Upon Further Review: Defense Vs Miami (NTM)

GO Blue!

But as I was watching the game again last night, I witnessed an excellent touchdown springing block downfield by Butler on the Minor run (it was Butler and his man that Minor dove over) and am waiting for the other signs of the apocalypse.

Overall, the wideout blocking was significantly better this game.

I know it's only been 2 games, but the way the defense has played in the 4Q has been extremely encouraging.  It is even more impressive given the fact that the offense can't keep them off the field.  I don't want to jinx anything, but here is to hoping that the days of Herrmann/Gittleson are long gone.

A few things I noticed and am curious about.

-Brown appears to be 'boom or bust' so hopefully he'll just level out a little with experience

-Is Artis Chambers just not good or is he hurt

-I think we have enough talent at DL that having 4 on the field is good

-Maybe only use 2 LB and another corner?

-Thompson struggles to cover in space 

-Anyone notice that Harrison is quietly turning in a career of solid play with a lot of huge timely plays?

Can someone explain the do-over play Miami got?  I still don't get what happened.

anyone knows the real scoop about the do-over -

In his  presser RichRod said something along the lines of: you can do that in backyard football or hit reset on Playstation - and that he is still waiting for a clarification.

I'd never seen anything like that before either.

Liking what I see so far from the defense.  What we've got - a dominant defensive line and pretty good corners with shaky linebackers and a potential black hole at safety - I'll take that over a terrible defensive line and lousy corners plus terrific 'backers and a bone-crunching blanket man at safety.  I really think the line and CB's can cover for the other weaknesses most of the time - if you flip-flop the strengths and weaknesses, we would be looking at 3-9.

is under way, we'll have a near-dominant defense.  If we can couple that with a passable offense, we could go 6-2, which would be a serious success for this season, particularly since ND is a toss up and Toledo is a probable win.  That's a 3 loss season in year 1. 

I'll say that I'm very happy with the Ezeh, Thompson and Mouton trio.  It's certainly not Harris-Burgess-Crable, but I'd say off hand that they're the best otherwise since the Foote-Hobson days.  We've had some crap LB play for a while is what that says more than anything.  Also, we're ohne UFRs for the pre-05 seasons (maybe a project to undertake for the community given the profusion of video available on mgovideo???) and I knew a hell of a lot less about football back in those days and I'm hardly qualified now to make such commentary.

We all know ND is going to try and exploit us as Utah did - with Allen being the little darty guy (ha!) and Hughes being the pounding runner between the tackles.  Mix in a little play action to Rudolph (as our LBs suck in coverage and ER is freaking huge) and the occasional deep ball to DK (probably up the middle, where we're much more dependent on safety help, which has been bad this year) and that has to be the game plan.  

We have to throttle them up with the middle with our 4-man DT rotation, which will allow the OLBs to cheat out to the flats and thus defend those quick swings better.   

One thing that hits me is that the two defensive descriptions show performances that are significantly superior to M in its first two games last year.  Both Miami and Utah are better than Appy Fn State, neither as good as Oregon. Altogether less confusion, less chasing little jittery guys with long dreads 15 yards downfield, more domination at points where domination should occur. The issues are a couple plays here and there rather than wholesale suck.  Rating positions versus last year, one must see serious upgrades from all line positions (including Crable, I'm afraid), all the LB positions, and all five (including nickels) db positions.  If this D continues to improve, reduce blown assignments/blown reads, scheme less out of fear and more out of aggression, this edition of Blue D could be something special indeed. I am heartened. (Yeah, sound the trumpets...no, two horns, Peckerhead).

 the coverage is a 4 drop concept........  they are taught to protect the sticks,  the outside linebacker is droping over two, the inside over three, at about 10 yards,  if the man they are droping over cuts out or in, they sink and look for work, they are NOT TO DRIVE ON ANY UNDER ROUTES AND GIVE UP SEAMS.  corner is playing an outside bump see squeeze technique,  and warren plays it perfect.   he sees the qb, and breaks on the pass, they are now 4 yards short of the first down.  That is a plus coverage not a minus,  perfect 4-drop,  or as we call it robber drop coverage.....

harrison is beaten on a flag route not a fade....   a flag route is ran to the deep pylon, and the reciever is ooking over his outside shoulder...   a fade is up the field, and the reciever is looking over his inside shoulder....

the announcer is an idiot that calls it a fade... 

and im not seeing a whole lot of 3-3-5 nickle stuff, i see a lot more okie, with players getting out of the blitz look earlier,  the one warren almost int in the flats was okie  cover 2 (tampa)  havent watch the game all over again,  but there is more nickle being played with the even front than the 3 man front, most of the time that is the okie package...   a lot of times,  like on the droped pass in the flats,  that may be just the base 4-3 with a rolled coverage...

on the play with the tunnel screem the guard blocks the right guy, but the tackle had to cut off the blitzing linebacker, so he never got out there, the next play on the fly,  its a zone blitz,  6 drop,  3 deep 3 under, stewart drops to the middle under,  becasue its a middle blitz,  brown has to get to the middle from the other side, and doesnt do a good job....

football genius!  Love the insight!

"the announcer is an idiot that calls it a fade"

LOL - that may be your best quote yet.

I mean there's a reason these guys are CB/S and not WR, they are good at breaking up and not intercepting passes.  I'm not saying they should be totally off the hook, but I don't remember these being called -1 before.

Good work as always on these Brian.

All his odd front are his okie defense, unless an lb is going out and you are adding another db.  The nickel can be out of any front, and only the personal makes it a nickel.   the showing blitz lb's is the okie chaos package,  but the okie can be a stack or any other type odd front, without being chaos...

Let me get this straight, if a DB has decent coverage but allows a reception followed by an immediate tackle, that is a net 0.  But if the DB has great coverage (+1) and makes a play to get to the ball but drops it, (-1) that is the same net 0?  A pass break up is a pass break up.  Would it be better if he caught the ball?  Sure.  But don't penalize a player for a PBU.

Its brian's thing, if he wants to give someone a minus 50 for being stupid, he can do it.  I hope Brian that you understand im just trying to give some insight, absolutely not trying to tell you how to do your own UFR.

I am not clear on what exactly the "Okie" defense is....was this covered somewhere earlier?

I hadn't known that about the fade, that's good to know.  Sort of.  Because now I can just add that to the list of really common announcer mistakes that piss me off.  I guess I should have known better, as they are the same people that always call an end-around a reverse, and a reverse, a double-reverse.