Our defense is awful...

[33jacket]

its just so funny to read all the comments about the lack of talent NOW and in this thread

yet all offseason it was (from many of the SAME posters)

"this is the best DL under paul since 2008"
"this is the best front 7 we have had in years"
"this team is the deepest team YET under paul"
"this secondary is the most athletic we have had under paul"

FYI, I debated all of these pretty heavily and intently too

Ya'll can't have it both ways. If the talent on D is so darn good...then the D production issues fall on coaching and player execution (back to coaching as our issues are fundamental). If the talent on D is so darn bad (despite all the NFL players and Paul publicly stating not so much "you have to be kidding there is plenty talent on that side, and there are NFL players now on that side); but if the talent is so BAD and its not the coaching etc ok....then you can't support the statements above like was done.

So for me...this is funny to watch; watch the ebbs and flows of our team from same posters arguing two sides...

So I will stick to my guns so to speak:
Our talent is better than our D production by far (been saying this for years somewhat validated by recent CPJ comments); ie we are generally ranked in the 70s/80s on D. We are better than that. And surely better than that the years we were in the 100s in major categories.
Our goal with our talent should be largely a top 40 to top 35 D every year in most major categories
Our issues on D stem from scheme
Our issues on D stem from poor fundamentals (both taught and player responsible) and lack of correction game over game.
Our issues on D stem also from player execution
Our issues on D stem from lack of internal reflection that the scheme doesn't work as-is and needs a tweak.
All these things prohibit us from maximizing the quality of our defense to reach that top 35 or so range...

Not top 5. Not top 10. Not even top 20. Top 1/4 or top1/3 of D1 football...

 

[33jacket]

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.

I agree with this. The wet field generally is harder on the D....as they have to react. Not on the O...generally....

yet at GT we have found a way to state the wet field was an issue on both sides of the ball. But for some reason it wasn't for BC and thats why we didn't do well vs BC.

haha...its just funny...the excuses for poor play.

 

[Oldgoldandwhite]

To echo CPJ. We have to get them off the field. Defense in FB is like pitching in BB. It wins games!

 

[grandpa jacket]

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.

Well Ted Roof doesnt have UGAG material, or am i missing something.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

@33jacket

Folks will always argue talent v scheme v calls. I think it's much easier to bash than give proper credit. Evals from fans are always uninformed opinion because we don't truly know the play calls even if we think we do due to alignments etc. How much criticism did Roof get for stats in 14? A lot. How much credit did his play calls get for picks and such? None that I recall.

As to talent on DL this year. I sand by my current assessment this is our deepest and most talented DL in quite a while this year. But it is damn young still and will struggle at times ecause of it. I expect play to improve as the year progresses due to that talent and depth though. Next 2 years should be even better, though we lose Freeman (who I don't think has been 100% healthy this year) after next year.

I don't think we are getting what we should from our backers. I think that unit has underperformed for their talent a bit so far this year.

I'm still not able to eval the secondary yet. From the stands it looked like our safety badly misplayed that TD pass. Is that coaching or player error? I think it's pretty obvious player error but I only saw it live and maybe my perception was off.

I think the D will improve as the season continues. But we have to make more negative plays going forward than we have so far.

 

[tech_wreck47]

Well Ted Roof doesnt have UGAG material, or am i missing something.

Yea neither does Boston college but they have done alright the past two games with a new D coordinator. There are plenty of other schools besides uga that do it a swell. Not to mention there are plenty of teams that we recruit on the same level with that have better defenses. We have better talent on our D to be ranked in the 70's year in and year out, or am I missing something?

 

[grandpa jacket]

Yea neither does Boston college but they have done alright the past two games with a new D coordinator. There are plenty of other schools besides uga that do it a swell. Not to mention there are plenty of teams that we recruit on the same level with that have better defenses. We have better talent on our D to be ranked in the 70's year in and year out, or am I missing something?

He inherited the number 1 defense from last year in all of college football at BC, amirite

 

[elwoodgt]

I haven't found PPD stats going back very far, but I did find YPP defensive stats going back to 2003. https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/opponent-yards-per-play?date=2005-01-05

What that shows is that our defense was ranked consistently in the 20s and 30s under Tenuta, averaging around 4.5 to 4.9 YPP. In 2003 we gave up 4.4 YPP, good for #15 in the country.

