Defense Struggles

Mavric said:
It's not either extreme - I don't think anyone would say Chinander doesn't deserve any blame but I think it pretty knee-jerky for people to claim that he's terrible and should be fired.
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Totally agree, and you can scour this forum and won't find a single post where I've talked about firing Chinander this year or even after next year. I've said that he needs to improve and take stock of what other successful defenses are doing scheme-wise in this conference and try to emulate those concepts.

At the heart of it, I'm probably most interested in fleshing out some of the "Frost's guys can do no wrong because they're Frost's guys" mentality that we've seen here from some people. That is not you at all, so that commented isn't directed your way.

Mavric said:
7% isn't great but it's still headed the right direction.
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Agreed. 

 
Husker in WI said:
The reason I'm not too up in arms about it yet is who else do we have?
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That is not the question for me personally, though. The question for me isn't, "Who could take Alex Davis' spot as the fourth down linemen in passing situations," it's "Why the f*** aren't we blitzing more linebackers than we are currently when Chinander insists on trying to get pressure with just four guys?"

Bring the numbers at the other team. We constantly hear about how bad our secondary is in coverage from a lot of people (which I mainly disagree with). Ok, so if we can't cover with our secondary anyway, why not try to bring pressure from guys like Tannor & Domann? 

I figured bringing Domann in to blitz was going to be a mainstay this season. I was totally wrong.

 
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Undone said:
That is not the question for me personally, though. The question for me isn't, "Who could take Alex Davis' spot as the fourth down linemen in passing situations," it's "Why the f*** aren't we blitzing more linebackers than we are currently when Chinander insists on trying to get pressure with just four guys?"
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Yeah, fair enough. Reading probably too much between the lines in the pressers, seems like they've decided they don't like the extra risk of blitzing. But if the emphasis of this defense is turnovers and big plays, that does seem like a weird decision to make.

 
Husker in WI said:
Yeah, fair enough. Reading probably too much between the lines in the pressers, seems like they've decided they don't like the extra risk of blitzing. But if the emphasis of this defense is turnovers and big plays, that does seem like a weird decision to make.
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Yeah. I'm sure there are plenty of posters who have been annoyed with the way I've harped on this concept. I don't think I know more than Erik Chinander about how to coach and prepare a defense - not by a long shot.

But I do see what I believe to be an inability to take some risks and make adjustments when things aren't working, and that's pretty surprising to me, given that Frost is ultimately the leader of this team.

 
Husker in WI said:
Yeah, fair enough. Reading probably too much between the lines in the pressers, seems like they've decided they don't like the extra risk of blitzing. But if the emphasis of this defense is turnovers and big plays, that does seem like a weird decision to make.
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I think Frost and Chinander decided that we have a better chance of making a play on the ball with our secondary than through our truly non existent pass rush.

Frost has been very critical recently of our secondary not turning to make a play on the ball.

Frost has been quite visibly frustrated with the guys not doing what they are coached to do the past few weeks.

He has mentioned recruiting as an answer more than once.

 
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Undone said:
At the heart of it, I'm probably most interested in fleshing out some of the "Frost's guys can do no wrong because they're Frost's guys" mentality that we've seen here from some people. That is not you at all, so that commented isn't directed your way.
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I don't think this sentiment really exists.  I think it's you reading into other people's posts the way other might read into yours that you think it's pretty much all Chins fault.

Undone said:
That is not the question for me personally, though. The question for me isn't, "Who could take Alex Davis' spot as the fourth down linemen in passing situations," it's "Why the f*** aren't we blitzing more linebackers than we are currently when Chinander insists on trying to get pressure with just four guys?"
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Such as posts like this.  

We blitz a decent amount.  It really doesn't help.  I don't know if the players aren't getting it, the blitzes aren't designed/timed well or they don't trust the players enough to do it more or more exotic.  Kind of the same boat as above.

 
Mavric said:
We blitz a decent amount.  It really doesn't help.  I don't know if the players aren't getting it, the blitzes aren't designed/timed well or they don't trust the players enough to do it more or more exotic.  Kind of the same boat as above.
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We need that Chaz in SoCal guy to make a video of every third down passing situation from the Indiana game.    :D    Are you reading this, Chaz?! 

I haven't done a thorough re-watch so I'm fine with being wrong if I'm wrong. But I remember while watching the game that it seemed like on the vast majority of third down passing situations the hope was to have our OLBs pick up coverage and try to get pressure with four. We know that Davis/Daniels/Davis/Davis very seldom actually even force a hurried/disrupted throw out of a QB...let alone get sacks.

I'm fine with saying, "Guys like Ty Robinson will fix this." It's almost certainly true, and I can wait another two seasons for players like that to be ready and then make an impact. I really can. But in the meantime...I'd rather lose the game to a team like Indiana being aggressive. Maybe that's just me, and I get that.

 
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Undone said:
We need that Chaz in SoCal guy to make a video of every third down passing situation from the Indiana game.    :D    Are you reading this, Chaz?! 

