Post-Spring Game Thoughts (Defense)
DL
Clark is a MAN! WHEW That guy is a load. He was fun to watch all afternoon. And I know disclaimers about our OL, but no...he looks even better. His step, his strength, his positioning. They all look better. Beyer doesn't look like anything special, but he looks far from a liability. Craig Roh 2.0.
The interior guys played solid as well. But this is where I do throw up the disclaimer because our interior OL is AWFUL. I mean it's downright putrid. Willie Henry dominated 4-5 players, the other guys looks pretty damn good as well.
All in all, I think this is going to be Hoke's best DL since his first one with Martin, RVB and Heininger. And it has the potential to be better if the RS Sophomores (Wormley, Godin and Strobel) get better along with the RS Freshman (Hurst and Poggi). Toss in Lawrence Marshall and I think we really have something here. Summer will help solidify the SDE spot and we also get Pipkins back inside.
LB
They didn't stand out too much, but that's not a bad thing. They were in position. The depth is coming along as well. Like DL I'm very excited about this group. Ryan is a calming piece in the middle, I just hope he can make plays because at teams he just seems like another Des Morgan. I think he's going to lead the team in tackles but I'm not sure he'll have many of a loss like we're used to seeing.
CB
Despite some (questionable) penalties, I'm VERY impressed. We're going to go 5-6 deep at CB once Peppers arrives. Richardson is in that Douglas boat on offense, Hollowell is "meh" but as the 6th or 7th option, I'll take it.
We're going to be just fine with Countess, Lewis, Taylor, Stribling and Peppers. One hell of a CB lineup too because these guys can PLAY. Lewis and Stribling are routinely in position and they've gotten more confident. I credit Manning with that.
I'll touch on it more, but LOVE Mattison getting back to the more aggressive style. It's not MSU's "force the refs to call pass interference," but it's not "bend, but don't break, take all the cushion you need" either. Finally our CBs are allowed to be physical.
S
This group is pretty much exactly where I expected them to be. A few flashes, a few "OMG NO!" I just hope they continue to improve. My only concern is Dymonte Thomas. No reason for him not to be improving to the point where he's the clear starter opposite Wilson.
Nonetheless, I think with a summer and a fall camp, they'll be fine.
OVERALL
This will be at worst Hoke's 2nd best defense, it could easily be his best. A big reason is the aggressive nature and energy they're playing with. They're actually fun to watch again unlike last year where they played "not to lose" and tried to just avoid the big play and hope the offense made a mistake.
The biggest difference is the youth on defense is on average about a year older than the youth on offense. The defensive guys are clearly coming into their roles and they have older guys or experience ahead of them. So they can play secondary roles. On offense, guys like Godin, Gedeon and Stribling are starting...on defense they're playing potentially key roles, but they're not being leaned on as "the guy."
I'm excited about this defense, I think we can continue to develop at SDE and the DT spot. Natural summer/fall progression should be just fine. I think we'll be fine at the other NG/DT spot with Pipkins coming back. We've got depth at LB and either Ross or Ryan should be a big time play maker. Then a CB we've finally got legit talent there. Safety should be fine by the time the B1G season rolls around.
Will our offense be able to keep these guys off the field for any period of time?
***PLEASE AND FEEL FREE TO ADD YOUR THOUGHTS ON SPRING PRACTICE AND THE SPRING SCRIMMAGE***
...but the defense is supposed to be ahead of the offense. Or at least that's what "they" say.
Even with that said, the defense looked improved in a bunch of areas no matter who was on the other side of the ball. The aggressiveness was better, a lot better. I HATED watching our defense last year. We played so damn soft and he just waited for the other team to make a mistake.
We seem to be looking to force plays now. I'm a fan of that.
I'm also a fan of Frank Clark running around like a mad man. A LB group that may be the best since the early/mid 00s. And CB depth...FINALLY!
I also like that we seem to have some TALENT instead of just bodies. We may have some NFL guys out there...some first half of the draft guys.
It's way to early to tell, but this defense could be pretty damn special. Not '97 special, but certainly the best I remember in quite some time. They've got to continue to improve over the summer/fall though, but they're getting there. After last season, I'm not sure I could've asked for more.
Just wish I could say the same about the offense.
I expect this to be a good defense and frankly for us to do anything this year it has to be a good defense if not excellent. Aside from the DTs (Henry I like despite him being placed on the 3rd string today), and one S there is experience everywhere. Thomas seemed to be a no show which was not good.
All that said they did it against a complete mess of an offense. None of the QBs looked good, Green looked like he had no vision at RB, Smith was ok, and the OL was a disaster. Funchess is becoming like Braylon - some great catches but dropsies. Canteen stood out as positive - that's about it. So how do I judge this defense? I can't today.
I do like the comments coming out about more press and taking chances and we blitzed a lot today so that is good. I'd rather lose giving up a big play than bending all day. But it was like varsity versus JV today and I could not judge anything.
a little like AJ Hawk
DL looked great, even with OL caveats. I thought we had a good mix of slashing quick guys in Strobel, Wormley, Godin, etc and some planetoid beasts in Mone, Henry and Hurst. I think Mattison will have the tools he needs to sub in the right guys in the right situations unlike last year. If Pipkins makes a full recovery, we should be pretty set here.
LB were ok. Filled holes and made reads. I like JMFR at Mike. If he can make the reads correctly, he'll be a nightmare to deal with for opposing teams.
