D coordinators

takethepoints

Helluva Engineer
Messages
6,027
I always thought the most serious mistake TFG made when he came in as coach at Tech was to not keep Woody. Subsequent performance of his Ds at Army seem to reinforce the argument.

However, count me as on Tucci's team. The D is already much better and I expect it to improve more this year. The Louisville loss was not the Ds fault; their play was up to snuff. But … this is not a one year project. A little patience is required.
 

Kennethshannon20

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
311
I’m not sure this post makes any sense. Our Defense gave up 17 points all game. The other 14 were the scoop and score and the blocked FG return. Not our Defense that was the problem.
 

slugboy

Moderator
Staff member
Messages
11,234
I think our defensive coaches are going to take us in the right direction. But, that's on faith.

Last year, we couldn't stop the run. This year, we can, but we can't stop the pass.

Here's the Louisville game. Louisville's offensive column is our defensive column. We don't have color coding on this forum, so I'm using bold in a few places.

In yards per dropback, Louisville is almost off the chart at 99%. It's the same with predicted points. They were significantly above average on offense, and that's almost entirely through the air. It's like we have a stone wall guarding the front door (the run) but the back door (the pass) is open and unwatched.

Louisville had a field day through the air.

OverallGTLouisville
EPA/Play-0.03 41st %ile0.13 70th %ile
Success Rate41% 51st %ile37% 31st %ile
Yards/Play6.13 59th %ile7.22 83rd %ile
EPA/Dropback0.57 93rd %ile0.97 99th %ile
EPA/Rush-0.38 5th %ile-0.47 3rd %ile
Yards/Dropback9.75 90th %ile14.16 99th %ile
Explosive Play Rate10% 70th %ile9% 59th %ile
3rd Down Success Rate22% 7th %ile27% 14th %ile
Red Zone Success Rate29% 27th %ile25% 23rd %ile
Def Run Stuff Rate33% 59th %ile40% 86th %ile
Havoc Rate9% 43rd %ile9% 44th %ile

Overall, for the season, it's the same story. Let's start with the good news. We defend the run well. Maybe, we're top 30?

Against the Run
Plays143
Plays/Game29 #33
Total EPA-30.22 #7
EPA/Play-0.21 #17
EPA/Game-6.04 #21
Success Rate33.6% T-#28

Against the pass, we are in the cellar, though. It's bad, and we haven't seen the worst of our schedule.
Against the Pass
Plays149
Plays/Game30 #47
Total EPA43.39 #131
EPA/Play0.29 #130
EPA/Game8.68 #125
Success Rate46.3% #116

Overall, that leaves about where we were last year, but differently. It's a low rated defense. I'm seeing somewhere in the bottom quarter of FBS, and one of the worst P4 teams

Defensive
Plays292
Plays/Game58 #24
Total EPA13.17 #100
EPA/Play0.05 #96
EPA/Game2.63 #94
Success Rate40.1% #79
Starting FPOwn 23 #4
 

roadkill

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,654
I think our defensive coaches are going to take us in the right direction. But, that's on faith.

Last year, we couldn't stop the run. This year, we can, but we can't stop the pass.

Here's the Louisville game. Louisville's offensive column is our defensive column. We don't have color coding on this forum, so I'm using bold in a few places.

In yards per dropback, Louisville is almost off the chart at 99%. It's the same with predicted points. They were significantly above average on offense, and that's almost entirely through the air. It's like we have a stone wall guarding the front door (the run) but the back door (the pass) is open and unwatched.

Louisville had a field day through the air.

OverallGTLouisville
EPA/Play-0.03 41st %ile0.13 70th %ile
Success Rate41% 51st %ile37% 31st %ile
Yards/Play6.13 59th %ile7.22 83rd %ile
EPA/Dropback0.57 93rd %ile0.97 99th %ile
EPA/Rush-0.38 5th %ile-0.47 3rd %ile
Yards/Dropback9.75 90th %ile14.16 99th %ile
Explosive Play Rate10% 70th %ile9% 59th %ile
3rd Down Success Rate22% 7th %ile27% 14th %ile
Red Zone Success Rate29% 27th %ile25% 23rd %ile
Def Run Stuff Rate33% 59th %ile40% 86th %ile
Havoc Rate9% 43rd %ile9% 44th %ile

Overall, for the season, it's the same story. Let's start with the good news. We defend the run well. Maybe, we're top 30?

