Why has our defense been bad since 2008?

[UgaBlows]

We have a LONG trend going- 13 season worth of some truly terrible defenses (and 2008 wasn’t great either). we’ve had quite a few DC’s, some of whom definitely knew what they were doing (Groh) and others who went on to succeed after being fired from Tech (Wommack). What is the root cause of all these years of failure? I seem to recall that during Chan’s tenure he put emphasis on defense and put his most talented athletes there, do we still do that? I don’t think we've had great linebacking since the Tenuta days, our guys for 13 years have taken bad angles, failed to wrap-up, get lost in coverage and in general have not been good at stopping anything run or pass. We have no pass rush no matter how many guys we send and we always make the opposing QB look like John Elway crossbred with Mike Vick. CGC has proven success at multiple stops as a DC, it’s hard for me to understand how he can have a defense this Godawful without trying to be bad. So were young at DT and DE, thats one excuse, why can’t the db’s cover anyone? Why don’t we ever get a freaking fumble or INT? When was the last one- UNC? I hate watching my team play bad defense.

 

[ilovetheoption]

Because you recruit poorly, and it's WAY easier to scheme your way around talent on offense than it is on defense.

 

[GTBandit22]

Derrick Morgan, Daryl Richard, Vance Walker, Michael Johnson were our starting front 4 in 2008.

 

[slugboy]

I can think of a couple of reasons

• Our defense through about 2008 had a reputation and an identity, and players wanted to play on it. That made recruiting for defense easier
• We had good defense coaches who coached fundamentals well. Brian Billick (head coach of the Ravens when they had the meanest defense in the NFL) said that he loved GT players because they were already well coached and knew how to play good fundamental football--he didn't have to teach them again.
• Our defense was not simple, but our players knew what their responsibility was, and they did it quickly. We did not play confused, and players played their assignments.

It wasn't perfect. If the refs were going to favor another team (hello BC and Matt Ryan), we were in a bad spot.

 

[UgaBlows]

I can think of a couple of reasons

• Our defense through about 2008 had a reputation and an identity, and players wanted to play on it. That made recruiting for defense easier
• We had good defense coaches who coached fundamentals well. Brian Billick (head coach of the Ravens when they had the meanest defense in the NFL) said that he loved GT players because they were already well coached and knew how to play good fundamental football--he didn't have to teach them again.
• Our defense was not simple, but our players knew what their responsibility was, and they did it quickly. We did not play confused, and players played their assignments.

It wasn't perfect. If the refs were going to favor another team (hello BC and Matt Ryan), we were in a bad spot.

It wasn’t perfect but i loved the hell out of it.

 

[BuzzStone]

Where are you getting the data for the defense? I really want to look at the data and see what the trend looks like over the years

 

[stpetewreck]

Ugh...I've had this conversation with friends.

EVERY.SINGLE.YEAR. since 2008 I go into the season thinking we could possibly be blessed with one thing: to finally have a better than average defense.

I don't think we've achieved that once. We have had some opportunistic defenses, though. In 2014, we coupled an opportunistic defense with an extremely efficient offense........and..........fire works, mostly!


Someone said we weren't that great in 2008. I feel like we pretty darn solid, defensively, in 2008.

 

[slugboy]

Where are you getting the data for the defense? I really want to look at the data and see what the trend looks like over the years

Here's SP+ from CollegeFootballData.com (ranking, so #1--i.e. lower-- is the best)
The horizontal is the year

Something seems off about the ranking numbers. Teams got added so the numbers should go up, but we max out around 50 or so, and the numbers should be getting worse after 2011 or so.
Other than that, the shape is generally good.

Here's the RATING. We were really good in 1985 and 2006. I still have some questions about the underlying data, but it's "truthy"--we were much better on D during the first decade of the 21st century than in the second.

 

[UgaBlows]

Ugh...I've had this conversation with friends.

EVERY.SINGLE.YEAR. since 2008 I go into the season thinking we could possibly be blessed with one thing: to finally have a better than average defense.

I don't think we've achieved that once. We have had some opportunistic defenses, though. In 2014, we coupled an opportunistic defense with an extremely efficient offense........and..........fire works, mostly!


Someone said we weren't that great in 2008. I feel like we pretty darn solid, defensively, in 2008.

‘08 felt like a big letdown after Tenuta’s D’s but it was freaking great compared to what came after...

