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If you are wondering what defense Duke played and whether they would copy ND and the stuff the domers tried against us, don't. They pretty much played the VT defense. It was a 4-3 throughout, with a full dose of blitzing A gaps. They varied who took the A gap. Sometimes a safety would come up, sometimes it was a LB. They fired corners semi-frequently and seemed to know our tendencies. On third and long, they would bring 6 and spy JT (in case of a draw) with a LB. They always looked ready for the stuff we tried, whether it was a reverse or a QB draw. They were very well coached and knew their keys. In 3rd and 4th and short the box was filled with 9 players within 2 yards of the LOS much of the time. In general, I would say they felt they needed 7 guys very close to the LOS most downs just to have a chance to stop us.
For me, it is kind of troublesome, watching the body language of our kids. For the entire game it just looked like DUKE was happier to be playing football than we were. Sure, things went well early for them and it is more fun when you are ahead, but, if you don't love being out there, why play?
From watching the film again, our defense really put us in good position to win the game. They gave the offense short fields on many, what should have been, momentum shifting plays, but we just didn't cash in. Obviously, blocking was an issue and I am going to do the best I can to describe what was going on out there. I knew before I started that I was going to see some bad stuff, but I want to give you all a description that means something. To give it some objectivity, I decided to watch every player, every snap, and record if they did something ineffectual. If they took nobody and didn't positively effect the play, if they did take somebody but got whipped, or if they took the wrong guy - something like that. The numbers are pretty staggering. Before sharing them with you, I want to make sure I am clear. I felt like we had an advantage on the inside, in terms of physicality and manpower. I really do. The most common problem I could see was a failure to get line checks made with the blitzing players. We turned a lot of guys loose that made the plays. I am sorry, but if your assignment is the safety or a MLB when you release from the LOS and you see a guy blitzing the MESH from the OLB position, you should pick him up and forget about the other guy. We were continually running past guys who made tackles. A couple times we blocked each other instead of a pass rusher too.
By my count, we ran 82 snaps. Here are the numbers by player on the interior (I will address skill position blocking later): Chamberlain 20, Braun 7, Burden 11, Devine 10, Joe 18, Klock 3 (he didn't get a ton of snaps). Please keep in mind, that each of these guys made a ton of really good blocks too, devastating blocks. The problem is that it doesn't matter if there are 4 good blocks on a play and a guy who was turned loose makes a tackle close to the LOS. Not every one of these recorded mistakes resulted in a bad play, but many did. By my count there were 69 ineffective blocks in 82 offensive snaps. Some of them may have happened on the same play, but you get my drift. We didn't have a ton of well executed plays. Before you go crazy on the OTs, please keep in mind that more often, their assignements are second level related. With that said, it is what it is, a bad showing on a day where we could have dominated. There are just too many plays where we release and get nobody, when a guy within reach of our blocker made a tackle unabated. By my guess, I would say 25% of these recorded numbers were a guy getting whipped. It happens, but in our case, it wasn't the main reason we got beat. In terms of pass protection, they usually brought the house with one guy on a delay. With our splits it was tough, and we often turned more guys loose than the difference in head count, if you know what I mean.
We didn't run a ton to the outside yesterday, however, when we did, the skill guys left a lot to be desired in terms of blocking. We don't seem to enjoy that aspect of play as a group. Overall Ricky Jeune played a better game, but I have to take issue with his willingness to hammer people. He is pretty good with the stand up blocking game down field on the CBs, but there were a couple times where he had the perfect opportunity to slam a guy's breast bone into his spine while cracking to the inside and he just didn't do it. It was almost like he was avoiding the contact. Smelter would have laid a couple guys out yesterday. Here are the numbers for skill position guys on snaps where they could positively effect the play blocking but didn't, usually resulting in something getting blown up: Willis 6, Jeune 4, Messick 1, Stewart 2, Snoddy 3, Lynch 2, MMarshall 1, TMarshall 1, Skov 1. When you consider how little we tried outside the box, it is obviously a problem. There were other plays where I thought our WRs made terrible decisions about reading where to go. One such play that comes to mind was where there was a jail break on JT and Stewart's CB in coverage backed off 20 yards. What does Brad do? Instead of squatting in the open area and giving JT someplace to go with the ball, he turns and runs right to the CB essentially making himself covered. Really?
For the second week in a row, I don't think JT played a great game. He had some very difficult stuff to deal with, but also did some things fundamentally wrong, when there were plays to be made. He failed to force commits a couple times on the option that cost him, usually when he was trying to make a play himself. One play he got five yards himself when he could have run right at his pitch key instead and gotten the ball to Snoddy for a huge gain. There was another play where he read the mesh a little slow and fumbled the ball. Had he gotten the pull/pitch done in one motion (Snoddy again) it was set up for a race down the sideline. He was on the run a lot, but had happy feet sometimes too, when he DID have a pocket, causing a bad throw. All in all, there were 6 plays where I felt he did the wrong thing. Far from horrible, but it seemed like it happened at the worst possible times.
Many may question CPJ's play calling. I really don't all that much. It looked to me like we should have been more effective on the inside. I may have possibly tried a couple more chucks down the field off dive play action because they were really cheating up. I think the rain deterred us from trying it and simultaneously embolded them to use such blitzing tactics.
