Potential DC for Next Year

[Root4GT]

Don’t use total defense for that kind of comparison. We played some of the best offenses in football, while a lot of other teams had schedules built around some of the weakest.

As of last week, we’re 81st in FEI (we could look at other opponent adjusted defensive ratings). https://www.bcftoys.com/2023-dfei

I’m not saying it’s good, but we’re in the same range as UNC, USC, South Carolina, and Florida’s. And it’s not good, but it’s not the bottom 10 in football.

We lost one of our best defensive linemen. We swap out Biggers on third down. Even just Akelo Stone could have made a big difference.

Run defense is absolutely in the bottom of Division 1. The DL and LBs get pushed around by every team we play including Bowling Green and SCST.

If you think our defense is anything but horrible against the run and getting a pass rush I don’t know what you are watching.

 

[slugboy]

Run defense is absolutely in the bottom of Division 1. The DL and LBs get pushed around by every team we play including Bowling Green and SCST.

If you think our defense is anything but horrible against the run and getting a pass rush I don’t know what you are watching.

He didn’t use RUN defense. He used TOTAL defense. They aren’t the same thing.

1. I never said our defense was good, or that our run defense was good. I clearly wrote that overall defense was bad. I didn’t say anything about our pass rush. If you’d like to insert things into the conversation that I never said as if I had said them, then this conversation is going nowhere.
2. Our PASSING defense is very good. Most of that is in our secondary.
3. You literally changed the topic from defense to the portion of defense that we’re the worst at. Then, you put words in my mouth about a topic that I hadn’t commented on.
4. Our overall defense isn’t bottom of the league. It’s below average, but it’s not #119 out of 131.
5. If you’re going to compare us to the 130 other teams, you should use numbers that are adjusted based on who you played.

 

[Root4GT]

He didn’t use RUN defense. He used TOTAL defense. They aren’t the same thing.

1. I never said our defense was good, or that our run defense was good. I clearly wrote that overall defense was bad. I didn’t say anything about our pass rush. If you’d like to insert things into the conversation that I never said as if I had said them, then this conversation is going nowhere.
2. Our PASSING defense is very good. Most of that is in our secondary.
3. You literally changed the topic from defense to the portion of defense that we’re the worst at. Then, you put words in my mouth about a topic that I hadn’t commented on.
4. Our overall defense isn’t bottom of the league. It’s below average, but it’s not #119 out of 131.
5. If you’re going to compare us to the 130 other teams, you should use numbers that are adjusted based on who you played.

Our defense is very bad. Again if you can’t see that I don’t know what you are watching. We give up points by the bundle, that is the actual objective, don’t give up points and no part of our defense is above bad. You can convince yourself our oass defense is good. It’s not. The only good thing they did was get turnovers. There is a lot of luck in fumbles/recoveries.

We had one good defensive game, Wake. Against a team without a College level QB the Defense was satisfactory.

Our defense is stinks. 101 out of 133 in scoring defense.

 

[roadkill]

Our defense is very bad. Again if you can’t see that I don’t know what you are watching. We give up points by the bundle, that is the actual objective, don’t give up points and no part of our defense is above bad. You can convince yourself our oass defense is good. It’s not. The only good thing they did was get turnovers. There is a lot of luck in fumbles/recoveries.

We had one good defensive game, Wake. Against a team without a College level QB the Defense was satisfactory.

Our defense is stinks. 101 out of 133 in scoring defense.

Seems like you and @slugboy are arguing past each other. Everyone agrees that our defense is not good. What exactly did he state that is incorrect?

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

Our defense is very bad. Again if you can’t see that I don’t know what you are watching. We give up points by the bundle, that is the actual objective, don’t give up points and no part of our defense is above bad. You can convince yourself our oass defense is good. It’s not. The only good thing they did was get turnovers. There is a lot of luck in fumbles/recoveries.

We had one good defensive game, Wake. Against a team without a College level QB the Defense was satisfactory.

Our defense is stinks. 101 out of 133 in scoring defense.

No one is arguing that our defense is good. We're just saying that total defense and scoring defense aren't very good measurements because they aren't opponent adjusted. DFEI is the best metric, and while that metric says we are bad (81st) it's more in line with some of our peers, which actually makes sense given our record against them.

 

[JacketOff]

 

[Root4GT]

No one is arguing that our defense is good. We're just saying that total defense and scoring defense aren't very good measurements because they aren't opponent adjusted. DFEI is the best metric, and while that metric says we are bad (81st) it's more in line with some of our peers, which actually makes sense given our record against them.

The “opponent adjusted” is BS. Georgia was the only good team we played. UNC had a pretty good offense until they played teams with winning records the last several weeks. Louisville offense was good as well. The rest were bad to meh.

PAC 12 offenses would have hung 50 on us weekly. The ACC was a bad conference. SCST and BG were bad an average MAC team.

Anyone who thinks our defense was anything but awful is looking at the defense with gold colored glasses.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

The “opponent adjusted” is BS. Georgia was the only good team we played. UNC had a pretty good offense until they played teams with winning records the last several weeks. Louisville offense was good as well. The rest were bad to meh.