In 2008 we dropped to #43. Since then we've been between #68 (2011) and #111 (2014), giving up between 5.5 and 6.2 YPP.

So unless our talent level dropped precipitously...

 

[UgaBlows]

I think our overall DL talent IS improved, but is still very young.

 

[PBR549]

Bend and don't break will work against lesser offensive coordinators. When you play the stronger more advanced coordinators it will become evident to what 33 is saying.

That may be true if talent level is the same. In my opinion coaching may have a 10% effect either way if the talent is equal.

 

[slugboy]

its just so funny to read all the comments about the lack of talent NOW and in this thread

yet all offseason it was (from many of the SAME posters)

"this is the best DL under paul since 2008"
"this is the best front 7 we have had in years"
"this team is the deepest team YET under paul"
"this secondary is the most athletic we have had under paul"

If we still had Gotsis, I'd agree on the top two points. I think we're about even in talent.
In the secondary, we were loaded two years ago.

So I will stick to my guns so to speak:
Our talent is better than our D production by far (been saying this for years somewhat validated by recent CPJ comments); ie we are generally ranked in the 70s/80s on D. We are better than that. And surely better than that the years we were in the 100s in major categories.
Our goal with our talent should be largely a top 40 to top 35 D every year in most major categories
Our issues on D stem from scheme
Our issues on D stem from poor fundamentals (both taught and player responsible) and lack of correction game over game.
Our issues on D stem also from player execution
Our issues on D stem from lack of internal reflection that the scheme doesn't work as-is and needs a tweak.
All these things prohibit us from maximizing the quality of our defense to reach that top 35 or so range...

Not top 5. Not top 10. Not even top 20. Top 1/4 or top1/3 of D1 football...

If it were just one thing, you could work on that. Will Roof change the scheme if he's thinking "fix the tackling and the other fundamentals and the defense is fine"?

 

[tech_wreck47]

He inherited the number 1 defense from last year in all of college football at BC, amirite

You're missing my point, what I'm trying to get at is there are many teams that we recruit on par with or better, yet their defenses are better than ours, Boston college is one of them. We have to much talent on D to be ranked where we are imo. So what I'm trying to get at is, there are many coaches that are out there doing better with the talent they have than we are, and I'm not talking about factory schools. So what's the difference? Why can't we do that? It's either our talent is that bad or it goes to coaching. If you are fine with having continuity and being ranked every year in the 60's and 70's then so be it, but that's the reason we are not a consistent team, and there's no getting around that. If we want to win more, our D needs to be better, it's that simple. So you asked who we could get to coach and stay to bring continuity? I honestly don't care about continuity if we cannt put a better D on the field. So why not try something different and hire someone who has learned under a good D who hasn't had the chance to be a D coordinator but is a good recruiter, because if it does work and our D starts playing better than the recruiting will get better, so even if we lose a coach we can just keep going because we already have the talent on the team. Not to mention I want the continuity to come from the players, not the coach. Cpj had already stated the best teams he has had are the ones where the players were the ones that made things go, not the coaches. I have nothing against Roof, and if he can turn things around I'll be fine, I just want a better D, and for that to happen I believe something needs to change, whether it be scheme, coaching or whatever.

 

[jeffgt14]

its just so funny to read all the comments about the lack of talent NOW and in this thread

yet all offseason it was (from many of the SAME posters)

"this is the best DL under paul since 2008"
"this is the best front 7 we have had in years"
"this team is the deepest team YET under paul"
"this secondary is the most athletic we have had under paul"

FYI, I debated all of these pretty heavily and intently too

Ya'll can't have it both ways. If the talent on D is so darn good...then the D production issues fall on coaching and player execution (back to coaching as our issues are fundamental). If the talent on D is so darn bad (despite all the NFL players and Paul publicly stating not so much "you have to be kidding there is plenty talent on that side, and there are NFL players now on that side); but if the talent is so BAD and its not the coaching etc ok....then you can't support the statements above like was done.

So for me...this is funny to watch; watch the ebbs and flows of our team from same posters arguing two sides...

