Was our defense hamstrung in the past?

Ibeeballin

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stech81 said:
Has anyone thought that the reason Woody played soft could have been because the players signed before he got here were picked to play in a 4-3 and just maybe he didn't feel comfortable till he got his players .
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No because it was still a gap principle style defense like a 4-3
 

ncjacket79

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Supersizethatorder-mutt said:
O'Leary micromanaged him the entire time he was DC under him. I am not alone in thinking that he sucked even under O'Leary, but those are just opinions. Maybe the numbers looked good for the same reason they did at Auburn and Penn State --- we had killer offenses.
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FWIW at PSU they were #1 in the conference in sacks and red zone defense, #2 overall. Not sure how a killer offense can contribute to that. Also his defense was terrible at Auburn, at least partly because they had such a good offense the defense was on the field too much. If your argument is you don’t like Ted as DC that’s fine, but my point stands about all of PJ’s DCs, they all had success elsewhere but not under him at Tech. I don’t know why but you can’t argue the point.
 
dressedcheeseside

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stech81 said:
Has anyone thought that the reason Woody played soft could have been because the players signed before he got here were picked to play in a 4-3 and just maybe he didn't feel comfortable till he got his players .
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Woody played soft because he simply didn’t have the horses. He played soft because whenever he played aggressive we got burned badly. We couldn’t get to the quarterback even though we blitzed multiple linebackers. And we sure couldn’t contain the quarterback once he took off running. It was a big fat mess so we played soft cover it up.
 
Supersizethatorder-mutt

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ncjacket79 said:
FWIW at PSU they were #1 in the conference in sacks and red zone defense, #2 overall. Not sure how a killer offense can contribute to that. Also his defense was terrible at Auburn, at least partly because they had such a good offense the defense was on the field too much. If your argument is you don’t like Ted as DC that’s fine, but my point stands about all of PJ’s DCs, they all had success elsewhere but not under him at Tech. I don’t know why but you can’t argue the point.
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If your final assertion is correct, then perhaps it's because he didn't have the hosses to make it work at Tech. But it still comes down to the fact that no, I did not like Roof as DC....period.
 

jgtengineer

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I'm chalking up a lot of our issues last year to ILB play. Our ILBs were consistently taking the wrong steps, attacking incorrectly on blitzes (how many times did we have a linebacker flash past a QB). That falls on the ILB coach. We also had a guy like brant regress over his career with things like steps and eye discipline.
 

takethepoints

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bobongo said:
Thing is, Woody had a very good record, and everyone was looking forward to a new, aggressive style like he exhibited at Appalachian State. He came here and his defense suddenly played soft, for no ascertainably logical reason (IMO). That's what raised my eyebrow. I agree the ones before him were just bad, but there has to be a reason why he suddenly changed his style to mirror the styles of his predecessors. Then a former assistant (whose name I can't recall) said he ordered his DCs to play soft, and given what we know about Woody before and after, it made sense.
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Well … it was also Woody's first year and his D was actually very complicated. We didn't blitz as much because he didn't have the players he wanted - everyone anticipated that - and because the D took all season and then some to put in. I had great hope going forward for his Ds; we vastly improved our rate of turnovers in a single year and, with more experience, we should have been much better.

Oth, I wouldn't put it beyond Paul to intervene on D; people forget that he started out as a DC and knows a lot about that side of the ball. Also, we know that he intervened in Roof's last year when he saw some things he didn't like. Problem = he intervened to tighten up the pass coverage and get more aggressive play. So … the one instance where we know for a fact that Paul did intervene, he did it to increase the aggressiveness of the D. This isn't congruent with part of the thread.

I do know that Coach is virtually guaranteed to intervene on D. Indeed, he has a rep for being like Saban on that; i.e. there isn't a real DC at Bammer, just as chief assistant D coach for Saban. Personally, I have no problem with that. I've always felt that all the "head coaches should be CEOs" stuff is directly contradicted by experience. I'm looking for us to get better on D directly, then suffer a reverse or two in 2020. But that'll be because of the schedule, not Coach.
 
forensicbuzz

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Ibeeballin said:
Not even close bc it just confirmed what I heard from people i thought were just sour grapes
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IB, what type of DC (and all the DC's we had were seasoned DC's) would allow the HC to tie his hands like that and stick around? I absolutely am not questioning the veracity of what you're saying, but it's not like any of the 4 DC's CPJ had in his tenure were young guys who couldn't/wouldn't push back. I would have expected at least one of those guys to walk away on his own if he wasn't allowed to do what he wanted. Roof is the only one of the 4 that really seemed to come in with the bend-don't-break philosophy.
 
awbuzz

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dressedcheeseside said:
Woody played soft because he simply didn’t have the horses. He played soft because whenever he played aggressive we got burned badly. We couldn’t get to the quarterback even though we blitzed multiple linebackers. And we sure couldn’t contain the quarterback once he took off running. It was a big fat mess so we played soft cover it up.
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+1

Lather, rinse, repeat...
 
Whiskey_Clear

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What exactly does “handicapped” entail? I seriously doubt CPJ told any DC to play soft.

I can see him inserting some if / then and then / when restrictions. As in...if you can’t blitz effectively don’t do it a lot. When you blitz and can’t succeed with 5 send 6...if you can’t with 6 then blitz even less and send 7 and or use more variety of blitzes.

Or...if you can’t pressure the QB effectively give your DBs a fighting chance let them play with a cushion to prevent getting smoked.
 
Supersizethatorder-mutt

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takethepoints said:
Well … it was also Woody's first year and his D was actually very complicated. We didn't blitz as much because he didn't have the players he wanted - everyone anticipated that - and because the D took all season and then some to put in. I had great hope going forward for his Ds; we vastly improved our rate of turnovers in a single year and, with more experience, we should have been much better.

Oth, I wouldn't put it beyond Paul to intervene on D; people forget that he started out as a DC and knows a lot about that side of the ball. Also, we know that he intervened in Roof's last year when he saw some things he didn't like. Problem = he intervened to tighten up the pass coverage and get more aggressive play. So … the one instance where we know for a fact that Paul did intervene, he did it to increase the aggressiveness of the D. This isn't congruent with part of the thread.

I do know that Coach is virtually guaranteed to intervene on D. Indeed, he has a rep for being like Saban on that; i.e. there isn't a real DC at Bammer, just as chief assistant D coach for Saban. Personally, I have no problem with that. I've always felt that all the "head coaches should be CEOs" stuff is directly contradicted by experience. I'm looking for us to get better on D directly, then suffer a reverse or two in 2020. But that'll be because of the schedule, not Coach.
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Actually, CPJ intervened with Roof each of his last 2 years.
 
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