 

[LibertyTurns]

Where are you getting the data for the defense? I really want to look at the data and see what the trend looks like over the years

Overall, Offense, Defense

2021 81, 75, 83
2020 101, 92, 88
2019 100, 94, 93
2018 56, 19 , 102
2017 39, 23 , 47
2016 37, 29 , 66
2015 56, 78 , 42
2014 11, 2, 58

 

[TruckStick]

Who was the defensive coordinator from 2002-2007? Oh yeah…

The best sustained defense over that S&P chart period.

Good coaches are hard to come by… they make mediocre players good and they win games. You don’t need hype videos to win games. Tenuta was the opposite and here we are longing for those days.

Imagine if Paul had kept him on.

 

[stech81]

Overall, Offense, Defense

2021 81, 75, 83
2020 101, 92, 88
2019 100, 94, 93
2018 56, 19 , 102
2017 39, 23 , 47
2016 37, 29 , 66
2015 56, 78 , 42
2014 11, 2, 58

I would be happy with the defense from 2017,2016.2015, and 2014 b over what we have now

 

[LibertyTurns]

Defense only:
2013: 62
2012: 67
2011: 76
2010: 72
2009: 74
2008: 44
2007: 45

 

[wrmathis]

Who was the defensive coordinator from 2002-2007? Oh yeah…

The best sustained defense over that S&P chart period.

Good coaches are hard to come by… they make mediocre players good and they win games. You don’t need hype videos to win games. Tenuta was the opposite and here we are longing for those days.

Imagine if Paul had kept him on.

pretty sure tenuta didnt want to stay on since he didnt get the HC gig.

 

[g0lftime]

Who was the defensive coordinator from 2002-2007? Oh yeah…

The best sustained defense over that S&P chart period.

Good coaches are hard to come by… they make mediocre players good and they win games. You don’t need hype videos to win games. Tenuta was the opposite and here we are longing for those days.

Imagine if Paul had kept him on.

I have an acquaintance that was an ACC QB. with 2 sons that played for Tenuta. Not at GT. Let's just say he was glad when Tenuta left their program. That's not to say he wasn't a good position coach but none of them liked the way he treated his players. Maybe he changed as he got older and mellowed. I have not met or know any GT guys that played for him so maybe he changed. I also have heard that he was considered for the Tech HC job. May have been too many cooks in the kitchen if he had stayed as DC. PJ had been around long enough to hire guys he knew. There were a few teams that burned us with short dump passes when we blitzed using Tenuta defenses but not very many. I was disappointed he left.

 

[TruckStick]

I have an acquaintance that was an ACC QB. with 2 sons that played for Tenuta. Not at GT. Let's just say he was glad when Tenuta left their program. That's not to say he wasn't a good position coach but none of them liked the way he treated his players. Maybe he changed as he got older and mellowed. I have not met or know any GT guys that played for him so maybe he changed. I also have heard that he was considered for the Tech HC job. May have been too many cooks in the kitchen if he had stayed as DC. PJ had been around long enough to hire guys he knew. There were a few teams that burned us with short dump passes when we blitzed using Tenuta defenses but not very many. I was disappointed he left.

I know first hand how rough he was but he got results. Seems our current staff the exact opposite.

 

[Jacket4Life]

Id take Tenuta Back in heartbeat! I don't care if he was a jerk. We haven't been the same since he left.

 

[Tech93]

Think the current coaches are too soft on the players. There is a fine line.

 

[jgtengineer]

Different eras of football is the TLDR.

The spread offense really started taking off around 08-09 in general. Also some rule changes with regards to what was holding, contact with receivers down field, what was pass interference and so on change the defensive game at the same time offenses were starting to focus more and more on spreading the field and isolating matchups. The type of LB that can play in a 3-4 or traditional 4-3 and also deal with the speed of modern spread offenses is exceedingly rare. The ACC from 2002-2007 was primarily a power run conference. Most of our opponents were lining up in I or traditional 11 gun sets running variances on pro style offenses all attempting to match the Cowboys (chan gailey) of the 90s. We ran a defense designed specifically to stop these kinds of offenses with great talent coming to play in those defenses.

