Miami defensive adjustments

IM79

Jolly Good Fellow
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I thought the following story and quotes from Manny Diaz were very interesting:

http://www.ajc.com/sports/college/how-georgia-tech-running-game-sputtered/N4k9zRriwOgTltYyW5cG0I/

“It was a new wrinkle they had for us this year,” Miami defensive coordinator Manny Diaz said.

What the Jackets did was use their offensive tackles rather than guards to seal off the play-side linebacker on toss plays to the A-backs, according to Miami linebacker Shaquille Quarterman said. It was something Miami had not prepared for, and it was working.

“I think for the most part we took away the dive,” Diaz said. “We took away the play right up the middle of the football field. And the University of Miami, we should be able to run sideline to sideline. If we get the thing going east and west, once we kind of got our support better, I felt better about our chances.”

Tech often had trouble blocking on the perimeter, failing to put defensive backs and linebackers to the ground to give the A-backs room to run.

“The lane was getting closed,” coach Paul Johnson said. “We weren’t getting a linebacker sealed.


More from the Miami Herald

That put a lot of pressure on the Miami Hurricanes defense. Defensive Coordinator Manny Diaz’s unit once again answered the call in the second half. Diaz spoke to reporters after the game about defending the Georgia Tech run and how well the defense played in the second half.

On defending the run throughout the game

“When you play them, they stress you across the field and you’re usually happier with them
running sideways. But the first drive they kind of had one of their pieces out-leveraging one of
our pieces. It took us two drives to adjust to it, which is kind of disappointing on my part; we
really should have fixed it after the first drive.

But those guys over there know what they’re doing. All you can do all offseason is anticipate what new things they’re going to get you with. To the players’ credit once we fixed it and they understood what was happening, they had the ability to make the necessary adjustments and take that away from them.”

The Miami Hurricanes defense has played much stronger in the second half this season. The biggest exception was last week’s win over Florida State.

On how well the defense played in the second half.

“What we told them was ‘if we stop that play, then we felt pretty good about everything else.’
They do an unbelievable job running the football and stress you from sideline-to-sideline. But
football is football, you get them running sideways and normally that’s a good thing for the
defense. For the most part, we took away dive and we took away the play right up the middle
of the football field. And being the University of Miami we should be able to run sideline-to sideline.”
 

g0lftime

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I'm surprised PJ didn't have an answer for their adjustment. Guess their speed was too much for our out side runs. I noticed at least once that they lined up away from Shamire so he had to move more to get into the DE or DT. Not his strength. He tried to get to the lb but missed several times. Hope the rest of the teams we play aren't that successful.
 

1979jacket

Ramblin' Wreck
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Thanks for posting. Where is longestdays? I miss him. I have not rewatched but two things I did notice. One - it appeared CPJ response was run up the gut but blocking wasn't good and missed Benson. Two - he had some calls to counteract like Marshall counter by himself that we just failed to execute. Miami was very quick.
 

elwoodgt

Jolly Good Fellow
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Well, that, and the fact that we were running in a swamp the second half. We were just a lot slower on that soggy field, and I don't think it affected Miami as much.
 

kg01

Get-Bak! Coach
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At first, I thought this thread was about our defensive adjustments. Figured that'd be a pretty short article. C'mon, y'all laughed.

Well, that, and the fact that we were running in a swamp the second half. We were just a lot slower on that soggy field, and I don't think it affected Miami as much.

This is a point that should not be understated. Miami's first adjustment was waiting for the standard late-afternoon rain. We should never play Miami at any time other than noon.
 

GTech63

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Well, that, and the fact that we were running in a swamp the second half. We were just a lot slower on that soggy field, and I don't think it affected Miami as much.
Miami should be embarrassed by the field conditions but that plus monsoon and loss of Benson also contributed more than their adjustment. If we had a passing attack the adjustment would have made no difference.
 

takethepoints

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The reason the wet didn't affect Miami as much as it did us is that bad field conditions favor the D and always have. It is harder to run any offense in a deluge; all the D has to do is keep the play in front of them and the precision cuts most offenses are built around these days are much harder to execute.

"But … da U executed!" I hear someone say. Look at the stats. They were 2 for 12 on 3rd down conversions. They scored two touchdowns. That passed the ball better, but that's because they were behind for most of the game and had to roll the dice. On a dry field I guarantee that both teams would have scored in the 30s. And then the Football Gods had to intervene in their favor on a 4th and 10. Ah, well.
 

alentrekin

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Their solution was to fly out from the middle and with the safeties. The counter is the boot, trap and wheel. We ran those but Parker fell on the boot, the trap was a boggy, sloppy mess and their LB was step-for-step with Quaide on the wheel.
 

bke1984

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Yeah, he makes it sound like they shut us down after the first two drives

They kind of did...we shot ourselves in the foot several times with the guys falling down, but we never really had a third and short the entire second half...kind of tough to rely on not making a mistake when you always have to be perfect to convert. Here are the drive plays and yards after the second TD:

