Our defense is awful...

[rosebud78]

We smoked the cupcakes last year, how'd that turn out?

 

[4shotB]

So let me ask this question: if we completely shut Mercer down, would all the concern and questions be silenced?

you are being way too kind. My 40+ years as a GT fan has shown that NOTHING will silence the fans. there will always be something to fill the void to give us something to gripe, moan and complain about. I do remember not much noise during 1990...except for all the whining about Colorado's 5th down. so, if we must look externally for our source of angst (see Stanford as a nother example), so be it.

 

[UgaBlows]

So let me ask this question: if we completely shut Mercer down, would all the concern and questions be silenced? I doubt it because this game really didn't mean much in the grand scheme of who we are as a team. We have issues, we are repeat offenders on a lot of things, but Mercer played well and still only managed 10pts. Hopefully we can clean up our mistakes and be ready for Vandy's smash mouth style

I actually believe Roof is pretty good at prepping the D for a smashmouth attack, bring it Vandy!

 

[UgaBlows]

We smoked the cupcakes last year, how'd that turn out?

And we struggled with them early in '14, have a little patience my GT brothers

 

[Ibeeballin]

@Ibeeballin - As one of the board's defensive gurus, did anything stand out to you between week 1 & 2, or are the offense schemes between the two opponents too different?

From watching at the game, biggest thing that stood out to me is seeing the adjustment made and the Defense responding. We played a lot more man than we usually do. The screen game is the biggest head scratcher after the 3rd time of being bypassed by a line i wouldve thought the Oline would've recognized it a little better

 

[JKMSJ]

Yes he did. Ole Miss is much better athletically. We can't recruit those type athletes so we play the type of scheme we do to get similar results. It is what it is. Either we lower our our academic standards and get animals or change DCs every 3 or 4 years.

You don't have to have 5 star guys to be more aggressive on defense. We also don't get similar results compared to Ole Miss.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

...... Boston College had an anemic offense last year (the reason they lost games because their defense was stout), yet they basically out-played our defense until the very end........

BC beat Mass 26-7 yesterday. So I think we are going to see that BC doesn't have much of an offense this year. Vandy will be the best O by far when we play them next week. Maybe we rise to the level of the competition.

IMO the 2nd D group of player, are bigger and more physical than the 1st group in certain spots. Play the best 11 guys not because they had game experience.

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There was a hit in the second half by 32 Curry? near the goal line where the Mercer guy didn't catch the ball but got totally decked. That is what we need more of.

 

[GT Man]

We almost lost to GA Southern in 2016. Ended the season just fine! Point is, you WANT your weaknesses exposed and addressed when you play cupcake opponents. Let's wait until the Vandy game, folks. We should improve but for now we are indefeated!

 

[65Jacket]

you are being way too kind. My 40+ years as a GT fan has shown that NOTHING will silence the fans. there will always be something to fill the void to give us something to gripe, moan and complain about. I do remember not much noise during 1990...except for all the whining about Colorado's 5th down. so, if we must look externally for our source of angst (see Stanford as a nother example), so be it.

Not much whining in 1990, but a lot of our fans thought Ross could not coach in 1988 and 1989. I was not one of them.

 

[JacketFromUGA]

In other news there are 128 FBS programs and only 49 of them are 2-0

 

[AE 87]

Fwiw, if forward progress was treated in the CU the way it was treated in ours, Troy would've beat them. They're FBS, but still.

 

[MidtownJacket]

We'll see next week. I am hoping we played basic on the d scheme on purpose to avoid tipping our hand.

The job of the defense ladies and gentlemen is to make them score less than we do. That happened.

We gave up yards, ate clock, turned over the ball twice on dumb fumbles, almost threw away a third fumble on that pitch from JeT that was behind the aback, all that and we still won.

I wanted to see improvement this week and did, on both sides of the ball, and CPJ felt good enough that jet only played one half of football and our third string guy caught a whole quarter.

I just can't get woe is us quite yet.


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[IEEEWreck]

From watching at the game, biggest thing that stood out to me is seeing the adjustment made and the Defense responding. We played a lot more man than we usually do. The screen game is the biggest head scratcher after the 3rd time of being bypassed by a line i wouldve thought the Oline would've recognized it a little better

That was the biggest question I have for the D. I mean, sometimes doing the same thing over and over is effective because it seems strategically unlikely. For example, game theorists play rock-paper-scissors with programs and 'only throw rock' strategies periodically do shockingly well.

But going back and watching the TV, it seems like the D's eyes were locked like lasers and the possibility of the screen was never going to be found. Am I right about that? Is that a thing we can teach to overcome?

To the people complaining about Roof not being aggressive enough, a question:

Why would we want a bunch of 3 and outs? I mean, yay GT and all, but beating Vandy by 222 doesn't count as 2 W's. And I love a GT death march, but giving the offense 2 mins of rest consistently gives them a lot more bruises to get over for the next week.

Now obviously this isn't always true. Sometimes the O isn't producing and you need to create opportunities to score again. I don't think you can look at Roof's tenure and say his D is schematically unable to deliver that. In fact, it seems like when his scheme really clicks it delivers that spectacularly, often with Picks. (Capitalization intended) It just seems like a more aggressive, high risk high reward default stance on defense would be a net negative with the offense we play.

