Type of Defense CTR runs

[ATL1]

Psu was 20 in total d in 2011, 29 in 2012. 5th in scoring d to 16th

Even that didn't make top 25. uh oh not good

 

[John]

I'm just making a note that there are a number of red flags that are getting over looked here. I understand everyone's excited for the upcoming season, but I'm tempering my expectations.

I don't take into account the stats that CTR had with his previous defenses because it's hard to extrapolate based on those stats alone. They are just data points for me to consider but aren't very significant.

I'm also not expecting CTR to be able to transform the defense into a top 25 defense over the course of one off-season. With that said, if CTR can take the lessons learned from Groh's era into account while he prepares the defense (which I think CPJ would have made clear about before the hire), I think the 2013 defense overall will be better than the defense in the first six games of 2012 which CCK proved wasn't too difficult to do in the last 8 games of 2012. That is my minimum expectations for the defense.

On the other hand, all these articles I'm reading about CTR liking multiple looks... that sounds great but I've been traumatized by Groh enough where I'd rather see a relatively simple defense that the players can learn quickly week-to-week instead of a system that has a lot of moving parts. From looking at the defense during the scrimmage though, the defense didn't do anything unusual... just ran base 4-3 most of the time with a couple of over and under alignments sprinkled in.

 

[IronJacket7]

Just keep opposing teams to an average of 21.0 ppg or less and the offense will take care of the rest.

 

[Bigb]

I don't think we need a top 25 defense to make significant improvements in the teams record.

The offense is going to hold serve. We just need to not get into shoot outs every game. For more punts than we have been.

We were #65 last year in scoring defense at 28.29 PPGA. If we can improve that to 24PPGA or so that will get us to #40 and probably be the factor in winning 2-4 more games.

 

[AE 87]

I'm just making a note that there are a number of red flags that are getting over looked here. I understand everyone's excited for the upcoming season, but I'm tempering my expectations.

Even that didn't make top 25. uh oh not good

I agree that there are "red flags" or reasons for caution with respect to Ted. If you read what I've written in other threads, you'll see some of what I identified. However, I disagree with what you label as red flags. Your posts focus only on overall rankings and so seem, to me, to be a bit simplistic. They seem to me to entail a logic that Saban would have a top 5 D at Duke and Minn etc.

Regardless, this thread was about the type of D Ted runs, his D philosophy. To suggest that people were saying that we were going to have a top 25 D and were overlooking red flags seems to me to be over interpreting the thread.

 

[Longestday]

Keep in mind that if our offense moved at normal speed, the scoring defense would be worse. The true dismalness of our defense was masked by how the offense played and controlled the clock. I think the YPP against our defense was ranked somewhere around 75-78th and is a more pure measure. Even this can be distorted if a offense repeatedly puts the defense on the field tiring them out.

 

[CuseJacket]

Getting a few more touchbacks on kickoffs, or at the very least covering kickoffs well, will also help that defensive scoring ranking.

 

[AE 87]

Keep in mind that if our offense moved at normal speed, the scoring defense would be worse. The true dismalness of our defense was masked by how the offense played and controlled the clock. I think the YPP against our defense was ranked somewhere around 75-78th and is a more pure measure. Even this can be distorted if a offense repeatedly puts the defense on the field tiring them out.

Yeah, I haven't posted anything about GT's 2012 D. We were 74th in Yards/Play and 77th in pts/drive last year. By comparison, PSU was 22nd in ypp and 17th in points/drive.

Our 2012 offense was 31st in yds/play and 23 in pts/drive.

 

[Longestday]

I wonder is TB would have made our defensive stats worse, if they scored anyways.

 

[forensicbuzz]

Those numbers shouldn't he held up in a vacuum. Rankings has a lot to do with strength of schedule, quality of offense, outlying games, relative strength of other defenses. I'm not saying there wasn't a drop off in quality because I haven't looked at any of those (or other factors), but just comparing 2011 rankings to 2012 rankings may be misleading. (response to AE 87)