Against the Run
Plays143
Plays/Game29 #33
Total EPA-30.22 #7
EPA/Play-0.21 #17
EPA/Game-6.04 #21
Success Rate33.6% T-#28

Against the pass, we are in the cellar, though. It's bad, and we haven't seen the worst of our schedule.
Against the Pass
Plays149
Plays/Game30 #47
Total EPA43.39 #131
EPA/Play0.29 #130
EPA/Game8.68 #125
Success Rate46.3% #116

Overall, that leaves about where we were last year, but differently. It's a low rated defense. I'm seeing somewhere in the bottom quarter of FBS, and one of the worst P4 teams

Defensive
Plays292
Plays/Game58 #24
Total EPA13.17 #100
EPA/Play0.05 #96
EPA/Game2.63 #94
Success Rate40.1% #79
Starting FPOwn 23 #4
Appreciate the stats and comments.
While our defensive stats you show reflect what many on this board have expressed concerning our pass defense, I’m still trying to reconcile these stats with the fact that Louisville’s offense was held to only 17 points. I get that the scoop and score and the kick-six skipped a couple of offensive drives for them, but even factoring that in, their offense wasn’t lighting up the scoreboard. There needs to be some better explanation for our defense giving up an exceptionally high epa/play, but holding teams to average scoring.

I assume these stats are from gameonpaper.com. Looking at more details, it shows that Louisville had only 11 successful passing plays. This was out of 19 total passes, and 46 total plays. Did their stellar passing stats come from only the 4 explosive plays? If so, then the final score may be an indication that they simply did a poor job of exploiting our defensive weakness by not throwing more deep balls. Also, I believe untimely penalties may have adversely affected their success on some drives.
 

slugboy

Moderator
Staff member
Messages
11,234
Appreciate the stats and comments.
While our defensive stats you show reflect what many on this board have expressed concerning our pass defense, I’m still trying to reconcile these stats with the fact that Louisville’s offense was held to only 17 points. I get that the scoop and score and the kick-six skipped a couple of offensive drives for them, but even factoring that in, their offense wasn’t lighting up the scoreboard. There needs to be some better explanation for our defense giving up an exceptionally high epa/play, but holding teams to average scoring.

I assume these stats are from gameonpaper.com. Looking at more details, it shows that Louisville had only 11 successful passing plays. This was out of 19 total passes, and 46 total plays. Did their stellar passing stats come from only the 4 explosive plays? If so, then the final score may be an indication that they simply did a poor job of exploiting our defensive weakness by not throwing more deep balls. Also, I believe untimely penalties may have adversely affected their success on some drives.
The stats are from https://gameonpaper.com/cfb/year/2024/team/59 and https://gameonpaper.com/cfb/game/401635554.

Louisville wasn't great in the red zone or when they had to convert 3rd down. I'm glad we can do something against the run. They moved the ball well, then sometimes petered out. We forced a few punts.

They had some big plays, but they threw for good yardage almost all the time. 58% of the time Shough threw the ball, he was ahead of the chains. Considering he had a 68% completion rate, almost every pass he completed kept the drives ahead of the sticks. You can see that by looking at the receiving stats. The passes were either for first downs or, on early downs, at least half of the yardage to gain.

