we didn't force a punt last night. I will take 5 turnovers any day over 5 punts. I don't know if that's just me, but I think CPJ would feel the same way too.

My main point is that the option is hard to scheme against and hard to shut down. LSU couldn't even shut us down and they had weeks to prepare for us with one of the top coaches and personnel in all of college football. We still put up 314 yards of offense to their 324. Do you think LSU fans were bitching after the game about their defense. No, they were happy because they forced 3 turnovers and good special teams play.

If anything, all you defensive haters should be hating on the kick off coverage. We look like swiss cheese out there. Kick off coverage isn't coached by Wommack last I checked. This has to be the most hate a defensive coordinator has received after forcing 5 turnovers and winning by more than 1 score. I honestly think that people just look for stuff to bitch about after each game.

After the Clemson game: our team can't play more than 1 quarter (I was on that bandwagon ... guilty). Blair is awesome.

After the Miami game: we are only going to win 7, our defense sucks, fire Wommack.

After the UNC game: Blair sucks, we need a new kicker. Our offense needs to learn how to put the ball in the endzone when they are in the redzone. Our defense stepped up. Wommack is awesome.

After the MSU game: Our defense sucks. (Still haven't heard anything about Kick Off Coverage).

Maybe after sleeping on it, many of you will come to your senses. Our defense is OK. They aren't horrid. A horrid defense wouldn't have picked up those turnovers. These guys play with their head on a swivel and can get those turnovers when they are available.

A legitimate concern: special teams. Our kicker still hasn't had to prove himself since the UNC game. And our kick off coverage is horrendous.
 
Kick off coverage has been horrendous only last game. Prior to that they had played really well in limiting any big plays. Last night we had short kickoffs with little hang time. All starts with the kicker.
 
cajunjacket said:
Our defense, although not stout at all in the yardage game, is excellent at forcing turnovers. We shut down UNC last week when they were still flying high. Yes, I know UVA shut them down this week too, but that doesn't mean anything. You can't compare teams based on common opponents. We have proven that time and time again.

The way many of you are feeling about our defense right now is the way that about every team feels about their defense after playing us, Florida, (insert spread option team here). The spread is a great offense. It's extremely hard to defend. People are starting to notice it. Look at how Les Miles used option plays on numerous occasions against UGA and even NFL teams are putting in a Wildcat front which is essentially a variant of the option.

The option produces yardage, but with great yardage comes great risk. The risk is turnovers. We exploited that risk last night against Mississippi State. Mississippi State reminded me of us last year in some of our losses. Put up big yardage, but too many costly turnovers to win. I give a ton of the credit to our defense.

Another thing that many of you are forgetting is that our offense is one of our best defenses because we are really clicking now and starting to win the time of possession battle. Someone was talking about how we didn't force a punt last night. I will take 5 turnovers any day over 5 punts. I don't know if that's just me, but I think CPJ would feel the same way too.

My main point is that the option is hard to scheme against and hard to shut down. LSU couldn't even shut us down and they had weeks to prepare for us with one of the top coaches and personnel in all of college football. We still put up 314 yards of offense to their 324. Do you think LSU fans were bitching after the game about their defense. No, they were happy because they forced 3 turnovers and good special teams play.

If anything, all you defensive haters should be hating on the kick off coverage. We look like swiss cheese out there. Kick off coverage isn't coached by Wommack last I checked. This has to be the most hate a defensive coordinator has received after forcing 5 turnovers and winning by more than 1 score. I honestly think that people just look for stuff to bitch about after each game.

After the Clemson game: our team can't play more than 1 quarter (I was on that bandwagon ... guilty). Blair is awesome.

After the Miami game: we are only going to win 7, our defense sucks, fire Wommack.

After the UNC game: Blair sucks, we need a new kicker. Our offense needs to learn how to put the ball in the endzone when they are in the redzone. Our defense stepped up. Wommack is awesome.

After the MSU game: Our defense sucks. (Still haven't heard anything about Kick Off Coverage).

