Our defense is awful...

[Squints]

Obviously, you can't take away one play from one D and compare them to others. However, when assessing a D, you can take into account what they did apart from 1 play to get a sense of where they are. If you take away the 73 yard one, we held BC to 2.86 yds/carry. We held Mercer to 3.o4 yds/carry. Now, that's not great given their offensive history, but it's not chicken-liver either. It seems to me that we have a shot at being pretty stout against Vandy considering how much they like to run the ball, 63% of snaps.

We'll see.

Stout until someone screws up a run fit and they take it 50+ yards. Which seems to happen more than it should.

 

[jeffgt14]

Gamble is a lot like Gotsis. He should probably be playing SDE rather than DT. The times he's played DE, he's actually looked pretty good. It's a same KCH, Glanton, and Adams are so young, otherwise we just might see Gamble at SDE.

Gamble was actually heavily recruited towards the end of his senior year. GT did well to hang on to him...there were quite a few factories trying to get him to flip.

Gamble would make a hell of a 3-4 DE

 

[Techster]

Gamble would make a hell of a 3-4 DE

That was the plan. He was recruited to play under Groh's 34 defense.

 

[tech_wreck47]

Give me a name of a coach, one that will stay here and keep continuity from year to year.

Idk a specific guy, but I would rather rotate D coordinators every three or four years if they give us a top 30 D compared to keeping the same guy who doesn't brake the top 50. If we were to change D coordinators, I would like to see us go after a guy who has been a LB coach or DB coach for a decent time at an established school known for good Defenses, someone that has learned under a good defensive coach. I highly doubt we would be able to go get a big name coordinator with so many factory schools out there, that's why don brown is at Michigan. Imo our best bet would be to get one of those type guys that I stated above, plus one that's a great recruiter, that's our best bet imo,of course this is just talk since we currently have a D coordinator. UGA has been pretty good on D and they turn over coordinators pretty often,so that continuity thing isn't a big factor to me, when it can be done other ways then keeping one coach.

 

[tech_wreck47]

Gamble would make a hell of a 3-4 DE

That was the plan. He was recruited to play under Groh's 34 defense.

Cpj tried him at DE and said he was just more of a natural DT and that's why he's there, of course that was in a 4-3 or a 4-2-5 D so who knows how he would like in a 3-4, I'm inclined to agree he would look better at DE in a 3-4 compared to DT in a 4-3 though. Same as Gotsis imo.

 

[Techster]

Cpj tried him at DE and said he was just more of a natural DT and that's why he's there, of course that was in a 4-3 or a 4-2-5 D so who knows how he would like in a 3-4, I'm inclined to agree he would look better at DE in a 3-4 compared to DT in a 4-3 though. Same as Gotsis imo.

Gamble played DE quite a few times the last two seasons. To me, he looked more impactful at DE than DT.

 

[AE 87]

Gamble played DE quite a few times the last two seasons. To me, he looked more impactful at DE than DT.

I think we were typically running 3DL sets when he did. We have run 3-4 some under Roof, and it always seemed to me that we were more effective when we did.

 

[jeffgt14]

He played end some in a 4-3 in 2014 and made a HUGE difference on the line.

 

[Boomergump]

It would be great if Adams and Glanton were fully ready. If it were so, I would go with Gamble at SDE on running downs and Simmons on passing downs. On running downs Adams would be at the Nose and Glanton at the 3 tech. I might bring in Kallon to rush on passing downs from NT. Keshun could play most downs on the other side unless somebody gave him a run. KCH would get a lot of snaps on the interior too.

 

[Vespidae]

you must have missed the Tenuta years. or the Ross years. Or even the Black watch years. We can play D on the Flats. it just seems that some years we choose not to for whatever reason.

With that being said,we are 2-0. I don't know when or if we will face a team that IS playing well this year but if we keep winning , i'll be a happy camper.

We HAVE to play winning Defense. Look at the great coaches ... Dodd, Graves, Neyland, Bryant ... All of them emphasized that football is a Defensive game. It sets up field position. Bryant went so far as to say, there is nothing defensive about Defense. Defense is Offense.

Btw ... Did you know that Bear Bryant was to be Bobby Dodd's first hire at Tech. But Maryland offered head coach and the rest is history.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

I'm glad we have Gamble. He might be our best overall and most versatile DL. I don't think he compares to Gotsis though. I think Gotsis would have killed it at DE....but we couldn't afford to move him as he was also our best DT. Gamble did help us tremendously at DE but it was more in stemming the flood at DE than making big plays there.

That's one thing I argue a bit with CPJ on re players in NFL camps. One of the 6 was forced to play out of position because we were otherwise so young / bad on DL. The best of the rest of those 6 played in the secondary hamstrung by a near complete lack of pass rush. So that's how you can have 6 in camp and still suck on D.

What do we need this year most? Tackles for loss and turnovers. I agree out TFL numbers have not been good under Roof. O. The other hand....we had some for the taking (nice play calls) vs BC but failed to execute...falling down etc. That ain't on Roof.

One last thing. Please stop using the wet field excuse from BC etc. Both teams played on the same field....it wasn't just wet on Tech's side. Reminds me of Dooley's excuse of the fog when we beat him that year.

 

[slugboy]

And remember the 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2007 UVA games when his defenses got toasted by the Cavs?

Toasted looks like a bit of a stretch.