Right around the time CPJ gets here the entire world is changing. Recruiting services are starting to allow for easier isolation of talent from wherever it comes from on offense. We start tryign to build defenses that can handle the more modern spread offenses. We dont' get ellis Johnson instead hirign someone off his staff in wommack. Wommack is very hit or miss with us. Paul gets rid of him to get a guy who should in all honesty have been a slam dunk in groh. Groh was extremely defensively intelligent was a decent recruiter of an area of the country we normally didn't recruit but might be able to (landed us sneezy) and was running a defense Paul was fond of whcih was an odd fronted defense. But turns out due to the trend of tempo offenses and grohs inability to get plays in quickly eventually that doesn't work our defense isn't getting better. And groh gets let go. Then instead of hiring kelly Who seemed to fix that problem the rest of the year while being a bit more mulitple in even fronts. The money men wanted Ted Roof, who had just been hired up at penn state for a year to come back home and coach us because everyone remembers the black watch right? Forgetting that durign the 1980s most teams saw the forward pass as the thing you did on 3rd down when you couldn't run on first and second and against every down or nearly every down passing teams 3 deep shell in 4-3 doesn't work, you will give up yardage, bend don't break breaks often against high pass volume if you can't recruit the edge guys to make that work. And despite most of our 4 stars coming on defense we just never got the horses.
Once roof is gone we hire woody, again back to a 3-4 base only this is a one gap scheme compared to groh's 2 gap. Woody doesn't really have time to use scheme to our advantage but i have hard time thinking he couldn't have got some decent results out of our guys given what he's done at army by playing complimentary defense to the offense.

Now we don't really seem to be able to cover at all. Our scheme is just not very good either at utilizing talent which last i checked is mostly 4 star at this point. Or at getting people in the right position. The 4-2-5 3-3-5 are both attacking defenses you live and die by pressure. And we are rushing 3 and trying to cover and its not working.

 

[Pointer]

Different eras of football is the TLDR.

The spread offense really started taking off around 08-09 in general. Also some rule changes with regards to what was holding, contact with receivers down field, what was pass interference and so on change the defensive game at the same time offenses were starting to focus more and more on spreading the field and isolating matchups. The type of LB that can play in a 3-4 or traditional 4-3 and also deal with the speed of modern spread offenses is exceedingly rare. The ACC from 2002-2007 was primarily a power run conference. Most of our opponents were lining up in I or traditional 11 gun sets running variances on pro style offenses all attempting to match the Cowboys (chan gailey) of the 90s. We ran a defense designed specifically to stop these kinds of offenses with great talent coming to play in those defenses.

Right around the time CPJ gets here the entire world is changing. Recruiting services are starting to allow for easier isolation of talent from wherever it comes from on offense. We start tryign to build defenses that can handle the more modern spread offenses. We dont' get ellis Johnson instead hirign someone off his staff in wommack. Wommack is very hit or miss with us. Paul gets rid of him to get a guy who should in all honesty have been a slam dunk in groh. Groh was extremely defensively intelligent was a decent recruiter of an area of the country we normally didn't recruit but might be able to (landed us sneezy) and was running a defense Paul was fond of whcih was an odd fronted defense. But turns out due to the trend of tempo offenses and grohs inability to get plays in quickly eventually that doesn't work our defense isn't getting better. And groh gets let go. Then instead of hiring kelly Who seemed to fix that problem the rest of the year while being a bit more mulitple in even fronts. The money men wanted Ted Roof, who had just been hired up at penn state for a year to come back home and coach us because everyone remembers the black watch right? Forgetting that durign the 1980s most teams saw the forward pass as the thing you did on 3rd down when you couldn't run on first and second and against every down or nearly every down passing teams 3 deep shell in 4-3 doesn't work, you will give up yardage, bend don't break breaks often against high pass volume if you can't recruit the edge guys to make that work. And despite most of our 4 stars coming on defense we just never got the horses.
Once roof is gone we hire woody, again back to a 3-4 base only this is a one gap scheme compared to groh's 2 gap. Woody doesn't really have time to use scheme to our advantage but i have hard time thinking he couldn't have got some decent results out of our guys given what he's done at army by playing complimentary defense to the offense.

Now we don't really seem to be able to cover at all. Our scheme is just not very good either at utilizing talent which last i checked is mostly 4 star at this point. Or at getting people in the right position. The 4-2-5 3-3-5 are both attacking defenses you live and die by pressure. And we are rushing 3 and trying to cover and its not working.