Maybe after sleeping on it, many of you will come to your senses. Our defense is OK. They aren't horrid. A horrid defense wouldn't have picked up those turnovers. These guys play with their head on a swivel and can get those turnovers when they are available.

A legitimate concern: special teams. Our kicker still hasn't had to prove himself since the UNC game. And our kick off coverage is horrendous.
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And if not for TO's we probably would have been beaten. Our D, except for Morgan, should give their Scholly's back.
 
cajunjacket said:
Our defense, although not stout at all in the yardage game, is excellent at forcing turnovers. We shut down UNC last week when they were still flying high. Yes, I know UVA shut them down this week too, but that doesn't mean anything. You can't compare teams based on common opponents. We have proven that time and time again.
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I'm sorry, but UNC's offense is putrid and there were many of us worried after that game that it would have looked pretty different if TJ Yates could have hit water out of a boat. Looking bad again against a pretty awful UVA team let me know that most teams should be able to shutdown UNC's offense this season.

The way many of you are feeling about our defense right now is the way that about every team feels about their defense after playing us, Florida, (insert spread option team here). The spread is a great offense. It's extremely hard to defend. People are starting to notice it. Look at how Les Miles used option plays on numerous occasions against UGA and even NFL teams are putting in a Wildcat front which is essentially a variant of the option.
Click to expand...

Us not defending the option well was frustrating. Us letting the QB stand in the pocket read War and Peace and then find open receivers is what is concerning. I saw a lot of the same things against MSU that we did against Miami, but this time our offense was working and we did get some TO's.

Another thing that many of you are forgetting is that our offense is one of our best defenses because we are really clicking now and starting to win the time of possession battle. Someone was talking about how we didn't force a punt last night. I will take 5 turnovers any day over 5 punts. I don't know if that's just me, but I think CPJ would feel the same way too.
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Then I suggest I you re-listen to the rant against Woolverton at the end of the 1st half of last year's MSU game. He specifically said he was not happy, because if MSU hadn't turned the ball over we would have been in bad shape and specifically mentioned that it was unacceptable to only force 1 punt in the first half.

We have regressed from that point it seems.

My main point is that the option is hard to scheme against and hard to shut down. LSU couldn't even shut us down and they had weeks to prepare for us with one of the top coaches and personnel in all of college football. We still put up 314 yards of offense to their 324. Do you think LSU fans were bitching after the game about their defense. No, they were happy because they forced 3 turnovers and good special teams play.
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You're forgetting that we barely scored in that game. They forced good TO's and kept us out of the endzone. Why am I supposed to feel good about giving up 31 pts to a team that had 5 TO's? I'm starting to have 1999 flashbacks with some of this commentary.

If anything, all you defensive haters should be hating on the kick off coverage. We look like swiss cheese out there. Kick off coverage isn't coached by Wommack last I checked.
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These things are not mutually exclusive for me to be worried.

This has to be the most hate a defensive coordinator has received after forcing 5 turnovers and winning by more than 1 score. I honestly think that people just look for stuff to bitch about after each game.
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It's bad enough when people act like I can't be concerned about player performance because of the fact they play for GT, but now I can't point out an obvious glaring weakness in our team? I don't understand how anybody can not notice that this is a poor defensive footbal team and while I was high fiving and everything else last night it was not until the last second ticked off after the Butler INT. Why? Because they were driving with well over a minute left and between the Defense and the ST's I knew that TD, on-side kick, TD were WELL within the realm of reasonable outcome to that game.

Nick Saban had a great point yesterday after his game that the biggest enemy of Great is Good. I want us to be a great football team and with the defense that we have, one that I would barely call serviceable right now, we cannot just rest on the laurels of victory. We also cannot expect to be +4 in TO margin so that it is okay to give up 31 points and win a game.

And to your other points, I am terrified everytime that we score because it means we have to kick-off. These things also need to be fixed.
 
