Interesting former player insight on Duke loss

Jay Alexander

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Here are the highlights I took from the podcast. The former players were Taylor Bennett and AJ Smith

They both commented that in our offense, the OL technique can make it difficult to see/pickup late blitzes. Mentioned that the success of Duke and ND shooting gaps is causing JT to press. Also questioned some of the play calls, specifically on third down.

I thought this was interesting: they said playing at Duke for a noon game is very difficult due to the lack of crowd/energy and that the tendency is to come out flat. Combine the poor atmosphere with crappy conditions and its hard to get up for the game. Said in years past you could start slow but still beat Duke, now that they are pretty good, the atmosphere can lull you to sleep, then you dig a hole that's hard to climb out.

Mentioned that in spite of how poorly we played we still had plenty of chances to win the game.

Chalked up the poor special teams play to effort...I think they said special teams was 99% effort, 1% scheme. Not sure if I agree, but that's what was said.

Praised the Defense, singling out PJ and Ted Roof as doing a great job last week.

..ended by saying we've got figure out a way to beat UNC.

Not a bad listen, but nothing overly "new" except maybe the piece about playing at Duke.
 
pinglett

pinglett

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dressedcheeseside said:
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Great find Cheese. Nice to hear former players dissect the game and point out the good and bad. Didn't sound to me like they are too much in favor of the offensive scheme, particularly for the o-line. The splits and stance are killing our ability to pick up blitzes. My $0.02 is that if we have success on 1st and 2nd down, we never get put in those situations where not picking up the blitz kills you (QB scramble, etc.) They all agreed the defense was lights out last week.
 
dressedcheeseside

dressedcheeseside

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pinglett said:
Great find Cheese. Nice to hear former players dissect the game and point out the good and bad. Didn't sound to me like they are too much in favor of the offensive scheme, particularly for the o-line. The splits and stance are killing our ability to pick up blitzes. My $0.02 is that if we have success on 1st and 2nd down, we never get put in those situations where not picking up the blitz kills you (QB scramble, etc.) They all agreed the defense was lights out last week.
Click to expand...
Don't we typically close the splits on obvious passing downs?
 
Jerry the Jacket

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Not enough experience to effectively block the edge. Speaking specifically of A backs and receivers. CPJ does not have confidence in those guys to make the blocks on critical plays (their observation). This carries over to JT and causes him to play with less confidence than he should have running the offense.

The point about picking up the blitz is spot on. Thinking back, most any time a team blitzes the gaps between our center and guards it causes us a lot of problems. VT does this a bunch and now it seems everybody does it. The guys on the podcast pointed out we have wide splits up to 3 feet apart for our linemen and they are in a blocking stance that places their body weight 75% forward because the design of the offense is to dive low and cut the defensive linemen and or linebackers. When there are more than one guy in the area to block, our linemen have trouble picking that up because they are diving low and not looking up for what might be coming. It would seem to be a simple adjustment to counteract the blitz but apparently our guys are having great difficulty doing so. The guys on the podcast said that from here on out expect everyone we play to emulate the blitz attack until we figure out how to offset it.

Sounds like a coaching issue and a player performance issue. I think the UNC game will answer the question as to whether we can adjust or not.

Go Jackets!
 

Yaller Jacket

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I made the Duke point after the game, and Boomer said in his film analysis that body language of the Duke players conveyed they had more energy and played like they were glad to be out there. I think that is amounts to the same thing. The defense did indeed play a good game, but I think the playing at Duke factor entered into the lethargic start by the defense.

The late blitz thing makes sense too. But I can't believe as long as Paul Johnson has been coaching this offense that he doesn't have a fix.
 
dressedcheeseside

dressedcheeseside

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Jerry the Jacket said:
Not enough experience to effectively block the edge. Speaking specifically of A backs and receivers. CPJ does not have confidence in those guys to make the blocks on critical plays (their observation). This carries over to JT and causes him to play with less confidence than he should have running the offense.