PAC 12 offenses would have hung 50 on us weekly. The ACC was a bad conference. SCST and BG were bad an average MAC team.

Anyone who thinks our defense was anything but awful is looking at the defense with gold colored glasses.

10-2 Louisville no good. #25 Clemson with a top 10 defense no good.

You refuse to entertain advanced statistics because they don't line up with your point of view.

Noted. Since you've made your point on how you view these things, that's fine. No need to "correct" those of us who disagree with you anymore, right?

 

[Root4GT]

10-2 Louisville no good. #25 Clemson with a top 10 defense no good.

You refuse to entertain advanced statistics because they don't line up with your point of view.

Noted. Since you've made your point on how you view these things, that's fine. No need to "correct" those of us who disagree with you anymore, right?

I said Louisville had a good offense. Losing at home to UK 3-5 in the SEC East takes a lot of luster off their season. Clemson is a very good defense. Their offense that hung 42 on us is a below average offense.

We played 4 teams with good offenses. They all tourched our defense. Against UGA our defense played the best game against the 4 good offenses and still gave up 31 points, 437 yards and 7.2 yards per play.

 

[jojatk]

I just don't understand how losing those players, however great they were, we still managed to rank 119th in total defense. That means there are 118 teams out there with a better defense. Players or coaches? I don't know.

But we didn't lose just those players. In fact if you just look at what we lose from last year's team alone we lost Stone (wasn't a starter but was expected to be a contributor), Zamari Walton (probably our best DB), Keion White (2nd round pick in the NFL), Charlie Thomas, Ace Eley, and Sylvain Yondjouen (injury). Those are 5 guys, 4 of whom were proven players and 1 of whom (Stone) was expected to play a big role, we lost from last year's defense. By itself that doesn't translate to being rated so poorly but it's a HUGE contributing factor especially when three of those five are guys who made a lot of big plays (Walton, Thomas, White).

 

[Bogey]

We all agree our defense is not where we need it to be. Doesn't matter if it is 81 or 120 or whatever. After Key was made HC he made major changes to fix our offense which was our weakest side of the ball. I am confident he will do the same this year with our defense that he did with our offense last off season and I expect similar positive results.

 

[iceeater1969]

Eye test
Offense needs to keep improving under faulkner

Defense needs a MAJOR BOOST to get caught up w offense. Name brand dc will help attract players. .

Lets roll.


.

 

[57jacket]

My point was we lack talent in the front 7 which many on here deny. If we expect to defeat a team with far superior talent simply playing vanilla defense has no chance.

And our twists and stunts were very infrequent under Thacker this year despite your claim to the contrary. 90% of the plays the DTs rush straight ahead and the DEs go straight at the QB. LBs have tried different paths but virtually never get near a QB because one opponent OL can handle our DL one on one.

Our DL’s techniques don’t look very good either. They get high quickly and rarely can do a crossover using their hands.

Bottom line is we are a bottom 20 defense in Division 1. That is our anchor pulling us down.

Time to seriously evaluate the entire defensive staff this offseason. What does each coach bring individually and how do they work collectively.

Key did an excellent job changing offensive coaches last offseason. The offensive improvements have been outstanding.

I don't know enough about defensive coaching, so I assume Key and Batt will make the best choice. I do know from observation that we need better DL and LB. Basic stuff like tackling is obvious. Schemes not so much.

 

[UgaBlows]

Charlie Strong? I think he’s an analyst at Bama currently. He has some good experience with the 3-3-5 stack defense

» The Birth of the 3-3-5 Defense

grantland.com

I have to think Rocky Long might be one to talk to…

 

[Randy Carson]

What if we hired a coach with lock-down NFL-caliber defensive skills whose son is also a decent QB? Where would that leave us?

<running and ducking>

 

[awbuzz]

Lot of it is the "equipment" you have to work with.
If we had 6 or 7 Zeek Biggers and 2 - 4 Kyle Kennards (not degrading any others, just using as examples) that we could have rotated on the D-Line would have made a difference. We aren't 0.75 to 2 players deep with 4* and 5* across the D-Line. If we were the D would have been better, even with the LB play which improved, imo, over the season.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

What if we hired a coach with lock-down NFL-caliber defensive skills whose son is also a decent QB? Where would that leave us?

<running and ducking>

I know “free speech” and all that but you really shouldn’t yell fire in a crowded theater.

 

[kg01]

I know “free speech” and all that but you really shouldn’t yell fire in a crowded theater.

Who TF is he talking about. I wanna yell at him too but need some context first. Hey, call it personal growth.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

Who TF is he talking about. I wanna yell at him too but need some context first. Hey, call it personal growth.

Let me put it this way, he is pretending that he wants a Rocky Mountain high in Atlanta.

 

[Techwood Relict]

What if we hired a coach with lock-down NFL-caliber defensive skills whose son is also a decent QB? Where would that leave us?

Who TF is he talking about. I wanna yell at him too but need some context first. Hey, call it personal growth.

I mean, Jack Del Rio is available, but lock down defensive skills seems a stretch. Luke was decent at QB.....

Did I miss somebody?