4skers89

We had that stadium rocking!!!

Nice change. It's been cold and wet this week.

I understand this for run plays but they seem to do this on pass plays too. Is that intentional or are they just really bad at getting off blocks? I would think the thing you would want to do is get free and go after the QB. It's not like we are blitzing a lot and the O lineman would then proceed to block a blitzing LB.

Bo might as well do some experimenting. It's not like we still have high expectations for the season. We already know what he's doing isn't working and something needs to change. Everyone (ok not LSU or bama) is having difficulty stopping mobile quarterbacks. Oregon could have put up 80 on ASU last night and ASU runs a similar offense as the ducks.

I think it would be awesome to get a marine corps recruiter as recruiting coordinator!! Talk about passion!! You need to apply for the job for the skers. You dont need to be a coach to be a recruiter. To be able to talk to a family and tell them you recruited marines to serve their country has to be a huge advantage! And hire R. Lee as a motivational speaker

The slow playing is in part due to trying to be perfect or thinking too much. Offenses can only line up in so many different formations they need to be able to get a presnap read faster and get lined up. After the play starts it should all be reacting. But I think he has them thinking too much after the play starts. I think the biggest problem is they're anticipating, not reacting. Guys aren't reading their keys and biting on play fakes leaving somebody else out to dry. Every big play against OSU was basically a safety, linebacker, or an end out of position because he wasn't playing his assignment (at least as far as I could tell). I think we need to get back to the fundamentals, OSU didn't have any fancy blocking schemes. Every play could have been diagnosed as a run or pass from the snap and then shut down with minimal gain if guys stayed home and played their assignment. It would have been perfectly fine to make OSU drive the field for every TD, because then they would be chewing up the clock in a close game. And with our offense I'm confident we have better than a 50/50 chance to win close games when the other team isn't putting up 35+. Are they anticipating in order to compensate for their lack of athleticism and speed? I'm starting to think that if they didn't make a guess they wouldn't be able to stop the play for a reasonable gain. When they guess wrong, big plays happen.

Funny, I think that is essentially what ndobny was proposing with his 3-4 Peso.

ndobney, This was meant more as a joke about how bad our defense looks against spreads with mobile quarterbacks, not what you are proposing. I was using Maudfather's definition of a peso to get to 12 and to point out that your scheme name might need some work if interpreted that way. It appears that the upshot of your scheme is that you are trying to get more speed on the field. Makes sense.

As in?

Careful what you say about MSU.,,their defense isn't that bad. Maybe we're trading wins from last year. I wouldn't be suprised if we win NW, Michigan but drop the last 4. Of course it's the fan's fault for this roller coaster. Thing I question about Michigan St is a team at 4-3, that was overhyped to begin with, with abolutely no offense whatsoever and a good to great D. We score 20 and it's a W. They lost to a top 5 team (ND) and the other two were close games. The loss to Iowa made me more worried about Iowa, not less concerned about MSU. I wasn't impressed with Wiscy offense- until we played them.

I think the OP has something. A 3-4 with peso or nickel. 3+4+5=12. That'll stop'em.

Careful what you say about MSU.,,their defense isn't that bad. Maybe we're trading wins from last year. I wouldn't be suprised if we win NW, Michigan but drop the last 4. Of course it's the fan's fault for this roller coaster.

Brilliant. You have to read it twice to catch everything. Where was this posted? I want to invite the guy to a tailgate

I'm glad he cares enough about the program to voice an opinion. I watched some of his videos before. I don't think they were all negative.

This is too touchy feely for me to comment. It's football. Go out and knock somebody on their ass!!!!

I think Saturday's game will determine if it's broken. The defense needs to show improvement to give any hope for the remaining games. If the defense plays mediocre and we win then the remaining games are a toss up but Michigan will be a blowout. If they light it up then I'll get excited for the rest of the season. I think Michigan will still be a loss but at least I would expect us to make it respectable. That isn't a reassuring quote by Papuchis. OSU's offense was still mostly Braxton but we didn't have a clue how to stop him?

I paused the video and looked at it frame by frame. The DE took 1 step, kind of paused at the LOS and then pursued the running back. He took 1 step in the wrong direction before he realized VY still had the ball. That was all he needed. I never understood why the DE wouldn't just always make a beeline to the quarterback, especially an elusive one. I think he could have been within a yard of him at about the time VY pulled the ball. If he doesn't pull the ball, smack him down anyway but the point is to stop him before he can get moving north south. It doesn't seem any different from the traditional option. One person takes the quarterback and someone else takes the running back. Teams were effective at stopping our option when they did this. It was when they only had 1 defender trying to cover both where they got torched.

Exactly. The obvious problem is that a coach who thrives on and is passionate about defensive complexity, expects his players to have the same interest, intellectual expertise, and passion to do the same. There are always players out there who have the mind of a coach and end up going into coaching after they get done playing ,but most players don't have that perspective. Of course if you ask Bo why the QB ran for 70 yards or found a wide open tight end streaking down the field, he would immediately explain the schematic breakdown. Expecting players to carry the same expertise is a recipe for disaster a lot of the times. And if a player is struggling to get down all the various reads, then has to deal with a new formation or motion that he hasn't seen on film, well you can imagine the time he's going to waste trying to figure out what's going on. The great ones can make up for that delay with their athleticism, otherwise it's time lost. I was thinking that it might become absurd to expect anyone to know what the right progressions are for every situation. That includes the coach. If the player gets it wrong the coach can always say that the player didn't execute the scheme properly. I don't think our players are lacking in smarts, it's just unreasonable for anyone to know the progressions and execute them in real time, if it is too complex. I'd like to know more details about exactly what Bo is trying to do to see if it is that complex. As a fan I want to know the schematic breakdown that allowed the QB to run for 70 yards or found a wide open tight end streaking down the field. I'll probably still throw stuff at the TV but at least I can aim at a specific player- or coach. Just kidding, I'm more interested in seeing how we adjust to stop it the next time.