The point about picking up the blitz is spot on. Thinking back, most any time a team blitzes the gaps between our center and guards it causes us a lot of problems. VT does this a bunch and now it seems everybody does it. The guys on the podcast pointed out we have wide splits up to 3 feet apart for our linemen and they are in a blocking stance that places their body weight 75% forward because the design of the offense is to dive low and cut the defensive linemen and or linebackers. When there are more than one guy in the area to block, our linemen have trouble picking that up because they are diving low and not looking up for what might be coming. It would seem to be a simple adjustment to counteract the blitz but apparently our guys are having great difficulty doing so. The guys on the podcast said that from here on out expect everyone we play to emulate the blitz attack until we figure out how to offset it.

Sounds like a coaching issue and a player performance issue. I think the UNC game will answer the question as to whether we can adjust or not.

Go Jackets!
Click to expand...
If a guy is blitzing, doesn't that mean he's left a hole on the field somewhere? We need to find that hole and exploit it. Quick slants to that spot a few times should do the trick and keep that guy where he came from.
 

danny daniel

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dressedcheeseside said:
If a guy is blitzing, doesn't that mean he's left a hole on the field somewhere? We need to find that hole and exploit it. Quick slants to that spot a few times should do the trick and keep that guy where he came from.
Click to expand...

Byerly can throw that slant but the last two JT tried were in the grass low and behind the receiver. I hope this can be improved. Our ABs are generally open early but we wait too long to throw to them, generally.
 
dressedcheeseside

dressedcheeseside

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danny daniel said:
Byerly can throw that slant but the last two JT tried were in the grass low and behind the receiver. I hope this can be improved. Our ABs are generally open early but we wait too long to throw to them, generally.
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This is just a casualty of having only so many hours of practice a week and the time consuming nature of prefecting our bread and butter stuff. If we still had all the vets on O, we could devote more time on perfecting the timing and chemistry needed to hit those routes.

It may be worth sacrificing time spent fixing stuff to work on one sure fire way to counter what everybody on the schedule is sure to try.
 
AE 87

AE 87

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dressedcheeseside said:
This is just a casualty of having only so many hours of practice a week and the time consuming nature of prefecting our bread and butter stuff. If we still had all the vets on O, we could devote more time on perfecting the timing and chemistry needed to hit those routes.

It may be worth sacrificing time spent fixing stuff to work on one sure fire way to counter what everybody on the schedule is sure to try.
Click to expand...

I'm just trying to picture CPJ saying to himself, "I've got this sure-fire way to counter what everybody on the schedule is sure to try, but we're only at 90% on the triple-option; oh well."
 

Skeptic

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Yaller Jacket said:
I made the Duke point after the game, and Boomer said in his film analysis that body language of the Duke players conveyed they had more energy and played like they were glad to be out there. I think that is amounts to the same thing. The defense did indeed play a good game, but I think the playing at Duke factor entered into the lethargic start by the defense.

The late blitz thing makes sense too. But I can't believe as long as Paul Johnson has been coaching this offense that he doesn't have a fix.
Click to expand...
The real worry is now that Johnson doesn't have a fix. It is that he doesn't have enough fixers.
 
dressedcheeseside

dressedcheeseside

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Skeptic said:
The real worry is now that Johnson doesn't have a fix. It is that he doesn't have enough fixers.
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I think he has a fix, the problem is he doesn't have the guys to execute it. We saw this same tactic last year and had mixed results. In some cases we got stopped, but in others we burned 'em.
 

MWBATL

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dressedcheeseside said:
I think he has a fix, the problem is he doesn't have the guys to execute it. We saw this same tactic last year and had mixed results. In some cases we got stopped, but in others we burned 'em.
Click to expand...

There is a lot of truth being spoken in this thread. Those quick passes to AB's would be a delight to see to burn blitzers, but we don't seem able to execute that stuff right now.

CPJ did seem to be stubbornly fixated on fixing the running game after the debacle at Notre Dame. He stated on his radio show that "we're going to run the ball" at Duke.I still think that is a mistake and we must be open to solutions like those suggested in this thread....
 
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