Ted Roof

[augustabuzz]

The d line is where the sec schools excell. They pretty get the cream of the crop here in the south. Clemson and FSU do pretty good but most people would say there more like an sec school anyway. Mr Tomlinson. Made a few play last night for bama. If only we could have landed him!

Or stated another way, attacking defenses tend to get the better DL. I wonder why that seems to be the case.

 

[Mack]

Great players make great defenses. We are building toward that end.

Go Jackets!

Hey Jerry good to hear this .......but we need to speed up the time table on getting good players.......

 

[Boomergump]

Dline.....Dline.....Dline

In particular DTs.....DTs....DTs.....

I hate to be a broken record but that will determine the level of our success to a large degree.

Yup. If you have any doubts about the value of a sturdy DL, que up the Bama, LSU game again. Having 4 guys across who can all control their adversary enough to play a solid 2 gap is a difference maker.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

Very true Boomer. I don't think we will ever have Bama type talent on the line....probably never have. If we did Groh could come back and be very successful. We just need guys who can make a difference in single gap assignments IMO.

 

[awbuzz]

D-line is the answer. IF we can ever get back to being able to pressure the back field fairly regularly with a 4 man front, we'll be golden.

 

[ATL1]

Dline is essential and thats true for every team. Look at Ole Miss. They have talent out the anus on their Dline but are middle of the pack defensively. Sure have an allstar dline would be great but having an excellent X & O guy is more important. Bud Foster is not getting 5* talent on his line but he has a system in place that makes his line work and dominate. Pitt has a stout D and I'm not sure their talent is that overall impressive, that goes for Mich St too in my opinion. I don't feel GT has a good X & O strategist nor a stickler for fundamentals cause neither are being showcased on the field. That's coaching.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

FWIW.....VT defense is no better than ours this year.

 

[iceeater1969]

Watched fsu dl verses Clemson and gt.

I noticed that kelly fsu dc rotates the heavy short dt guys in on run and faster guys on passing downs.
We seem to do any rotation based on fatigue.

I think the can work in talent better using the situatijn method.

Hope we try henderson on first downs as he is good with hands and short enough hold ground. Gamble and kallon seem better for pass rush so saving keeping them fresher might be a good idea.

Also I have said for" recruiting" we MUST be known for spot playing under classmen (its what we do) .

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

Comparing FSU Dline and GT Dline is truly apples to oranges.

 

[gtg936g]

We barely have enough linemen to play a 4-3 much less a rush/pass package

 

[iceeater1969]

I realize we are running on low at dt-- I posted on this last spring.

Guys let's agree that when we get some talent - any talent we don't have them sitting and talking on the bench like we had during fsu. Kallon and Henderson were having a chat while pelton talking to "the starters". I sit 25 feet away.

I am saying
While the rs freshman coming up next year will be green we need to find situations to get them playing time in situations (run blitzes, pass bliss, stunts) they have practiced.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

Dline is essential and thats true for every team. Look at Ole Miss. They have talent out the anus on their Dline but are middle of the pack defensively. Sure have an allstar dline would be great but having an excellent X & O guy is more important. Bud Foster is not getting 5* talent on his line but he has a system in place that makes his line work and dominate. Pitt has a stout D and I'm not sure their talent is that overall impressive, that goes for Mich St too in my opinion. I don't feel GT has a good X & O strategist nor a stickler for fundamentals cause neither are being showcased on the field. That's coaching.

While VT has not always had 5* DL, they have had excellent DBs. They currently have 7 or 8 DB's playing in the NFL and will add to that total in the next couple of years. Their DL has benefited greatly because of the outstanding coverage. IMO, it's why they have been so successful against us. They can trust their corners to go man to man against our WRs and put 9 in the box.

 

[Mack]

Yup. If you have any doubts about the value of a sturdy DL, que up the Bama, LSU game again. Having 4 guys across who can all control their adversary enough to play a solid 2 gap is a difference maker.

Shoot will take either defensive lines or probably their backups and dominate the ACC with exception of maybe Clemson...what a game ! if you were not of strong heart and couldnt take a lick then........play hopscotch on the sidelines......tremenedous licks on both sides...........my kind of football.

 

[Legal Jacket]

I personally like Roof and think he's a great fit. You can't really judge him based on this year's results. Injuries, bad offense, etc. all combine to make this defense look rough. They're just really overworked IMO. And when the offense is as bad as it is, the morale of the whole team suffers.

Look at our defensive numbers over the past several years. Roof hasn't been any worse than any of the other guys we've had, save Tenuta. Continuity is better than continuously replacing the DC IMO.

To be fair, he got a bit of a pass last year because the offense was so good. We've had so many fewer possessions on defense, it's hard to give our defense a pass when they finally have to deal with what a normal defense handles.

