What can our secondary do to improve?

slugboy

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Pretty interesting look at the advanced stats. The author here suggests that it's time to pass the baton to the young guys in the secondary, like Brooks, King, Huff.
His conclusions are much different than what I’ve seen posted around here, but it lines up with what the PFF people are posting
  • The DL is playing OK. Not amazing, but middle of the conference kind of play.
  • The front 6 is the strength of our defense.
  • Walton and some other DBs are playing well. Our safeties played pretty well. We are not getting disruption out of the secondary though.
  • He critiqued the play calling, but in a fact-based way. We don’t run the plays that we block well. We should fix that.
  • Sims makes some head scratching plays. He is a fantastic QB when he’s not pressured, but that’s unusual
  • Our RBs are good.
  • He puts a lot on Patenaude’s plate, but I think it’s a combination of Key and Patenaude that need to sit down and find our strong suit and work to it, and fix the problems in the blocking that doesn’t work
  • Thacker and Collins need to find ways to bring pressure on D and fix coverage issues in the secondary
  • Our issues are fixable, or at least we can scheme around the bad problems
 

Gtswifty81

Jolly Good Fellow
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435
I’d love to see some of the younger guys step up and play in the secondary. I haven’t looked at advanced stats but I think are safeties are better in run defense than pass coverage. I’m expecting our younger players to create more turnovers in the secondary than the current crew.

I also believe are current DL personnel are more suited to four down lineman despite how well we pressured the QB against UNC. Perhaps the future secondary could cover with 4 in the secondary from time to time with athletic LBs
 

Bonaire41

Jolly Good Fellow
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238
They better figure it out bye the 23 Bc Armstrong got the most passing yards in college football so far this year. UVA is hard to beat the last 3 years at home and we all know how we struggle to win there the last 30 years.
 

iceeater1969

Helluva Engineer
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On pass plays.
I am sick of only 3 moderate sized dl guys straight bull rushing while 6 guys form a line 5 yards deep waiting for the receivers.


Get the hexx up on the line like u could be blitzing . At least move around so u dont look incompetent.

I like thack so i hope they can scheme up something for UVA
 

1979jacket

Ramblin' Wreck
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568
They need help from the pass rush. Our safety play hasn’t been good, but qb’s have way too much time.
imo this is exactly right. We need a pass rush but we also need better safety play. Maybe #14 is one of the answers he certainly was the key coverage that resulted in the game winning interception. #13 seems to be be god and bad and no comment on #2.
 

1979jacket

Ramblin' Wreck
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568
Tre swilling has been with the team fo 4 years and he continues to get burned over and over. He’s started a ton of games in his career and only has 2 ints. He has not developed as a player since he’s got here in my opinion.
I disagree. He had a bad game Saturday but is a good player. All cornerbacks get best and particualrly when one-on-one with other teams top receiver.
 

1979jacket

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568
I like others am also am surprised at how we have quit moving our line around on obvious throwing downs - it worked well against both Clemson and UNC. I agree Domineck and Charlie Thomas need to have some packages set up to help them get in spots where they can rush the passer. Those two are our best rushers. On secondary. we need to get some of the young guys in at safety.
 

UgaBlows

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6,351
On pass plays.
I am sick of only 3 moderate sized dl guys straight bull rushing while 6 guys form a line 5 yards deep waiting for the receivers.


Get the hexx up on the line like u could be blitzing . At least move around so u dont look incompetent.

I like thack so i hope they can scheme up something for UVA
Hell yes this. We need to be disguising and blitzing a different DB or LB from a different spot on every snap, try some delayed blitzes, those plays when our DL gets clogged up and the QB has forever to throw there are always huge lanes where a blitzer could come through unimpeded
 

Sheboygan

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We are way too reactive rather than putting on pressure with unexpected formations on D, blitzing, changing up zone/man to man , baiting the QB, etc. Might we give up a big play from time to time ? Certainly, but IMO we force more turnovers, shorten the field for our O and disrupt long drives. It's a risk vs reward, rather than bend but don't break. The winning drive by NIU was a case in point. ( that one still gnaws at me ). We could/should be looking at 4-2 rather than 3-3. A "prevent" defense just "prevents" you from winning the game in most cases. If we are short on talent, allowing their O more chances to put our D in a mismatch is not a good strategy, IMO.
 

iceeater1969

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Hell yes this. We need to be disguising and blitzing a different DB or LB from a different spot on every snap, try some delayed blitzes, those plays when our DL gets clogged up and the QB has forever to throw there are always huge lanes where a blitzer could come through unimpeded
Thanks for the bump.
Imo, the coverall concept is poorly planned.
Cgc and thacker are buzz word (effort, relebtless, etc ) about indviduals. While this is important and if scheme worjs is great for recruiting. After Pitt thacker said way less effort than in unc.

