Secondary Play

Davie should be pushed back to the nickel back or 4th corner. It should be Rose and Jones on the outside with Kalu as the nickel back

 
I think our secondary play is certainly lacking, but, before we start blasting Davie, Cockrell, and anyone else in the backfield, answer the following question.

Did you see Kaaya's pants and jersey tonight?

Because I did - they looked crisp, pristine, and fresh, and that tells me our front seven is not doing their job.

Sure, we create haze in the pocket and dirty things up a bit. But, we don't consistently do anything of substance. We don't shed blocks, we don't get effective pressure and we give opposings QB's opportunities to get the ball in places WR's can make plays. IMHO we could've had Amukamara and Dennard in the back field, and while they probably would've done a better job, Kaaya still would've had all day to hit his targets.

That's not absolving the secondary's play because they certainly can do better. But, they're not getting any help at all.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Kaaya is also a pretty good quarterback with a lot of weapons at his disposal. Sometimes they will just get theirs.

Granted, the way we are playing it won't take a quarterback of Kaaya's caliber to have a good day.

 
Agree with Enhance89.

And if that's the case you have two options:

1 - Find a way to get more pressure

2 - Don't play all single coverage

So far we've done neither. Though the caveat is it's not the the opposing QBs have been standing back there for 7-8 seconds looking for someone. For the most part, the ball has come out fairly quickly so it's tough to get much pressure no matter what you do.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Kaaya is also a pretty good quarterback with a lot of weapons at his disposal. Sometimes they will just get theirs.

Granted, the way we are playing it won't take a quarterback of Kaaya's caliber to have a good day.
... which is what was said after BYU. And we said ..... something about it after USA.

 
I think our secondary play is certainly lacking, but, before we start blasting Davie, Cockrell, and anyone else in the backfield, answer the following question.

Did you see Kaaya's pants and jersey tonight?

Because I did - they looked crisp, pristine, and fresh, and that tells me our front seven is not doing their job.

Sure, we create haze in the pocket and dirty things up a bit. But, we don't consistently do anything of substance. We don't shed blocks, we don't get effective pressure and we give opposings QB's opportunities to get the ball in places WR's can make plays. IMHO we could've had Amukamara and Dennard in the back field, and while they probably would've done a better job, Kaaya still would've had all day to hit his targets.

That's not absolving the secondary's play because they certainly can do better. But, they're not getting any help at all.
Agreed. Our lack of pressure on the QB has been very disappointing so far and hasn't helped us out in coverage. We can't get pressure with four, but we can't ever seem to actually make it work when we blitz either. I was excited this year for some attacking defense, but for whatever reason whenever we dial up a blitz nothing much seems to happen. Maybe somebody who knows a bit more about scheme could shed some light on this.

 
Apparently we aren't playing as much like Michigan State's defense as the stories went leading up to the season:


 
Back
Top