Question about the New Defense

[forensicbuzz]

I remember asking my Dad what "GATA" meant. IIRC I was reading the AJC account of the 1962 Alabama- Ga. Tech game and Rufus Guthrie had a towel hanging out of the back of his pants with "GATA" printed on it.

That's definitely before I went to HS. Also, my HS was in Connecticut, so there would have been no tie to Erk or uga.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

No. I’m saying a new scheme with new terminology typically brings a learning curve to get past. That alone should be a bit of a hurdle for our D to overcome this year.

Except our guys are smarter than the average bears.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

Except our guys are smarter than the average bears.

I’d like to agree but the constant need to simplify....u get my point.

Maybe with new scheme and new teaching techniques this will become a welcomed thing of the past.

 

[danny daniel]

My thoughts on the new defense:

Roof's scheme seemed to favor regimentation, consistency, and not making many bad plays. Unfortunately with our talent that scheme led to the opposition making a lot of good plays and keeping the ball too much.

Woody's defense will be more aggressive and likely be less consistent, a mixture of more bad plays and hopefully more good plays leading to more turnovers and sacks and less time on the field....a result more favorable to our O. I also believe the Woody approach will better utilize our talent and depth issues. We will just have to suffer with some bad plays.

 

[ilovetheoption]

My thoughts on the new defense:

Roof's scheme seemed to favor regimentation, consistency, and not making many bad plays. Unfortunately with our talent that scheme led to the opposition making a lot of good plays and keeping the ball too much.

Woody's defense will be more aggressive and likely be less consistent, a mixture of more bad plays and hopefully more good plays leading to more turnovers and sacks and less time on the field....a result more favorable to our O. I also believe the Woody approach will better utilize our talent and depth issues. We will just have to suffer with some bad plays.

This. I fear that people are going to freak out when this defense occasionally gets torched. High risk defenses get torched sometimes. It happens.

EVEN THOUGH the defense will likely get torched sometimes, I still think it's better to get torched 3 times and shut the other team down 9 times than it is to get slowly bled to death 12 games a year.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

My thoughts on the new defense:

Roof's scheme seemed to favor regimentation, consistency, and not making many bad plays. Unfortunately with our talent that scheme led to the opposition making a lot of good plays and keeping the ball too much.

Woody's defense will be more aggressive and likely be less consistent, a mixture of more bad plays and hopefully more good plays leading to more turnovers and sacks and less time on the field....a result more favorable to our O. I also believe the Woody approach will better utilize our talent and depth issues. We will just have to suffer with some bad plays.

I wonder if we are finally going to see what our team would have looked like if Tenura had stayed on?

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

This. I fear that people are going to freak out when this defense occasionally gets torched. High risk defenses get torched sometimes. It happens.

EVEN THOUGH the defense will likely get torched sometimes, I still think it's better to get torched 3 times and shut the other team down 9 times than it is to get slowly bled to death 12 games a year.

That's been my biggest worry since the announcement of this hire. I think Woody gets a pass the first year though, as the fan base will generally be understanding. We got what we asked for, so now we will have to take the good and bad that comes with a more aggressive D.

 

[g0lftime]

I like the idea of an attacking defense where the offensive lineman has to worry about his blocking assignment a little more than usual on every play.

 

[UgaBlows]

Except our guys are smarter than the average bears.

But overwhelmed with actual schoolwork?

 

[YJMD]

Well Ted got torched on occasion, too. Playing off the ball doesn't guarantee you shut down the homeruns. You can get QBs in rhythm and give em time and they'll be able to beat you. If you miss a tackle or two in the run game, good runners can bust it. If you give up yardage on 1st and 2nd down, their playbook stays wide open. I like trying to be more aggressive earlier in series to prevent teams from finding a groove.

 

[vamosjackets]

Lots of good comments in this thread - very informed, wise, enjoyable fans on here.