Agree w your point of better blitzing needed.
The old staff and now this staff insist that the 3 dl charge into center of the ol guy in front and then bull rush while maintaining lane discipline. With 3 rush and 5 ol we get little progress and they have extra 2 to come off and pick up delayed blitz . Imo, we need to take some risk by dl slant rush angle to make room for blitzer ( the double team ol guy has to come off the dl guy sooner). Without space when we blitz we get the old David Curry fly on wall paper glued to the ol guy. Holding is legal in the pile and we have to frequently schemed ourselves into this dead end.
If cgc is not goung to have an attacking scheming dc, we have zero chance of being relevant against good teams since they always have good qb. While we can beat a duke w passive plain d, we need to run the aggressive d so we get better and better at it.

3 guys being double teamed with narrow rush lanes is stupid.
 

UgaBlows

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6,351
Thanks for the bump.
Imo, the coverall concept is poorly planned.
Cgc and thacker are buzz word (effort, relebtless, etc ) about indviduals. While this is important and if scheme worjs is great for recruiting. After Pitt thacker said way less effort than in unc.

Agree w your point of better blitzing needed.
The old staff and now this staff insist that the 3 dl charge into center of the ol guy in front and then bull rush while maintaining lane discipline. With 3 rush and 5 ol we get little progress and they have extra 2 to come off and pick up delayed blitz . Imo, we need to take some risk by dl slant rush angle to make room for blitzer ( the double team ol guy has to come off the dl guy sooner). Without space when we blitz we get the old David Curry fly on wall paper glued to the ol guy. Holding is legal in the pile and we have to frequently schemed ourselves into this dead end.
If cgc is not goung to have an attacking scheming dc, we have zero chance of being relevant against good teams since they always have good qb. While we can beat a duke w passive plain d, we need to run the aggressive d so we get better and better at it.

3 guys being double teamed with narrow rush lanes is stupid.
Agree 100% we don’t have a NFL quality blitzer at DT, DE, or LB that can reliably get the QB on pure talent, technique and speed alone, we need to scheme our blitzes. Thats the beauty of the 3-3-5 is that you can stunt your LB’s and DB’s from a different spot on every play. And btw what happened to our corners playing mostly man defense? Did we get burned too many times? Or just don’t have the players for it?

get creative Thacker!
 

slugboy

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For those of you that think the problem with the secondary is because of our front 6 and the amount of sacks and hurries we're getting, what evidence would make you think the problem is in coverage?

For those of you who think the problem is in coverage, what evidence would you accept to change your mind that the problem is in the front 6?

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For those of you that think it's in the jimmys and joes, what would change your mind to think scheme is a bigger factor?

For those that think it's scheme, what would make you think it's on the individual players?
 

TromboneJacket

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For those of you that think the problem with the secondary is because of our front 6 and the amount of sacks and hurries we're getting, what evidence would make you think the problem is in coverage?

For those of you who think the problem is in coverage, what evidence would you accept to change your mind that the problem is in the front 6?

--------------------------------

For those of you that think it's in the jimmys and joes, what would change your mind to think scheme is a bigger factor?

For those that think it's scheme, what would make you think it's on the individual players?
I’m not zeroed in on any one cause, but I’ll answer.

I think our front 6 is not getting enough pressure. For me to change my mind, I would need to see opposing QBs get flushed out of the pocket, hit as they throw, and/or sacked at a higher rate than what I’m currently seeing. Alternatively, if I saw an opposing QB repeatedly picking on the same DB or throwing to the same route, it would tell me the problem is coverage.

For me to believe that the problem is the front 6, I would need to see opposing QBs having >4 seconds in the pocket often, rarely getting hit, and rarely having to move or scramble. The other evidence of a poor defensive front would be failure to stop the run, which seemed to happen lately.

For me to believe the scheme is the problem, I would need to see players arguing with each other pre-snap or the opposing offense repeatedly running the same plays to great success. (For example, the 2017 Miami game was a schematic indictment of Ted Roof as our DC. Screen passes can be schemed against.)

For me to believe it’s a talent issue, I would need to see players routinely getting run over, pancaked, outrun, or outjumped.

Granted, this rubric is specifically for the defense. Offense would need its own slightly different rubric.

Since offenses succeed by exploiting weaknesses, the biggest sign of a clear problem on defense is a weakness that an opposing offense can exploit with impunity.
 
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