I see us as being at a bit of a cross roads. Are we willing to do what is needed to get some of this stuff cleaned up? We crushed some people and blew them off the ball at times. The ability is there, but the team work and cohesion just isn't. With our brand of football, you can't just have 80% of people doing the right thing on a given play. The stuff we saw from Duke yesterday was stuff we have seen before A HECK OF A LOT. I can hear CPJ right now on his radio show tomorrow. "they didn't do anything we haven't seen before" and he will be right.
For me, it is kind of troublesome, watching the body language of our kids. For the entire game it just looked like DUKE was happier to be playing football than we were. Sure, things went well early for them and it is more fun when you are ahead, but, if you don't love being out there, why play?
From watching the film again, our defense really put us in good position to win the game. They gave the offense short fields on many, what should have been, momentum shifting plays, but we just didn't cash in. Obviously, blocking was an issue and I am going to do the best I can to describe what was going on out there. I knew before I started that I was going to see some bad stuff, but I want to give you all a description that means something. To give it some objectivity, I decided to watch every player, every snap, and record if they did something ineffectual. If they took nobody and didn't positively effect the play, if they did take somebody but got whipped, or if they took the wrong guy - something like that. The numbers are pretty staggering. Before sharing them with you, I want to make sure I am clear. I felt like we had an advantage on the inside, in terms of physicality and manpower. I really do. The most common problem I could see was a failure to get line checks made with the blitzing players. We turned a lot of guys loose that made the plays. I am sorry, but if your assignment is the safety or a MLB when you release from the LOS and you see a guy blitzing the MESH from the OLB position, you should pick him up and forget about the other guy. We were continually running past guys who made tackles. A couple times we blocked each other instead of a pass rusher too.
By my count, we ran 82 snaps. Here are the numbers by player on the interior (I will address skill position blocking later): Chamberlain 20, Braun 7, Burden 11, Devine 10, Joe 18, Klock 3 (he didn't get a ton of snaps). Please keep in mind, that each of these guys made a ton of really good blocks too, devastating blocks. The problem is that it doesn't matter if there are 4 good blocks on a play and a guy who was turned loose makes a tackle close to the LOS. Not every one of these recorded mistakes resulted in a bad play, but many did. By my count there were 69 ineffective blocks in 82 offensive snaps. Some of them may have happened on the same play, but you get my drift. We didn't have a ton of well executed plays. Before you go crazy on the OTs, please keep in mind that more often, their assignements are second level related. With that said, it is what it is, a bad showing on a day where we could have dominated. There are just too many plays where we release and get nobody, when a guy within reach of our blocker made a tackle unabated. By my guess, I would say 25% of these recorded numbers were a guy getting whipped. It happens, but in our case, it wasn't the main reason we got beat. In terms of pass protection, they usually brought the house with one guy on a delay. With our splits it was tough, and we often turned more guys loose than the difference in head count, if you know what I mean.
We didn't run a ton to the outside yesterday, however, when we did, the skill guys left a lot to be desired in terms of blocking. We don't seem to enjoy that aspect of play as a group. Overall Ricky Jeune played a better game, but I have to take issue with his willingness to hammer people. He is pretty good with the stand up blocking game down field on the CBs, but there were a couple times where he had the perfect opportunity to slam a guy's breast bone into his spine while cracking to the inside and he just didn't do it. It was almost like he was avoiding the contact. Smelter would have laid a couple guys out yesterday. Here are the numbers for skill position guys on snaps where they could positively effect the play blocking but didn't, usually resulting in something getting blown up: Willis 6, Jeune 4, Messick 1, Stewart 2, Snoddy 3, Lynch 2, MMarshall 1, TMarshall 1, Skov 1. When you consider how little we tried outside the box, it is obviously a problem. There were other plays where I thought our WRs made terrible decisions about reading where to go. One such play that comes to mind was where there was a jail break on JT and Stewart's CB in coverage backed off 20 yards. What does Brad do? Instead of squatting in the open area and giving JT someplace to go with the ball, he turns and runs right to the CB essentially making himself covered. Really?
For the second week in a row, I don't think JT played a great game. He had some very difficult stuff to deal with, but also did some things fundamentally wrong, when there were plays to be made. He failed to force commits a couple times on the option that cost him, usually when he was trying to make a play himself. One play he got five yards himself when he could have run right at his pitch key instead and gotten the ball to Snoddy for a huge gain. There was another play where he read the mesh a little slow and fumbled the ball. Had he gotten the pull/pitch done in one motion (Snoddy again) it was set up for a race down the sideline. He was on the run a lot, but had happy feet sometimes too, when he DID have a pocket, causing a bad throw. All in all, there were 6 plays where I felt he did the wrong thing. Far from horrible, but it seemed like it happened at the worst possible times.
Many may question CPJ's play calling. I really don't all that much. It looked to me like we should have been more effective on the inside. I may have possibly tried a couple more chucks down the field off dive play action because they were really cheating up. I think the rain deterred us from trying it and simultaneously embolded them to use such blitzing tactics.
I see us as being at a bit of a cross roads. Are we willing to do what is needed to get some of this stuff cleaned up? We crushed some people and blew them off the ball at times. The ability is there, but the team work and cohesion just isn't. With our brand of football, you can't just have 80% of people doing the right thing on a given play. The stuff we saw from Duke yesterday was stuff we have seen before A HECK OF A LOT. I can hear CPJ right now on his radio show tomorrow. "they didn't do anything we haven't seen before" and he will be right.