I don't think the offense has been as bad as you make it out to be. We've lost games scoring 22, 20, 31, 24, 28, and 21. It's not like we've lost a game despite holding a team to under 100 yards rushing or under 20 points. Call it "morale," or anything else you want, but the defense was bad last year and was bailed out by a pretty good offense (see, e.g., giving up 31 points to duke, 48 to unc, 28 to pitt, 23 to NC St, 37 to fsu, and 34 to miss st). We just don't have the offense this year to mask how bad our D really is.

The #33 defense in the country in terms of scoring (Duke), gives up 21.7 ppg. If we could hold the other team to the low 20s we'd have at least 2, maybe 3, more wins. Not counting that a number of statistics show the defense has gotten worse, not better.

That said, the biggest turnaround has been on turnover margins. We aren't in the top 50 in turnovers forced. Combine that with the number of big plays we've given up, and our generally mediocre at best run defense, and that's what is costing us games - not necessarily the offense. If we had a top 25 defense this year, as many were hoping, we'd have a lot more wins.

 

[chewybaka]

To be fair, he got a bit of a pass last year because the offense was so good. We've had so many fewer possessions on defense, it's hard to give our defense a pass when they finally have to deal with what a normal defense handles.

I don't think the offense has been as bad as you make it out to be. We've lost games scoring 22, 20, 31, 24, 28, and 21. It's not like we've lost a game despite holding a team to under 100 yards rushing or under 20 points. Call it "morale," or anything else you want, but the defense was bad last year and was bailed out by a pretty good offense (see, e.g., giving up 31 points to duke, 48 to unc, 28 to pitt, 23 to NC St, 37 to fsu, and 34 to miss st). We just don't have the offense this year to mask how bad our D really is.

The #33 defense in the country in terms of scoring (Duke), gives up 21.7 ppg. If we could hold the other team to the low 20s we'd have at least 2, maybe 3, more wins. Not counting that a number of statistics show the defense has gotten worse, not better.

That said, the biggest turnaround has been on turnover margins. We aren't in the top 50 in turnovers forced. Combine that with the number of big plays we've given up, and our generally mediocre at best run defense, and that's what is costing us games - not necessarily the offense. If we had a top 25 defense this year, as many were hoping, we'd have a lot more wins.

You forgot about the turn over ratio...a disaster for both sides of the ball this year

 

[SteamWhistle]

Gray and Mitchell are already balling! The future is bright with our young talent on D. Looking at all our loses this year you cant tell me one was only on the defense they've done what they've had to do to give our offense a chance and you cant blame CTR for that, unless we get beat 70-21 its usually the offenses fault.

 

[AE 87]

Gray and Mitchell are already balling! The future is bright with our young talent on D. Looking at all our loses this year you cant tell me one was only on the defense they've done what they've had to do to give our offense a chance and you cant blame CTR for that, unless we get beat 70-21 its usually the offenses fault.

Nobody's saying that losses are only on D, but it doesn't follow that they're on the O then. We haven't been playing well enuf on either side of the ball. However, our D has still been significantly worse. #39 O, #60 D.

 

[lv20gt]

Season's not even over and we're trying to spin this year's problems on the defense. Amazing.

Our offense had put up 14 points with 2 minutes left against UVA, and had given them the ball inside the 30 twice setting up 10 points.
Our offense put up just 16 against FSU and gave the ball to FSU twice inside the 20 setting up 10 points.
Our offense put up just 17 against Clemson, 3 of that was off a -2 yard drive.
Our offense put up just 20 against Duke, 6 of which came off short fields after turnovers. They also gave Duke the ball inside the 40 for the game sealing TD. It also got the ball at the Duke 35 and got no points out of it.
Against ND we had 7 points with under a minute left in the game.

Even against UNC the offense gave UNC the ball twice on our side of the field, and couldn't get in from the 1.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

I think it's easy to over value statistical rankings. Yes they can provide insights and give a measure of where certain factors measure. But they don't tell the whole story. For instance. The difference between turnover takeaways between #25 and #50 might just be 2 or 3 turnovers gained.

 

[bke1984]

Season's not even over and we're trying to spin this year's problems on the defense. Amazing.

Our offense had put up 14 points with 2 minutes left against UVA, and had given them the ball inside the 30 twice setting up 10 points.
Our offense put up just 16 against FSU and gave the ball to FSU twice inside the 20 setting up 10 points.
Our offense put up just 17 against Clemson, 3 of that was off a -2 yard drive.
Our offense put up just 20 against Duke, 6 of which came off short fields after turnovers. They also gave Duke the ball inside the 40 for the game sealing TD. It also got the ball at the Duke 35 and got no points out of it.
Against ND we had 7 points with under a minute left in the game.

Even against UNC the offense gave UNC the ball twice on our side of the field, and couldn't get in from the 1.

I'm with you. Our offense has been bad this year. Point to all the numbers you want, but we flat out cannot move the ball. The defense has been a little better, but you'd need Alabama's defense to win the way our offense has played.