I agree with @ilovetheoption, that the name/concept of this defense is the Slant-50 ... kind of like the best name for our offense is the Spread-Option (which is how CPJ thinks of it), as opposed to the wishbone or something like that. I almost had a chance to coach in this defense 15 years ago when I got into high school coaching the first few years of my career. The head coach for a local high school team brought that defense with him and had the defensive coordinator who was there before he got there run that defense. When I interviewed with them, I was coming from Tenuta's attacking 4-3, zone-dog defensive philosophy, and really didn't have a clue as to what the slant-50 was. The HC and DC had been there running that defense for a couple of years, and during the interview, the DC who had been sold on that defense was very high on it. He said he wished he had been (and didn't know why he hadn't) running it long before. He said it was simple for the kids but also effective at creating problems for the offense. The impression I got from that brief encounter was that the front 3 would be doing all kind of stuff (slants, games, etc) to mess up the offense's blocking scheme and create unblocked defenders who would often make plays in the backfield (thus the desire for athletic DL, as compared to huge space eaters, akin to our OL personnel). At the same time the middle 4 (LB's) and back 4 (DB's) would be employing schemes to compliment what's going on in front of them (what the 3 DL are doing) to both aid the attack and/or to minimize the risk of the attack. This philosophy pumps me up big time because it is highly related to what Tenuta was doing with the attacking 4-3, zone-dog scheme. The goal is to pressure the offense, create negative plays, mess with the OL and the QB in their reads, pressure the QB in the passing game, get TFL's in the run game, dictate to the offense what they're going to have to do to beat you (beat you left handed instead of doing what they want and you trying your best to react to that and stop what they're doing). I think it can fit well with our recruiting situation as well - like our offense can use guys on the OL who can be effective due to their athleticism even if they're not an ideal size ... it can use 'tweeners at almost all levels of the defense (a DE/DT 'tweener, a S/LB 'tweener, a DE/LB 'tweener, a CB/S 'tweener, etc). It's a system we can recruit to like our offense, and a system we can try to get better and better at as a single season goes on and as multiple seasons go by. We will have growing pains and we will get "torched" sometimes. We will give up big plays probably at times. BUT, I don't think it will be at a significantly different pace than what we were already doing in these other, less aggressive schemes - we were already getting "torched" at times, giving up big plays at times, etc. AND, I think what this will do is give us a chance to be dominant at times as well, like we were under Tenuta - man I miss those days of a feared, dominant D at GT, can you tell? I would love to see a day of GT being known/feared for what we do on both sides of the ball - can you imagine? Tenuta's worst days were about equal to the last 3 DC's average days, and that's what I would expect/hope for with the new D. We'll have what we've already had as far as getting beat sometimes, but add the aspect of a significant number of negative plays to that to give us a better chance to be more successful overall. I'm probably building expectations up (fantasizing) too much in my own head and maybe building it up too much for others as well with this post, but that's the offseason for you and that's better than doom-and-gloom pessimism any day. I'm sure I'll learn a lot from watching this first year, though I hope my current impressions don't change much.

I now kind of wish I'd taken that opportunity to coach this defense back then, as I'd have a lot better info. I ended up taking a different job where I thought (was told) I had a faster track to being a coordinator. It was a worse situation where the HC was fired the next year, and I ended up getting out of it altogether another year later. Now I coach Church (ministry), and get to study the Bible a lot more instead of playbooks ... still with an offense and a defense against a powerful foe, but with a HC who is out of this world.

 

[Lavoisier]

There's also a psychological effect on the qb when you are running a lot of blitzes and pressuring them. If they can get in a rhythm and have time then they can just play pitch and catch with their receivers all day. Blitz them and rattle them and you can see it snowball. Granted the really good ones and the mentally tough ones will be able to overcome this but it's a part of the game we have been missing.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

I almost had a chance to coach in this defense 15 years ago when I got into high school coaching the first few years of my career.

Wait? So now we're gonna run a high school D to pair with our high school O? Count me in double!!!!

 

[GTJoeBrew]

I wonder if we are finally going to see what our team would have looked like if Tenura had stayed on?

I am hoping for Tenuta 2.0. There were some thing that drove me nuts about his defense, but overall it was very entertaining to watch.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

Lots of good comments in this thread - very informed, wise, enjoyable fans on here.

