Defense in 2015

[Northeast Stinger]

Some turnovers fit the description you gave, some not. Some are the result of good film study, max effort and technique, others are a result of luck. Most of the Pitt to's were the latter (not the DJ White strip at the one, that was all hustle).

Of course. Every team should get a certain number of turnovers just from plain dumb luck. Get well above that number and it shows you are also doing a few things well. I do not disagree with you at all. I just refute a slippery slope argument that ends up with our saying the defense was horrible except for being lucky. That is too simplistic, in my opinion.

No, I think these guys played incredibly hard, CTR got the absolute most out of them he could, and the defense ended up making some of their own luck as a result.

 

[UgaBlows]

Every team gets and loses some "Luck" good or bad turnovers, but last years D was trained and focused on getting turnovers, they caused more than we are used to, some from smart players watching film and recognizing trends but most from just attacking the hell out of the ball. Many are saying that we can't count on that again but i really expect it to continue for the foreseeable future as long as Roof keeps them focused on it.

 

[augustabuzz]

Luck = preparation + opportunity

 

[Legal Jacket]

Every team gets and loses some "Luck" good or bad turnovers, but last years D was trained and focused on getting turnovers, they caused more than we are used to, some from smart players watching film and recognizing trends but most from just attacking the hell out of the ball. Many are saying that we can't count on that again but i really expect it to continue for the foreseeable future as long as Roof keeps them focused on it.

I'm not saying it was all luck - but having the late game turnovers against VT, GSU, and uga converted three losses to wins. Even if we are good at taking the ball away, three games essentially ending with turnovers late in the 4th won't happen again.

 

[Legal Jacket]

Not to nit pick but the game was over before the end of the 3rd quarter. Missy State's defense was whipped and had no fight left in them and Tech had a 22 point lead.

Not to nitpick, but we had a 15 point lead with 14:53 left in the game. It was in hand, but it wasn't close to over until we scored our final TD with 12 minutes left. Otherwise an MSU stop followed by another TD would have resulted in a one possession game.

 

[MidtownJacket]

Count me in the camp that believes we made a lot of our own luck by studiously watching film. I expect the trend to continue in 2015.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

Not to nitpick, but we had a 15 point lead with 14:53 left in the game. It was in hand, but it wasn't close to over until we scored our final TD with 12 minutes left. Otherwise an MSU stop followed by another TD would have resulted in a one possession game.

Nah.

 

[Eli]

I'm not saying it was all luck - but having the late game turnovers against VT, GSU, and uga converted three losses to wins. Even if we are good at taking the ball away, three games essentially ending with turnovers late in the 4th won't happen again.

VT game we also had a turnover that was costly, GSU we were up by 25 at one point and the UGA game JT had a costly turnover. So you could turn that situation either way. I say we don't blow a 25 point lead again and I say JT doesn't fumble in the red zone against a team with 3 mins left and then our defense allowing a 75 yard drive.

 

[Eli]

You make your own breaks in every sport. If a team fumbles 6x its because they aren't as good as the team that doesn't fumble six times. You cant disregard turnovers as a fluke as to why a team wins/looses a game.

 

[gtalltheway]

Not to nitpick, but we had a 15 point lead with 14:53 left in the game. It was in hand, but it wasn't close to over until we scored our final TD with 12 minutes left. Otherwise an MSU stop followed by another TD would have resulted in a one possession game.

I agree but if you think about it they could have had 10 less points. They had the hail marry td pass, and we caused them to fumble but the refs said the forward progress had stopped and they went on to kick a field goal latter that drive.

 

[gtalltheway]

I'm not saying it was all luck - but having the late game turnovers against VT, GSU, and uga converted three losses to wins. Even if we are good at taking the ball away, three games essentially ending with turnovers late in the 4th won't happen again.

You can also say the uga game wouldn't have even been to that point if the refs blew the wistle when jt did a qb sneak and uga took it from him and ran it for a td, I highly doubt that will happen next year.

 

[UgaBlows]

How about that VT fumble where there guy got the perfect bounce and ran it in for a TD? Bt that doesn't happen next year either....