Great link--thanks! Interesting that they list QB scrambles as a specific weakness of the pattern-matching zone schemes...we've certainly seen plenty of that with Bo's defenses. It does seem like a complicated zone for players to execute, which is probably part of the complicated system reasons/excuses Bo gives all the time for not playing younger players. Seems to me that back when Marvin Sanders was DB coach, especially the time Solich was HC and Bo was DC, that our secondary was MUCH more ball-hawking and got a lot more picks. Were we more of a spot-dropping zone coverage scheme then? Finally, since Bo was a former safety at Ohio State himself, it seems like his strength and interest has really been on secondary coverage schemes. I was hoping that bringing in Kaczenski from Iowa would give us quality D-line schemes, but it only seems minimally better than last year. And I'm not sure what the hell is going on with the LBs and safeties. That could be a different thread entirely, especially safety play--TONS of mind-boggling plays from PJ Smith and Stafford this year, like the play against Wisconsin when Stafford was trying to tackle an intended receiver with the ball in the air instead of giving over the top pass coverage help, and the multiple times when safeties that were supposed to be providing over the top coverage were nowhere in the picture. That was a good read and gives an idea of what our players are trying to do. Here are some thoughts I had: 1. Seeing the example of the eye progressions that a player should go through it, I can see how their reaction time could be slowed. I'm not sure that is always the problem. A lot of times we seem to over react (over pursue) and get killed on cutbacks. 2. Because defenders eyes are not looking at the QB, I can see why they are more susceptible to QB runs in the the pattern matching vs spot dropping. a) For quarterback run plays where the play is initially read as a pass play and the DBs and safeties are covering receivers 10- 15 yards from the LOS, I don't think they could ever be in a position to tackle someone like Miller. He's too elusive and the DL or LBs need to make the stop. I think a LBs progression should be something like Run/Pass, #3, QB, #2, QB, #1, QB, b) One advantage to defenders not looking at the QB is defending a play I've seen OSU run. I don't recall them running it against us. They run a pass play but roll Miller out as a run threat. The DBs bite on the run leaving receiver open and Miller hits them. I saw it a couple of times agains MSU for big gains and was the play that they burned Wiscy last year for the win. Since we probably aren't looking at the quarterback, we wouldn't bite on the run. 3. It makes sense that a Fresh/Soph or Juco would have difficulty executing the scheme. It would take a while to get the progressions down. 4. I imagine a player's progressions change from one offensive formation to the next therefore the various number of progressions would grow exponentially. The example of diagnosing read mistakes was fairly simplistic. I can see that in the real world, during film study it becomes almost comical. Coach: What was the quarterback doing in this play? LB: I'm not sure Coach: He should have been the 3rd thing in your progression. LB: I'll be sure to add that into my progression (next time I see this formation which is 1 out of 100s that I encounter during a season). Coach: You didn't execute. 5. If the scheme has an inherent flaw (such as we aren't reading the quarterback), is it feasible to install a different scheme for these types of offenses? I know the coaches have limited practice time but considering the results I'm starting to think it would be better to poorly execute a scheme that matches up better. 6. The author mentions that a draw back to the pattern-matching is fewer interceptions. That kind of jives with our results. I had the same thought about Bo's background. Our secondary seems to usually play well but the DL and LBs are lacking. I was wondering if that was a weakness in Bo's knowledge as to what the DL/LB should be doing. What's up with that Wisconsin play and why aren't we looking back for the ball? I assumed they were coached to never look for the ball in flight. I thought Bo made a comment at halftime was that we need to make a play on the ball so that must not be the case. Are they coached to read the receiver's eyes and we are just doing a really bad job of it?

Too funny. The 2% body fat was the second clue that it was a joke. This is the same school that rushed onto the field during their losing streak cheering "We're the worst". I don't think that NW fans take their football too seriously. I'm sure they want to win but their academic achievements outweighs anything they accomplish on the field. Also, I'm sure he meant MBA training, not MMA. I'm going to visit this guy's hot dog stand and provoke him with kindness. How dare he entertain me.

I guess I don't see the point of slowing the tempo down if it is part of the reason why the offense is successful as it is (minus the turnovers). Not like defense needs a breather considering how little time it takes an opposing team to drive the field. Time of Possesion: OSU 28:08 NEB 31:52 I don't think the defense was tired (agreeing with hill).

We're pissed too, you're making us look bad . I didn't catch the game but it sounds like Indie got some passing going. He's probably looking down the road and thinking that kind of performance won't work against Michigan. Denard's capable of connecting on some passes. Could be a tough game for OSU. Urb seems to like the "don't dissapoint me" as motivation. It's probably effective since he's got the hardware to back it up.

I'll be coming in from the burbs on train. section 120 row 21.

I was going to point this out and speculate if it dictates a different type of defense to stop them compared to Martinez. Martinez breaks long runs when he executes the option well and runs through large holes as does Miller. On designed runs from the shotgun Miller and Martinez present different problems. Against MSU it seemed like they ran a lot of Miller left, Miller right where he was just reading the DE and either running inside or out. I'm not sure you would need to defend Martinez the same way. MSU wasn't that effective stopping it but I don't recall Miller breaking more than 1 or 2 runs longer than 20 yards.

Great point--don't these guys scrimmage against T-Mart and Beck's spread-option attack in practice? Does T-Mart also go nuts with 80 yard runs every 5th play in scrimmage?? He probably would.