I agree with @ilovetheoption, that the name/concept of this defense is the Slant-50 ... kind of like the best name for our offense is the Spread-Option (which is how CPJ thinks of it), as opposed to the wishbone or something like that. I almost had a chance to coach in this defense 15 years ago when I got into high school coaching the first few years of my career. The head coach for a local high school team brought that defense with him and had the defensive coordinator who was there before he got there run that defense. When I interviewed with them, I was coming from Tenuta's attacking 4-3, zone-dog defensive philosophy, and really didn't have a clue as to what the slant-50 was. The HC and DC had been there running that defense for a couple of years, and during the interview, the DC who had been sold on that defense was very high on it. He said he wished he had been (and didn't know why he hadn't) running it long before. He said it was simple for the kids but also effective at creating problems for the offense. The impression I got from that brief encounter was that the front 3 would be doing all kind of stuff (slants, games, etc) to mess up the offense's blocking scheme and create unblocked defenders who would often make plays in the backfield (thus the desire for athletic DL, as compared to huge space eaters, akin to our OL personnel). At the same time the middle 4 (LB's) and back 4 (DB's) would be employing schemes to compliment what's going on in front of them (what the 3 DL are doing) to both aid the attack and/or to minimize the risk of the attack. This philosophy pumps me up big time because it is highly related to what Tenuta was doing with the attacking 4-3, zone-dog scheme. The goal is to pressure the offense, create negative plays, mess with the OL and the QB in their reads, pressure the QB in the passing game, get TFL's in the run game, dictate to the offense what they're going to have to do to beat you (beat you left handed instead of doing what they want and you trying your best to react to that and stop what they're doing). I think it can fit well with our recruiting situation as well - like our offense can use guys on the OL who can be effective due to their athleticism even if they're not an ideal size ... it can use 'tweeners at almost all levels of the defense (a DE/DT 'tweener, a S/LB 'tweener, a DE/LB 'tweener, a CB/S 'tweener, etc). It's a system we can recruit to like our offense, and a system we can try to get better and better at as a single season goes on and as multiple seasons go by. We will have growing pains and we will get "torched" sometimes. We will give up big plays probably at times. BUT, I don't think it will be at a significantly different pace than what we were already doing in these other, less aggressive schemes - we were already getting "torched" at times, giving up big plays at times, etc. AND, I think what this will do is give us a chance to be dominant at times as well, like we were under Tenuta - man I miss those days of a feared, dominant D at GT, can you tell? I would love to see a day of GT being known/feared for what we do on both sides of the ball - can you imagine? Tenuta's worst days were about equal to the last 3 DC's average days, and that's what I would expect/hope for with the new D. We'll have what we've already had as far as getting beat sometimes, but add the aspect of a significant number of negative plays to that to give us a better chance to be more successful overall. I'm probably building expectations up (fantasizing) too much in my own head and maybe building it up too much for others as well with this post, but that's the offseason for you and that's better than doom-and-gloom pessimism any day. I'm sure I'll learn a lot from watching this first year, though I hope my current impressions don't change much.

I now kind of wish I'd taken that opportunity to coach this defense back then, as I'd have a lot better info. I ended up taking a different job where I thought (was told) I had a faster track to being a coordinator. It was a worse situation where the HC was fired the next year, and I ended up getting out of it altogether another year later. Now I coach Church (ministry), and get to study the Bible a lot more instead of playbooks ... still with an offense and a defense against a powerful foe, but with a HC who is out of this world.

On a more serious note, I have generally not been a fan of 3-4 Ds in college, but I think that's been because the particular schemes I have watched seemed to rely on DL size that's hard to recruit at GT. Woody's scheme seems to be a much better fit for our recruiting profile, and I hope to see good results from it. I just want us to be honest as fans, and understand that even good Ds have bad days, and not be on a fire Woody bandwagon if the first year is a struggle. I expect, however, with the athletes we have returning, that we'll be better than expected on D next year.

 

[jgtengineer]

On a more serious note, I have generally not been a fan of 3-4 Ds in college, but I think that's been because the particular schemes I have watched seemed to rely on DL size that's hard to recruit at GT. Woody's scheme seems to be a much better fit for our recruiting profile, and I hope to see good results from it. I just want us to be honest as fans, and understand that even good Ds have bad days, and not be on a fire Woody bandwagon if the first year is a struggle. I expect, however, with the athletes we have returning, that we'll be better than expected on D next year.

I have rarely seen a 3-4 ran in college correctly the way a pro style 3-4 is suppose to run. Even bama and uga converted their 3-4's from that style to an attacking 3-4.

read and react doesn't really work in college, the offenses are way to damn good and you will always break. Woody's defense is a dictate defense. we will give up a few big plays but we will also force more negative plays.

 

[ATL1]

Alabama’s 3-4 is more read react than attacking. They’re not to many attacking 3-4’s in college.

