The starters may be doing the best they can "in doing what they have been told to do". For example we are weak against the outsde run. Why? One big reason is that our DEs are always crashing inside or looking and charging inside or getting EASILY blocked inside. (Maybe Thack thinks the inside guys have to have help? ). DEs do not have the "do not let your man block you inside instructions or discipline or?" We are having to stop the outside runs with our LBs taking a give ground pursuit angle and our DBs are coming off coverage from wherever and having to make open field one on one tackles...all this without the benefit of help from the DE. The LBs seem pre-occupied with reading keys (pulling linemen or birds going south) and they seem to not follow the ball early on so that leads to not getting there, or giving ground in pursuit, or poorly positioned to make a bring down hit or?. To a large degree our D problems are coaching and the talent level cannot compensate well enough on the fly.
We were running the ball against Louisville in the second Q very successfully and at halftime the L coaches made adjustment instructions to their D and completely shut down those runs in the next several series...coaching. We saw the coaching adjustments in the recent Wake vs OD game where the Wake D performance on the field was completely changed in the second half. These adjustments were not made with wholesale substitutions of backup players. These were x and o coaches doing their job well.
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