Stat lineYards/playEPA/playEPASRWPA
Dropbacks
Tyler Shough13/19, 269 yds, 2 TD, 0 INT, 0 Scks, 90.3 xQBR, 0.45 DETMER14.160.9718.5058%36.0%
Pass targets
Ja'Corey Brooks4 catches (4 targets), 125 yds, 1 TD, 0 Fum (0 lost)31.252.499.98100%32.0%
Chris Bell2 catches (2 targets), 82 yds, 1 TD, 0 Fum (0 lost)41.003.967.91100%16.0%
Jamari Johnson2 catches (2 targets), 20 yds, 0 TD, 0 Fum (0 lost)10.001.332.65100%-1.0%
Donald Chaney1 catch (1 target), 17 yds, 0 TD, 0 Fum (0 lost)17.002.332.33100%3.0%
Mark Redman1 catch (1 target), 12 yds, 0 TD, 0 Fum (0 lost)12.001.171.17100%1.0%
Ahmari Huggins-Bruce1 catch (1 target), 8 yds, 0 TD, 0 Fum (0 lost)8.000.660.66100%1.0%
Isaac Brown1 catch (1 target), 3 yds, 0 TD, 0 Fum (0 lost)3.00-0.36-0.360%-1.0%
Jadon Thompson1 catch (1 target), 2 yds, 0 TD, 0 Fum (0 lost)2.00-0.42-0.420%0.0%



But, if we only looked at the drives, your think we won

DrivesGTLouisville
Total108
Avg Starting Field PositionOwn 22Own 13
Plays/Drive8.937.30
Yards/Drive51.9143.78
Available Yards %66%50%

Back to the original question, was Louisville's success all from explosive plays? No, they did well across the board.

But, dang, we should have thrown more.

ExplosivenessGTLouisville
Total Plays7854
Scrimmage Plays6846
Explosive Plays7 (10%)4 (9%)
  When Passing (EPA > 2.4)4 (12%)4 (21%)
  When Rushing (EPA > 1.8)3 (9%)0 (0%)
EPA w/o Explosive Plays-24.24-10.07
  EPA/Play-0.40-0.24
  When Passing5.352.68
    EPA/Play0.170.14
  When Rushing-22.96-12.75
    EPA/Play-0.72-0.47
 

Bogey

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,478
Our defense may not be pretty at times but it has given us a damn good chance to be undefeated, only if our offense had worked close to last season.
 

stinger78

Helluva Engineer
Messages
3,393
Our defense may not be pretty at times but it has given us a damn good chance to be undefeated, only if our offense had worked close to last season.
I have to agree that I have concerns about our O. They are not major, though. If you look at production, we are not far off of last year’s rate. Most of my concern is coming from our difficulty running the ball against ‘Cuse and ‘Ville, and for a half against GSU. We ought to be better there, IMO.

D is what it is. Any improvement is helpful. My expectations are not real high there.
 

UgaBlows

Helluva Engineer
Messages
6,672
I’m not sure this post makes any sense. Our Defense gave up 17 points all game. The other 14 were the scoop and score and the blocked FG return. Not our Defense that was the problem.
I don’t disagree with you, but did those two disastrous plays limit their offensive possession’s x2?
 

yoshiki2

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
118
Noted why I don’t post much! If you are looking for blue skies you will find them. I have been following Tech since the 70’s. I see the inablity to make adjustments from young coordinators. If anyone can look at this game and the Cuse game and think we have a great defense plan you are fooling yourself.
I can see some progress, compared to last year 😎
 

iceeater1969

Helluva Engineer
Messages
9,421
Mostly because we get no pass rush and the receivers have all day to run their routes. We play a lot of man coverage. It’s fairly normal for DBs to be running with backs to the QB on deep passes. The best DB are better at playing the ball and can tell when the receiver turns or reaches up to make a catch. Ours don’t do that well.

Very few DBs can cover receivers well when QBs have 5+ seconds in the pocket. Ours clearly can’t.
But we are closer than during covid when we changed seats. I wanted to watch wr db so we went to upper deck..

They pass- their recivers start route and 3 secod break- ball is on way and arrives while our db on way. On 5 second break our db running so fast when ball arrives db has to wait forchelp to makectackle.

We pass- recivers are making breaks but dbs are right with them - like they know the play. But if qb scrambles we did hit some good plays.

We are way better on offense but on def.. ..
 
Last edited:
Top