So I will stick to my guns so to speak:
Our talent is better than our D production by far (been saying this for years somewhat validated by recent CPJ comments); ie we are generally ranked in the 70s/80s on D. We are better than that. And surely better than that the years we were in the 100s in major categories.
Our goal with our talent should be largely a top 40 to top 35 D every year in most major categories
Our issues on D stem from scheme
Our issues on D stem from poor fundamentals (both taught and player responsible) and lack of correction game over game.
Our issues on D stem also from player execution
Our issues on D stem from lack of internal reflection that the scheme doesn't work as-is and needs a tweak.
All these things prohibit us from maximizing the quality of our defense to reach that top 35 or so range...

Not top 5. Not top 10. Not even top 20. Top 1/4 or top1/3 of D1 football...

I will agree with this. But I strongly feel it’s not quite as bad as it seems. Here’s points per game rankings under different D coordinators. Next to these rankings I’ve included our offensive PPG scoring rankings in parenthesis. I believe there’s a correlation to offensive PPG and defensive PPG. Mainly with regards to field position.

Roof:
2016 – 17 (84) 2-0
2015 – 51 (63) 3-9
2014 – 53 (12) 11-3
2013 – 29 (26) 7-6
Groh:
2012 – 65 (34) 7-7
2011 – 60 (21) 8-5
2010 – 57 (72) 6-7
Wommack:
2009 – 56 (15) 11-3
2008 – 28 (74) 9-4
Under Tenuta:
2007 – 22 (70) 7-6
2006 – 27 (54) 9-5
2005 – 23 (104) 7-5
2004 – 22 (88) 7-5
2003 – 27 (90) 7-6
2002 – 27 (94) 7-6

I was confused about 2013 but you take out 70-0 against Elon, 56-0 against Syracuse, and 66-7 against Alabama A&M and those rankings may look different. I think Groh sucked.

2013 we lost to VT 10-17 from ugly O. Miami game was a close good game until the 4th where the wheels off the entire team fell off. BYU we scored 13 pts until a garbage time TD at the end and threw a pick 6, hard to really blame D although they weren’t great. Clemson dominated our D. UGA should’ve been a win except we sputtered and did nothing on O the 2nd half and threw a late pick allowing them to tie it. Ole Miss was pretty bad all around but the D did only give up 23 points and we had a chance to win until a late safety.

2014 we had 3 losses and the Duke loss I blame solely on the O and Special Teams and a BS targeting call on Corey Griffin. UNC I blame on the D. FSU the fault can be put on the D but I think everyone in the country agreed that was just a damn good football game between 2 really good teams. I don’t think our D as a whole was bad this year and they came through in the clutch quite often. Overall we had a good team.

2015 we were just a bad team but our D IMO was better than our O.

So my opinion still stands. Our D isn’t great but they give us a chance to win quite often. Much better than Groh and who knows about Wommack. I’m not entirely sure he ever should have been let go.

 

[33jacket]

@33jacket

Folks will always argue talent v scheme v calls. I think it's much easier to bash than give proper credit. Evals from fans are always uninformed opinion because we don't truly know the play calls even if we think we do due to alignments etc. How much criticism did Roof get for stats in 14? A lot. How much credit did his play calls get for picks and such? None that I recall.

As to talent on DL this year. I sand by my current assessment this is our deepest and most talented DL in quite a while this year. But it is damn young still and will struggle at times ecause of it. I expect play to improve as the year progresses due to that talent and depth though. Next 2 years should be even better, though we lose Freeman (who I don't think has been 100% healthy this year) after next year.

I don't think we are getting what we should from our backers. I think that unit has underperformed for their talent a bit so far this year.

I'm still not able to eval the secondary yet. From the stands it looked like our safety badly misplayed that TD pass. Is that coaching or player error? I think it's pretty obvious player error but I only saw it live and maybe my perception was off.

I think the D will improve as the season continues. But we have to make more negative plays going forward than we have so far.

Sure thats fair. I wasnt thinking of you in my original post just was observing the fun of a fanbase....btw by no means am i immune to the same insanity.