 

[gtalltheway]

I think it's safe to say our d was good at creating turnovers, outside of that though we were pretty bad. Look up the stats on the yards we were allowing, and not to mention the other teams didn't get the ball a lot of minutes against us.
Edit: we are also decent at Redzone d.

 

[bke1984]

Except that turnovers are often seen as a sign of a good defense. I am not arguing that we were a good defense, just arguing that the defense was probably just as good as it appeared, no more, no less.

According to the players, CTR worked them overtime last year on creating turnovers and even had specific defensive calls designed to increase the possibility of turnovers. Anyway, just feel like turnovers were a good thing not a bad thing.

Agreed that being aggressive can create turnovers, but it's a tough sell to tell me that we're going to get 29 turnovers again this fall. I truly hope we do, though...

 

[Northeast Stinger]

Agreed that being aggressive can create turnovers, but it's a tough sell to tell me that we're going to get 29 turnovers again this fall. I truly hope we do, though...

Well, the good news is that we don't have to get 29 turnovers to be better than last year.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

Funny how this conversation branched off until it became almost an entirely different tree. Those of us who are optimistic that the defense is going to be better next year are not discounting how bad the defense was last year. We are simply saying that the defense showed some things last year that clearly show another year of experience can only improve upon. The defensive line can only get better and if Jabari Hunt-Days returns we could see a pretty significant jump.

In the Orange Bowl the defense, in spite of Missy State's incredible luck at the end of the half, plus at least twice when Tech was robbed on a call / no call, was still able to give Tech a 3 touchdown lead by the time the 3rd quarter was half over. I submit that Tech and Miss State could have traded touchdowns after this for 10 more quarters and Tech still wins. The defense helped make that happen.

 

[gtalltheway]

Funny how this conversation branched off until it became almost an entirely different tree. Those of us who are optimistic that the defense is going to be better next year are not discounting how bad the defense was last year. We are simply saying that the defense showed some things last year that clearly show another year of experience can only improve upon. The defensive line can only get better and if Jabari Hunt-Days returns we could see a pretty significant jump.

In the Orange Bowl the defense, in spite of Missy State's incredible luck at the end of the half, plus at least twice when Tech was robbed on a call / no call, was still able to give Tech a 3 touchdown lead by the time the 3rd quarter was half over. I submit that Tech and Miss State could have traded touchdowns after this for 10 more quarters and Tech still wins. The defense helped make that happen.

we didn't do anything last year that would show one more year of experience would make us better. it was just turn overs we were good at. That doesn't indicate our run d or passing d would be any better this year from last year. We were decent at red zone d aswel but that still wouldn't indicate we would be better from one more year of experience. I do agree hunt days will make us better, and other guys like whitehead. I also believe we will be better on d but not because of what we accomplished last year in d but because guys have gotten bigger and because of the new guys coming in. Like you said huntdays will help out d out a lot because other teams owned us at the line of scrimmage which hurt us in all positions. Oh and miss at still had over 400 yards on us so the d kinda out us in a place to where they could have came back way easier than they should have.

 

[GTFLETCH]

What Ted Roof and the entire defensive coaches have done with our Defense is amazing.... 2015 it will be a strength (if we can stay healthy)

 

[augustabuzz]

Funny how this conversation branched off until it became almost an entirely different tree. Those of us who are optimistic that the defense is going to be better next year are not discounting how bad the defense was last year. We are simply saying that the defense showed some things last year that clearly show another year of experience can only improve upon. The defensive line can only get better and if Jabari Hunt-Days returns we could see a pretty significant jump.

In the Orange Bowl the defense, in spite of Missy State's incredible luck at the end of the half, plus at least twice when Tech was robbed on a call / no call, was still able to give Tech a 3 touchdown lead by the time the 3rd quarter was half over. I submit that Tech and Miss State could have traded touchdowns after this for 10 more quarters and Tech still wins. The defense helped make that happen.

NE Stinger, some of us have vision and the rest are wearing bi-focals. To paraphrase a famous character.

 

[Frenchise]

Does anyone remember the article from last year about how the coaches were trying to get the defense to get turnovers during practice?

How if the defense got a turn over the offense and the coaches had to do push-ups?

I think that helped us tremendously in the turnover game, esp. UGA and Pitt