I have rarely seen a 3-4 ran in college correctly the way a pro style 3-4 is suppose to run. Even bama and uga converted their 3-4's from that style to an attacking 3-4.

read and react doesn't really work in college, the offenses are way to damn good and you will always break. Woody's defense is a dictate defense. we will give up a few big plays but we will also force more negative plays.

 

[jgtengineer]

Alabama’s 3-4 is more read react than attacking. They’re not to many attacking 3-4’s in college.

Alabama's 3-4 is the closest you get to a pro style attacking 3-4 with a two gap nose , man up coverage and man blitz schemes. Its a simple defense that takes a base set of personnel and has them play fast and loose using their athleticism.

A true read/react defense is just as much focused on the presnap as the post. Look at the Groh defense. or any roof defense. The focuses is on reading the play pre snap then reacting to it based on formation. It uses a lot of zone coverage to read the QB and react to his eyes instead of the man.

What you are meaning to say is there aren't a lot of ZONE blitz attacking 3-4's in college and in that you are right. Running those types of defenses combines the hard mode of pre snap diagnosis from the read/react defense and the risk of a blitz heavy defense. They just flat out don't work in college because of the time it takes for a coach to relay things in the game. An example of this defense is the Raven's defense under lewis, the check counter check gameplay he would call on the field it wasn't about getting into a blitz then reading the zone. It was about getting into the right blitz based on personnel and down and distance + opponent tendencies.

 

[UgaBlows]

Lots of good comments in this thread - very informed, wise, enjoyable fans on here.

I agree with @ilovetheoption, that the name/concept of this defense is the Slant-50 ... kind of like the best name for our offense is the Spread-Option (which is how CPJ thinks of it), as opposed to the wishbone or something like that. I almost had a chance to coach in this defense 15 years ago when I got into high school coaching the first few years of my career. The head coach for a local high school team brought that defense with him and had the defensive coordinator who was there before he got there run that defense. When I interviewed with them, I was coming from Tenuta's attacking 4-3, zone-dog defensive philosophy, and really didn't have a clue as to what the slant-50 was. The HC and DC had been there running that defense for a couple of years, and during the interview, the DC who had been sold on that defense was very high on it. He said he wished he had been (and didn't know why he hadn't) running it long before. He said it was simple for the kids but also effective at creating problems for the offense. The impression I got from that brief encounter was that the front 3 would be doing all kind of stuff (slants, games, etc) to mess up the offense's blocking scheme and create unblocked defenders who would often make plays in the backfield (thus the desire for athletic DL, as compared to huge space eaters, akin to our OL personnel). At the same time the middle 4 (LB's) and back 4 (DB's) would be employing schemes to compliment what's going on in front of them (what the 3 DL are doing) to both aid the attack and/or to minimize the risk of the attack. This philosophy pumps me up big time because it is highly related to what Tenuta was doing with the attacking 4-3, zone-dog scheme. The goal is to pressure the offense, create negative plays, mess with the OL and the QB in their reads, pressure the QB in the passing game, get TFL's in the run game, dictate to the offense what they're going to have to do to beat you (beat you left handed instead of doing what they want and you trying your best to react to that and stop what they're doing). I think it can fit well with our recruiting situation as well - like our offense can use guys on the OL who can be effective due to their athleticism even if they're not an ideal size ... it can use 'tweeners at almost all levels of the defense (a DE/DT 'tweener, a S/LB 'tweener, a DE/LB 'tweener, a CB/S 'tweener, etc). It's a system we can recruit to like our offense, and a system we can try to get better and better at as a single season goes on and as multiple seasons go by. We will have growing pains and we will get "torched" sometimes. We will give up big plays probably at times. BUT, I don't think it will be at a significantly different pace than what we were already doing in these other, less aggressive schemes - we were already getting "torched" at times, giving up big plays at times, etc. AND, I think what this will do is give us a chance to be dominant at times as well, like we were under Tenuta - man I miss those days of a feared, dominant D at GT, can you tell? I would love to see a day of GT being known/feared for what we do on both sides of the ball - can you imagine? Tenuta's worst days were about equal to the last 3 DC's average days, and that's what I would expect/hope for with the new D. We'll have what we've already had as far as getting beat sometimes, but add the aspect of a significant number of negative plays to that to give us a better chance to be more successful overall. I'm probably building expectations up (fantasizing) too much in my own head and maybe building it up too much for others as well with this post, but that's the offseason for you and that's better than doom-and-gloom pessimism any day. I'm sure I'll learn a lot from watching this first year, though I hope my current impressions don't change much.