 

[sidewalkGTfan]

That was the biggest question I have for the D. I mean, sometimes doing the same thing over and over is effective because it seems strategically unlikely. For example, game theorists play rock-paper-scissors with programs and 'only throw rock' strategies periodically do shockingly well.

But going back and watching the TV, it seems like the D's eyes were locked like lasers and the possibility of the screen was never going to be found. Am I right about that? Is that a thing we can teach to overcome?

To the people complaining about Roof not being aggressive enough, a question:

Why would we want a bunch of 3 and outs? I mean, yay GT and all, but beating Vandy by 222 doesn't count as 2 W's. And I love a GT death march, but giving the offense 2 mins of rest consistently gives them a lot more bruises to get over for the next week.

Now obviously this isn't always true. Sometimes the O isn't producing and you need to create opportunities to score again. I don't think you can look at Roof's tenure and say his D is schematically unable to deliver that. In fact, it seems like when his scheme really clicks it delivers that spectacularly, often with Picks. (Capitalization intended) It just seems like a more aggressive, high risk high reward default stance on defense would be a net negative with the offense we play.

Even PJ said in the post game presser we need to have some 3 and outs.

Allowing teams to control the clock and convert 50%+ on 3rd downs will get you beat against better competition.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Even PJ said in the post game presser we need to have some 3 and outs.

Allowing teams to control the clock and convert 50%+ on 3rd downs will get you beat against better competition.

Yes, and CPJ was really ticked about the defense after the game in his locker room interview to Randy Waters. He even said that the offense may start playing hurry up if the defense doesn't improve on getting the other team off the field because it was ridiculous that the offense only had 60-odd plays for the game.

CPJ was much more calm and reserved in his criticism of the defense in the post-game press conference, but my earlier post is based on what he said to Randy Waters. He was seriously steamed.

 

[YlJacket]

That was the biggest question I have for the D. I mean, sometimes doing the same thing over and over is effective because it seems strategically unlikely. For example, game theorists play rock-paper-scissors with programs and 'only throw rock' strategies periodically do shockingly well.

But going back and watching the TV, it seems like the D's eyes were locked like lasers and the possibility of the screen was never going to be found. Am I right about that? Is that a thing we can teach to overcome?

To the people complaining about Roof not being aggressive enough, a question:

Why would we want a bunch of 3 and outs? I mean, yay GT and all, but beating Vandy by 222 doesn't count as 2 W's. And I love a GT death march, but giving the offense 2 mins of rest consistently gives them a lot more bruises to get over for the next week.

Now obviously this isn't always true. Sometimes the O isn't producing and you need to create opportunities to score again. I don't think you can look at Roof's tenure and say his D is schematically unable to deliver that. In fact, it seems like when his scheme really clicks it delivers that spectacularly, often with Picks. (Capitalization intended) It just seems like a more aggressive, high risk high reward default stance on defense would be a net negative with the offense we play.

I don't get the link between style of offense we play and the style of defense we should run? In my simple little mind you run the style of defense that best fits the talent you have and is tailored to the opponent you are playing. In that context I can see us being more aggressive / blitzing given that our DLine doesn't get a ton of pressure on their own but I don't really get the posts that say we should have blitzed Mercer more and in the same post lament we couldn't stop a screen game. Want to see a screen game really take off - blitz into it

IMHO both BC and Mercer had offenses that were going to have trouble making long scoring drives. They didn't have the ability to put 10 or so plays together without making errors/incomplete passes/penalties/whatever. I was struck at halftime CPJ said to the TV guy that we had to put more pressure on BC in the second half. Early in the second half BC ran a power play into a run blitz, we missed one tackle and he was gone.

Bend but don't break can be really frustrating to watch - and works a whole lot better if you can get turnovers the way we did on the way to the OB. Also it does limit your O's touches which makes for a short game when you have long marches the way we do. So in that regard I understand the link to the offensive style I guess. Just wouldn't let that be the key issue in what defensive style we run.

 

[kittysniper101]

Even PJ said in the post game presser we need to have some 3 and outs.

Allowing teams to control the clock and convert 50%+ on 3rd downs will get you beat against better competition.

Thanks for pointing out the real problem with letting mercer drive on us. This is how Duke beat us in 2014 and Pitt in 2015. It's our whole MO people! Control the clock on O and force the other team to be hyper efficient in execution of their own O and convert long drives for scores. If we're saying we need to be aggressive against better teams (because lord knows we still allow long scores in our base defense) we need to practice what we're going to perform.

 

[Fatmike91]

In other news there are 128 FBS programs and only 49 of them are 2-0

There are 14 ACC teams. GT is tied for 3rd place on "scoring" defense (fewest points). We're behind Miami and Wake. Both Miami and Wake have played cupcakes.

Our D has allowed 24 points in two games. The worst two teams in the league have allowed 81 (Virginia) and 69 (Syracuse). The league average is to allow 42 points per game.

/

 

[Dottie1145]

Bamas cupcake game was essentially the same score.

Western Kentucky is worlds better than Mercer.

 

[slugboy]

Not much whining in 1990, but a lot of our fans thought Ross could not coach in 1988 and 1989. I was not one of them.

I see so much rewritten history here, that I'm glad to see your post. It took half the 1990 year for people to realize we had a good team.