2003: We scored 17 and they scored 29. I don't like giving up 29, but if that's a bad outing then it's an improvement on our bad outings. My attention gets drawn to the 17 we scored. (Away game)

2004: We scored 10 and they scored 30. They were #18. My attention gets drawn to the 10 we scored

2005: We scored 17 and they scored 27 (Away game)

2006: we won 24-7.

2007: We lost 28 - 23. Again an away game. Chris Long deflected a pass that turned into a UVA defensive TD. We fumbled a punt at our own 26, which turned into the winning touchdown.

2008: Lost this at home 17-24. Tenuta's last year.

I hated losing to UVa as much as any fan would. We didn't even put up a ton of points in the Calvin Johnson years there, though.

Our opponents averaged 25.8 points against us last year. Tulane and Alcorn State are averaged in with the other teams on that.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

Nuke. Yards a game is no good. Yards a play is closer. Ppd is best.

Yards a play:

2016 - 77
2015 - 92
2014 - 110
2013 - 78

Feel free to discuss if you think thats awful. I DO. No reason we cant be top 40 in this stat. We arent close. And this goes back to his loose scheme giving up too many yards a snap.

@AE 87 may have ppd numbers

Yards per play or points per drive is a better stat. I was lazy as cfbdata is real easy to do in multiple years. But I think your data shows the same thing ..... we are and have been about the same recently with the worst in 2014. Your data puts us solidly in the bottom half of all D1 teams if I understand it. So that probably goes from mediocre to bad........

 

[Supersizethatorder-mutt]

Toasted looks like a bit of a stretch.

2003: We scored 17 and they scored 29. I don't like giving up 29, but if that's a bad outing then it's an improvement on our bad outings. My attention gets drawn to the 17 we scored. (Away game)

2004: We scored 10 and they scored 30. They were #18. My attention gets drawn to the 10 we scored

2005: We scored 17 and they scored 27 (Away game)

2006: we won 24-7.

2007: We lost 28 - 23. Again an away game. Chris Long deflected a pass that turned into a UVA defensive TD. We fumbled a punt at our own 26, which turned into the winning touchdown.

2008: Lost this at home 17-24. Tenuta's last year.

I hated losing to UVa as much as any fan would. We didn't even put up a ton of points in the Calvin Johnson years there, though.

Our opponents averaged 25.8 points against us last year. Tulane and Alcorn State are averaged in with the other teams on that.

The fact remains, we lost all those years to UVA, and the majority of them we should have easily won. and scored enough to do so.

 

[Vespidae]

Idk a specific guy, but I would rather rotate D coordinators every three or four years if they give us a top 30 D compared to keeping the same guy who doesn't brake the top 50. If we were to change D coordinators, I would like to see us go after a guy who has been a LB coach or DB coach for a decent time at an established school known for good Defenses, someone that has learned under a good defensive coach. I highly doubt we would be able to go get a big name coordinator with so many factory schools out there, that's why don brown is at Michigan. Imo our best bet would be to get one of those type guys that I stated above, plus one that's a great recruiter, that's our best bet imo,of course this is just talk since we currently have a D coordinator. UGA has been pretty good on D and they turn over coordinators pretty often,so that continuity thing isn't a big factor to me, when it can be done other ways then keeping one coach.

Schemes take time to teach and deploy. We need a philosophy of how D fits into the Georgia Tech Way. A level of thinking that transcends any individual.

Bryant made an observation that offenses break down and most game breakdowns are offensive. A good stable defense is the key to a winning program.

 

[Vespidae]

Yards per play or points per drive is a better stat. I was lazy as cfbdata is real easy to do in multiple years. But I think your data shows the same thing ..... we are and have been about the same recently with the worst in 2014. Your data puts us solidly in the bottom half of all D1 teams if I understand it. So that probably goes from mediocre to bad........

yds per play depends on field position. The best offensive metric is average distance to goal. From that, we can look at down and distance and play selection.

 

[Captain killem]

Well, those of you that don't want to "accept the excuse of personnel" might want to look at where we are hurting the most in this area - DT and LB's....it ain't even close.

No D-coordinator in the country could make this D better than top 60 in my opinion with our inside DL's.

So in your opinion Adams,Glanton, Cerge-Henderson don't count as you say "big uglies"

 

[UgaBlows]

Adams would make a NIce nose tackle for a 3-4

 

[GTNavyNuke]

yds per play depends on field position. The best offensive metric is average distance to goal. From that, we can look at down and distance and play selection.

Aaarrggghhh. You are right. I should have just started with Football Outsiders ratings which is the best I know: http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/feidef
"FEI is a college football rating system based on opponent-adjusted drive efficiency. Approximately 20,000 possessions are contested annually in FBS vs. FBS games. First-half clock-kills and end-of-game garbage drives and scores are filtered out. Defensive Efficiency (DE) is the value generated by a team's defense per non-garbage possession relative to national average scoring rates by starting field position. DFEI is value generated per possession adjusted for the strength of opponent offenses faced."

Here was our ranking for overall defense by year :
2016 - not enough games
2015 - 62nd
2014 - 70th
2013 - 77nd
2012 - 74th

So you can say we are getting better though we were mediocre is still my conclusion ........ but probably not in a statistically significant manner since the difference between 62nd and 70th is small in the amount of change in the overall rating metric.

 

[Vespidae]

Ok. I'm not one for Football Outsiders but ... Isn't this reflective of the bend but don't break defense?

Our kicking game sucks (no punting) and our field position is meh. So it comes down to player breakdowns or coaching breakdowns. Yes on fumbles, no on penalties. Still too early on coaching, but Sat tells us a lot.

Point is ... We can fix this. It's within our range to fix.