I now kind of wish I'd taken that opportunity to coach this defense back then, as I'd have a lot better info. I ended up taking a different job where I thought (was told) I had a faster track to being a coordinator. It was a worse situation where the HC was fired the next year, and I ended up getting out of it altogether another year later. Now I coach Church (ministry), and get to study the Bible a lot more instead of playbooks ... still with an offense and a defense against a powerful foe, but with a HC who is out of this world.

Fantastic post thanks for sharing, and thanks for what your doing with the ministry!

 

[tmhunter52]

Lots of good comments in this thread - very informed, wise, enjoyable fans on here.

I agree with @ilovetheoption, that the name/concept of this defense is the Slant-50 ... kind of like the best name for our offense is the Spread-Option (which is how CPJ thinks of it), as opposed to the wishbone or something like that. I almost had a chance to coach in this defense 15 years ago when I got into high school coaching the first few years of my career. The head coach for a local high school team brought that defense with him and had the defensive coordinator who was there before he got there run that defense. When I interviewed with them, I was coming from Tenuta's attacking 4-3, zone-dog defensive philosophy, and really didn't have a clue as to what the slant-50 was. The HC and DC had been there running that defense for a couple of years, and during the interview, the DC who had been sold on that defense was very high on it. He said he wished he had been (and didn't know why he hadn't) running it long before. He said it was simple for the kids but also effective at creating problems for the offense. The impression I got from that brief encounter was that the front 3 would be doing all kind of stuff (slants, games, etc) to mess up the offense's blocking scheme and create unblocked defenders who would often make plays in the backfield (thus the desire for athletic DL, as compared to huge space eaters, akin to our OL personnel). At the same time the middle 4 (LB's) and back 4 (DB's) would be employing schemes to compliment what's going on in front of them (what the 3 DL are doing) to both aid the attack and/or to minimize the risk of the attack. This philosophy pumps me up big time because it is highly related to what Tenuta was doing with the attacking 4-3, zone-dog scheme. The goal is to pressure the offense, create negative plays, mess with the OL and the QB in their reads, pressure the QB in the passing game, get TFL's in the run game, dictate to the offense what they're going to have to do to beat you (beat you left handed instead of doing what they want and you trying your best to react to that and stop what they're doing). I think it can fit well with our recruiting situation as well - like our offense can use guys on the OL who can be effective due to their athleticism even if they're not an ideal size ... it can use 'tweeners at almost all levels of the defense (a DE/DT 'tweener, a S/LB 'tweener, a DE/LB 'tweener, a CB/S 'tweener, etc). It's a system we can recruit to like our offense, and a system we can try to get better and better at as a single season goes on and as multiple seasons go by. We will have growing pains and we will get "torched" sometimes. We will give up big plays probably at times. BUT, I don't think it will be at a significantly different pace than what we were already doing in these other, less aggressive schemes - we were already getting "torched" at times, giving up big plays at times, etc. AND, I think what this will do is give us a chance to be dominant at times as well, like we were under Tenuta - man I miss those days of a feared, dominant D at GT, can you tell? I would love to see a day of GT being known/feared for what we do on both sides of the ball - can you imagine? Tenuta's worst days were about equal to the last 3 DC's average days, and that's what I would expect/hope for with the new D. We'll have what we've already had as far as getting beat sometimes, but add the aspect of a significant number of negative plays to that to give us a better chance to be more successful overall. I'm probably building expectations up (fantasizing) too much in my own head and maybe building it up too much for others as well with this post, but that's the offseason for you and that's better than doom-and-gloom pessimism any day. I'm sure I'll learn a lot from watching this first year, though I hope my current impressions don't change much.

I now kind of wish I'd taken that opportunity to coach this defense back then, as I'd have a lot better info. I ended up taking a different job where I thought (was told) I had a faster track to being a coordinator. It was a worse situation where the HC was fired the next year, and I ended up getting out of it altogether another year later. Now I coach Church (ministry), and get to study the Bible a lot more instead of playbooks ... still with an offense and a defense against a powerful foe, but with a HC who is out of this world.

The difference is that you know how your game is ultimately going to end...