7, 17
5, 36
1, 0 (end of half)
13, 68 (FG) - 48 yards of this came on the pass to Ricky that was well underthrown, so 12 other plays netted 20 yards
6, 16
3, 6
3, -8
6, 14

Those are terrible numbers. I mean dude, you're not going to win if your offense does that. We weren't even on the field more than 3 minutes on most of those.
 

herb

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your numbers are bad and hard to refute. I will say, though, that the conditions made running wide much more difficult. Also, i may be misremembering, but we had a fall down on an easy first down pass, a drop on another and a couple of times where you saw the play was there if someone had not slipped. We were not able to run in between the tackles and the other things we could do were crippled by the conditions. But in general, you are very correct that the numbers were terrible.
 

Sideways

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They kind of did...we shot ourselves in the foot several times with the guys falling down, but we never really had a third and short the entire second half...kind of tough to rely on not making a mistake when you always have to be perfect to convert. Here are the drive plays and yards after the second TD:

7, 17
5, 36
1, 0 (end of half)
13, 68 (FG) - 48 yards of this came on the pass to Ricky that was well underthrown, so 12 other plays netted 20 yards
6, 16
3, 6
3, -8
6, 14

Those are terrible numbers. I mean dude, you're not going to win if your offense does that. We weren't even on the field more than 3 minutes on most of those.

Miami has a very good football team. Talented on both sides of the ball with excellent speed running sideline to sideline of defense. That said, we should be able to run the B back dive on them. Disappointed that we could not get more push from our offensive line. The rain did affect us more but we have to come off the ball harder and block those guys. All things considered, we played them much tougher this year compared to last year when we basically gave the game away early on turnovers. We protected the ball this year, and played pretty good defense most of the game bubble screens notwithstanding. Going toe to toe with the number 10 or 11 team in the country is nothing to be ashamed of and we should profit from the experience and get better because from here on out it really does not get any easier.
 

AE 87

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Miami has a very good football team. Talented on both sides of the ball with excellent speed running sideline to sideline of defense. That said, we should be able to run the B back dive on them. Disappointed that we could not get more push from our offensive line. The rain did affect us more but we have to come off the ball harder and block those guys. All things considered, we played them much tougher this year compared to last year when we basically gave the game away early on turnovers. We protected the ball this year, and played pretty good defense most of the game bubble screens notwithstanding. Going toe to toe with the number 10 or 11 team in the country is nothing to be ashamed of and we should profit from the experience and get better because from here on out it really does not get any easier.

I agree about Miami. Obviously, the eye-test is what it is, but it's used for all the other teams too.

We just need to beat Wake and beat the spread to add some meat to the bones of our self-assessment.
 

alagold

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uM is a force but were without TWO DB starters.
The biggest problem we had(not only) was Benson going out.QW is not Benson.Once the rains came and they ran to outside we HAD to run inside but couldn't.Also we have no effective pass attack.We don't throw enough to get the QB or receivers in rhythm to be effective. Even our big pass should have been a TD. also,Qua slipped on Aback pass but he was uncovered from get-go.

All these offensive problems were not as easy to fix and as coming up to play the bubble screens better though.For all our tougher DEF talk , we actually gave up 125 yds MORE offense yds THIS yr than last.We CAN NOT allow a team to go 80 yds in <2 mins for win in a driving rain if we expect to win..
 

Stony157

Georgia Tech Fan
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uM is a force but were without TWO DB starters.
The biggest problem we had(not only) was Benson going out.QW is not Benson.Once the rains came and they ran to outside we HAD to run inside but couldn't.Also we have no effective pass attack.We don't throw enough to get the QB or receivers in rhythm to be effective. Even our big pass should have been a TD. also,Qua slipped on Aback pass but he was uncovered from get-go.

All these offensive problems were not as easy to fix and as coming up to play the bubble screens better though.For all our tougher DEF talk , we actually gave up 125 yds MORE offense yds THIS yr than last.We CAN NOT allow a team to go 80 yds in <2 mins for win in a driving rain if we expect to win..

Miami was without 5 starters: #1 RB, #1 WR, arguably #1 OL, & 2 DBs. Most teams have injury issues this far into the season. It's debatable which team was more affected by the injuries.
 

takethepoints

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Miami was without 5 starters: #1 RB, #1 WR, arguably #1 OL, & 2 DBs. Most teams have injury issues this far into the season. It's debatable which team was more affected by the injuries.
It isn't. We were.

Why, you ask? Because we lost most of our starters during the game. When you lose players during the week, you can adjust and, if you have good talent, you can make up the difference. When you lose starters during a game, you have to adjust on the fly and put in players you haven't had a chance to coach up. Example: Homer comes in for Walton. Does anyone here think that if Walton had gone out during the game that Homer would have done as well? If so, get in touch with me; I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you.
 
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