LongforDodd said:
And if not for TO's we probably would have been beaten. Our D, except for Morgan, should give their Scholly's back.
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And to prove that I am on the side of the truth . . . this point is just really really stupid.
 
Thanks cajun... I was about to make a similar post... People lose sight of the fact that if this offensive scheme is executed "good-enough" then that team is going to get yards. You really have to accept that - you need to make stopping the big play the focus. There were lots of good misdirections by MSU in that game - the camera man got fooled more by MSU than us (though I think the dark maroon jerseys helped conceal the ball a little). I now know how frustrating it must be to be a fan of a team playing us when we're executing. I think the only times we punted were because of stupid penalties. When you can get 3-4 yards a play guaranteed, when you can get it to 4th and really short > 90% of the time (and convert on that) then this offense can be unstoppable. I think we only had one play for negative yardage (the deflected pitch). Think about that next time before you lambast the D for this game.

Having said all that, they could execute a little bit better - lots of crappy tackles, etc.
 
LongforDodd said:
And if not for TO's we probably would have been beaten.
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Sounds a lot like VT last year. Funny how teams in the first few games under new spread offenses tend to give away games by turning the ball over.

I don't know why people should think MSU is going to have less success with their new offense than we had with ours last year.
 
People are forgetting that this MSU team is on the rise. LSU had fits with them.

LSU struggled against MSU more than against UGA! UGA was supposed to have some explosive offense, well then I guess MSU has one of the best offenses in the SEC based on that premise. Dixon is a great runner. Very, very hard to tackle.

Our defense is not ideal. But saying our players don't deserve scholarships. That Wommack should be fired? To the guy who said only Derrick Morgan should have a scholarship. Have you seen Morgan Burnett play?? I will take Morgan Burnett any day to start building my defense. Guy is a player.

I am arguing against this "sky is falling" attitude that many of you have. This crap about not being comfortable winning any more games is crazy talk. We proved last night that we could win in a shootout. This was a legit concern in the beginning of this season.

Have any of you seen Big 12 defenses? They make it to the National Championship all the time with that trash. People don't bitch and moan about how their defense wasn't good enough in the win even though they forced 5 turnovers. They gave up too many yards ... calm down.

Also to the point of how we wouldn't win without the 5 turnovers. You could say that about any stat. "we wouldn't have won if we didn't score those TDs." "we wouldn't have won if we didn't [insert accomplishment here]."
 
That our defense is not "ideal" is the understatement of the year. Last I saw MST never had to punt. Sorry but I thought our schemes, our pass coverage and our tackling were horrible. Reminds me of a Ted Roof coached D.
 
I don't think anyone is going overboard. I understand having difficulty with a good offense, but our problems appeared to be of our own doing. Horrific tackling combined with the fact that at all times there seemed to be one receiver totally uncovered while there was zero pass-rush = we're contributing to our own defensive demise and that is not okay.

If it was that Mississippi State was making plays to move through us even though we seemed to be in position on every play, then I'd feel better. But it seemed for the most part that they had all the time they needed to make plays and once the ball was caught, another 5-8 yards between the ball-carrier and the first tackler, who was likely going to miss the tackle.

I think there are plenty of reasons to complain about the defense, and I haven't seen anyone go overboard on it.
 
The Jacket said:
I think there are plenty of reasons to complain about the defense, and I haven't seen anyone go overboard on it.
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Someone said that the only person who deserves a scholarship on our defense is D Morgan (the other 10 don't deserve one). That's going overboard. And the guy should be kicked in the face and banned for saying that stuff. Morgan Burnett doesn't deserve a scholly?

Someone else said they want Tenuta back. That's going overboard.

Someone else said to fire Wommack because of this performance. That's going overboard, considering people were supporting Wommack just a week ago for the performance against UNC.

Someone said they won't be confident in any of the remaining games with our defense. That's just being your atypical GT fan that clinches their ass cheeks the entire game until the clock reaches 0:00 at the end of the 4th at which point they let out a nervous fart.