 

[AE 87]

PPD allowed vs Pwr5 (BCS AQ) under Johnson (rankings are of FBS teams playing more than 2 pwr5 opp's):

Wommack
2008: 1.88 (#38)
2009: 2.28 (#57)

Groh (Kelly at end of 2012)
2010: 2.49 (#58)
2011: 2.42 (#52)
2012: 2.34 (#51)

Roof
2013: 2.20 (#49)
2014: 2.46 (#54)
2015: 2.47 (#54)​

Last year BC was #1, 1.19 ppd and Vandy was #14, 1.56 ppd)

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

Gawd it would be good to get in the top 20. I'll settle for top 40.....well not honestly, I'm greedy....but I'll take top 40 on the way to top 20. When should we be able to get there? Honestly I think next year with progress this year in that direction. If we aren't top 40 next year I'll be pretty disappointed.

 

[PBR549]

You're missing my point, what I'm trying to get at is there are many teams that we recruit on par with or better, yet their defenses are better than ours, Boston college is one of them. We have to much talent on D to be ranked where we are imo. So what I'm trying to get at is, there are many coaches that are out there doing better with the talent they have than we are, and I'm not talking about factory schools. So what's the difference? Why can't we do that? It's either our talent is that bad or it goes to coaching. If you are fine with having continuity and being ranked every year in the 60's and 70's then so be it, but that's the reason we are not a consistent team, and there's no getting around that. If we want to win more, our D needs to be better, it's that simple. So you asked who we could get to coach and stay to bring continuity? I honestly don't care about continuity if we cannt put a better D on the field. So why not try something different and hire someone who has learned under a good D who hasn't had the chance to be a D coordinator but is a good recruiter, because if it does work and our D starts playing better than the recruiting will get better, so even if we lose a coach we can just keep going because we already have the talent on the team. Not to mention I want the continuity to come from the players, not the coach. Cpj had already stated the best teams he has had are the ones where the players were the ones that made things go, not the coaches. I have nothing against Roof, and if he can turn things around I'll be fine, I just want a better D, and for that to happen I believe something needs to change, whether it be scheme, coaching or whatever.

We've changed DCs and we've changed schemes. Three to be exact in CPJs tenure. So you think we should change again to fix the problem? I'm no engineer but this tract record indicates that there are other problems that aren't going to be fixed by changing coaches and schemes does it not. I prefer to give Roof the time he needs to get the talent level where it needs to be and I think it's getting better. Therefore continuity in the staff is going to be the key for us. We're not a factory. We don't have 4 and 5 star players at different levels of development in our program that would be effected by a scheme change. We have to develop the 2 and 3 star players that we get year in and year out. It takes more than 3 or 4 years. When we fire a DC that continuity is gone and we start maybe not over but in a new direction. It sets us back.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

Bend and don't break will work against lesser offensive coordinators. When you play the stronger more advanced coordinators it will become evident to what 33 is saying.

The "don't break" part means they don't score.

 

[YlJacket]

I don't think Vandy can put together 10 plus play/80 yard drives so I am more than ok with bend but don't break this weekend. I will worry about Clemson or anyone else after we win this one

Win and advance

 

[tech_wreck47]

We've changed DCs and we've changed schemes. Three to be exact in CPJs tenure. So you think we should change again to fix the problem? I'm no engineer but this tract record indicates that there are other problems that aren't going to be fixed by changing coaches and schemes does it not. I prefer to give Roof the time he needs to get the talent level where it needs to be and I think it's getting better. Therefore continuity in the staff is going to be the key for us. We're not a factory. We don't have 4 and 5 star players at different levels of development in our program that would be effected by a scheme change. We have to develop the 2 and 3 star players that we get year in and year out. It takes more than 3 or 4 years. When we fire a DC that continuity is gone and we start maybe not over but in a new direction. It sets us back.

That's why in a different comment I said get a guy who has learned under a good D that is maybe a LB or DB coach that's known for great recruiting. I also said that the top D coordinators aren't going to come to GT because we are not a factory and they could be at so many different schools, that's why imo our hires for D coordinators haven't been that great, if they were that good of D coordinators would they really be at GT compared to a factory? That's why I said a guy that hasn't been a D coordinator, that's how the tops guys started off as a position coach first then they got their chance. Once again though, if Roof can turn it around I'm fine, but there are so many other teams that have better defenses compared to us and we recruit just as well if not better. So my question to you is, why are other teams achieving better than we are? Many coaches have had less time than roof and have better defenses, whys that? Is 4 years not enough? He now has a full class of freshman all the way to seniors that are his recruits, and yet we are seeing the same things. I have nothing against Roof I just want to see us with a better D.