I haven't done a thorough re-watch so I'm fine with being wrong if I'm wrong. But I remember while watching the game that it seemed like on the vast majority of third down passing situations the hope was to have our OLBs pick up coverage and try to get pressure with four. We know that Davis/Daniels/Davis/Davis very seldom actually even force a hurried/disrupted throw out of a QB...let alone get sacks.

I'm fine with saying, "Guys like Ty Robinson will fix this." It's almost certainly true, and I can wait another two seasons for players like that to be ready and then make an impact. I really can. But in the meantime...I'd rather lose the game to a team like Indiana being aggressive. Maybe that's just me, and I get that.
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I'm kind of in the same boat.  It sure doesn't seem like we blitz very much.  And I'd rather be aggressive then give them all day and get picked apart.

But when I did a quick re-watch of the first half of the Indiana game to document how we use our boundary DE, I was surprised at how much stunting and (to a lesser extent) blitzing we actually did.  Not a ton of blitzing but we were doing more of both than I would have guessed from watching it live.

I really need to get back to the film study I used to do.  It gives a much better understanding of what goes on.  But being busy with other things and the poor record we've put up the last three years has dampened my enthusiasm for that.   :(

 
Undone said:
That is not the question for me personally, though. The question for me isn't, "Who could take Alex Davis' spot as the fourth down linemen in passing situations," it's "Why the f*** aren't we blitzing more linebackers than we are currently when Chinander insists on trying to get pressure with just four guys?"

Bring the numbers at the other team. We constantly hear about how bad our secondary is in coverage from a lot of people (which I mainly disagree with). Ok, so if we can't cover with our secondary anyway, why not try to bring pressure from guys like Tannor & Domann? 

I figured bringing Domann in to blitz was going to be a mainstay this season. I was totally wrong.
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Chinander knows a helluva lot more about Defense than I do, that much I am sure of. It's hard to sort out how much of our struggles are players not executing, or if we could possibly try some different approaches to compensating for those player weaknesses. Charlie McBride was on Hail varsity radio Monday, and when asked about the Defensive struggles, mentioned a couple things he thought they could do immediately. Charlie is very coach friendly, doesn't like to criticize other coaches, and tends to be conservative with what he says, so I like listening to his thoughts in these discussions. First, he said he would find a way schematically to create some additional QB pressure. He mentioned using some gap overload principles that may cause some pre-snap indecision by the QB/OL. He pointed out that it could be a big deal if you could just hurry the QB another second. He said that our secondary doesn't stand much of a chance if we aren't able to get some additional pressure. 2nd, he said he would disguise coverages a little more. Again, the idea is to not actually change all the coverages, but cause some additional confusion for the pre-snap read and decision making of the QB. Obviously better players make schemes and coaches all look better, but I thought Charlie made some good points about what we may be able to do now to help our Defense, even while we are faced with talent/depth deficiencies.

 
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Mavric said:
I'm kind of in the same boat.  It sure doesn't seem like we blitz very much.  And I'd rather be aggressive then give them all day and get picked apart.

But when I did a quick re-watch of the first half of the Indiana game to document how we use our boundary DE, I was surprised at how much stunting and (to a lesser extent) blitzing we actually did.  Not a ton of blitzing but we were doing more of both than I would have guessed from watching it live.

I really need to get back to the film study I used to do.  It gives a much better understanding of what goes on.  But being busy with other things and the poor record we've put up the last three years has dampened my enthusiasm for that.   :(
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Excellent point about film study. I have found that my initial assessments are not always accurate, and film study will show the truth with much more clarity.....

 
Jarhead In Red said:
Charlie McBride was on Hail varsity radio Monday, and when asked about the Defensive struggles, mentioned a couple things he thought they could do immediately. Charlie is very coach friendly, doesn't like to criticize other coaches, and tends to be conservative with what he says, so I like listening to his thoughts in these discussions. First, he said he would find a way schematically to create some additional QB pressure. He mentioned using some gap overload principles that may cause some pre-snap indecision by the QB/OL. He pointed out that it could be a big deal if you could just hurry the QB another second. He said that our secondary doesn't stand much of a chance if we aren't able to get some additional pressure. 2nd, he said he would disguise coverages a little more. Again, the idea is to not actually change all the coverages, but cause some additional confusion for the pre-snap read and decision making of the QB. Obviously better players make schemes and coaches all look better, but I thought Charlie made some good points about what we may be able to do now to help our Defense, even while we are faced with talent/depth deficiencies.
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This is probably the best and most intelligent take I have seen on our defense. I don't know why we aren't doing these things, but I think McBride is spot on.

 
Jeremy said:
Let's see how these last 4 play out before declaring real improvement. Maryland and Wisconsin can certainly put points up in bunches.
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That's fair, but then we really should wait to declare there's been no improvement shouldn't we? And I realize you're not the one who said there has been no improvement, but that's what I was arguing against. 

 
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