There's more. Just read through some of the threads. People are taking this way too seriously. We have lost 1 game. I don't think anyone thought our defense would be stellar this season. But they aren't as bad as people are making them out to be. They are just really inconsistent. They play extremely well and times and extremely badly at times.
 
cajunjacket said:
Someone else said to fire Wommack because of this performance. That's going overboard, considering people were supporting Wommack just a week ago for the performance against UNC.
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That was before we all knew that UNC sucked horribly.

Guys, a bad performance that turns into a win is not necessarily a good sign. Sure, lucky is good (yesterday wasn't lucky, it was still a solid win). However, good defense wins championships.
 
gsu_paintballer said:
Guys, a bad performance that turns into a win is not necessarily a good sign. Sure, lucky is good (yesterday wasn't lucky, it was still a solid win). However, good defense wins championships.
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I agree that a good defense wins championships. That's why I never thought this team would win a national championship coming into this year. Apparently other people on these forums were expecting us to go 11-1 or 12-0 this year. We are so young on defense that we are still learning. People are refusing to acknowledge all the good plays we had on defense. We had some really nice plays out there on defense. And some really bad plays. That's part of growth. That's something that comes along with a young defense.
 
cajunjacket said:
There's more. Just read through some of the threads. People are taking this way too seriously. We have lost 1 game. I don't think anyone thought our defense would be stellar this season. But they aren't as bad as people are making them out to be. They are just really inconsistent. They play extremely well and times and extremely badly at times.
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I think people expected one unit of our defense to be less than impressive, at least at first. But our LB's and our DB's are also struggling and often appear to be dangerously out of position and/or simply lost.

I don't know whether Wommack should go or not, but I do believe if last night's performance becomes a regular occurrence then we've got to expect our staff to bring in someone that can do better.

And the concern isn't how many games we've lost so far, it's that repeat performances by our defense of last night will lead to even more losses while we have the type of offense that could help us win out.
 
You can't compare what one opponent did to another to somehow justify your performance. the bottom line is our defensive performance will cause us to lose against better disciplined teams. The bigger point is that after the Miami game last year, our defense has regressed greatly with the exception of UNC last week and that was proven by UVA to be an abberation because UNC's offense is horrid. People are upset not at one game performance but because there is zero improvement.

Wommack has plenty of talent around him. Our guys are playing out of position. I don't just mean that we have a couple of guys playing positions they aren't suited for, what I mean is we have guys who play a position with certain responsibilities and they are abandoning their responsibilities as soon as the ball is snapped. PJ alluded to this in his post game presser.

Our secondary in my opinion is actually pretty good. They just have zero help underneath and the front seven can't manufacture pressure. Sedric had 10 tackles most of which were from chasing down a guy, not from meeting him head on. Jefferson with the exception of the fumble in the 1st quarter was no where near the ball. He was always on the backside of a tackle if he was there at all. For a guy who was supposed to make his mark as the next great GT linebacker, he's no where. When was the last time you said "Wow, Jefferson is just killing them!" ??? I have never said that. And I used to say that about Darryl Smith, Gerris, Hall, Wheeler, and even Wimbush. And Jefferson has an NFL build better than all of those guys. He gets lost in the shuffle. That is a major concern.

Lanier getting hurt is killing us. I don't doubt that we will fix the problem next year because we will have 3 freshman DT's coming in. But this year if someone doesn't step up, we're hurting I thought Walls has been showing he deserves to play a lot. I was disappointed to see MSU gashing us with the run up the middle and almost everytime, Peters was playing. Why is he still playing? It was obviouos against Clemson and Miami that he isn't getting the job done. Anderson is proving to be just what we thought he was when he was recruited.... a questionable BCS D1 prospect. He is pedestrian at best.

I don't know what the answer is. Are our players just not that good, or is our coordinator that inept? I have to believe we have some decent talent on defense enough to produce better results than we have. What is the most disconcerting thing to me is the play of our linebackers. They have not improved one iota since Wommack came here. I'm thinking we need to convert a couple of young olineman to DTackle just to get through this season.
 
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