Backfield: Hard to tell with the camera angles, but the corners seem to be a lot less passive. Lewis is going to be pretty damn good. Despite the penalties (one deserved, one kind of ticky tacky) he was step for step with his guy most plays. Stribling looked tight in coverage as well, but again had terrible luck. Wilson was in position the couple times they needed him to be and read and came up for that nice PBU. He had a nice blitz "sack" IIRC too.
after today. Frank looked good, Henry and Hurst showed good burst off the line and tenacity and Taco's athleticism showed. Henry Poggi looked absolutely atrocious today, I mean even Blake Bars drove him like 10 yards down the field on one play, he looked disinterested in even trying to make a play. I hope this is an outlier or there is some mitigating factor to explain his performance because there were a couple walk on i would put on the field over him after seeing him today. CB and LB will be the strengths of this team and they look good. I like everyone in our 2 deep at every positon right now and I don't remeber the last time I could say that, low attrition rates rule.
and not just warm bodies. Guys will actually be competing to get in the 2 deep and into the rotation. Looking forward to this defense this season
I hesitate to take much away from spring practices in general for various reasons regarding sample size, and especially this year with philosophical changes on both sides of the ball (albeit perhaps more subtle on defense), any qualifier you can name for strength of conclusion should apply in the spring.
That being said, I did like the aggressiveness of the defense in the scrimmage - they were able to get to the ball, be disruptive and do some things which made me think of 2011 and that particular group of players. As the offense is a work in progress obviously, it's difficult to talk run defense, but if they can do some of the things they appeared to be doing in a real game situations and seal gaps, the run defense should be better than last year and it wasn't statistically bad at all last year.
At CB. Overall, the defense definitely outperformed the offense. But it's kind of hard to draw a lot of conclusions from that. I'm hoping though that the OL blocks better than that when the fall practices come around.
I was surprisingly impressed with the defense. First thing that jumped out was the aggresiveness of the D. Spent a lot of time pressing, and looked decent doing it, and also rolled up a safety often. Saw Wilson basically lined up as a LB often. The DL seemed to spend a lot of time slanting. On the DL, I was most surprised with Mone. He didn't do the usual high school huge DL thing of stand up and expect to just overpower guys. Actually played with leverage I thought.
As far as the personel on D, it seemed weird. Like Ryan Glasgow and Goodin were the starting DTs? Henry on the thrid team? Bolden in front of Morgan, saw a lot of RJS. Did he 'start over Ross' at SAM? Didn't see much of Mario O, but maybe that's just me.
Overall, I like the agressiveness of the D. Don't know if it's the general scheme switches or just aging. Probably both. Looked good.
Hoke and Mattison are notorious for sitting out guys that "they already know what they give us." So they move them down in the spring scrimmage to give other guys reps. Remember last year how much Strobel and Taco played?
They especially do this on defense because we rotate so many more bodies than we do on offense. This gives guys a chance to go against our 1's on offense.
Offensively, you have to leave guys out there to build a chemistry. So it's harder to just pull a piece out.
I never look at the depth chart on defense, I just look at who's playing and more importanly, who they're playing against.
For example, Lewis had at NICE pass breakup...and it was against Funchess. That's big time.
Willie Henry got in the backfield Clowney style and looked like a Suh...but it was against a 3rd or 4th team walk-on LG. So "meh."
Henry also made 2-3 other big plays vs. better competition, but I was using those two plays as an example.
Bryan Mone spent a lot of time out there against multiple OL combinations. I didn't see him in the backfield except when collapsing the pocket, but I thought he held his own against everything the OL threw at him and didn't give ground. He certainly didn't look like a deer caught in the headlights freshman. Interesting that he's wearing #90.
I also dont put alot of stock in Spring Games because if i did i would have been wondering why Avery Horn never got PT... A guy who i have high hopes for but did not see at all and maybe somebody can fill me in on if they seen him or what is up, Mario Ojemudia ?
I drove 3 and a half hours down to Ann Arbor to witness this spectacle, what I took away from it was I wish the basketball team was still playing
I think it is very telling - the number of posts in this thread versus the offense one. Our defense will be fine this year. Offense, well - that could get Hoke fired.
If these "tea leaves" are right, hopefully they will be MSU 2013.
I share the optimism on the defense.
I wouldn't make a ton out of Henry's results as he was going against the third string. But, still he and Hurst especially showed a great iniital step. Likewise, Clark looked good, but he went against a guy who's not a left tackle, or not ready. I saw Mone drive Kugler back 10 yards in a drill.
I thought the LBs were better than described above. Both Ryan and Bolden reacted quickly to shoot their gaps. Maybe that's the nature of practice, and maybe that's a failure of second-level blocking. But, I choose to look on it brightly. There's also reasons to think RSJ will be able to contribute this year, which makes us two deep at each LB position.
Lewis showed osme positives and negatives. We're deep at CB. The one worry spot is the one safety position. But, we've got pre-season camp to build.
is with dymonte thomas, where is this guy? i get he's a sophomore, just was expecting more, still could. Other than that, I'm excited that our defense will once again have a quite a bit of experience. I'm just hoping we are more aggressive this year with our DB's. I'm tired of seeing the 5-8 yard cushion, get up and play the WR! The DL seems to be getting more and more depth, hopefully there is more consistent production, obviously a great secondary and d-line is what makes a great defense.
Was very pleaswed with what I saw. Line looked like they could get a good push, LBs filled holes and tackled well. DBs covered well.
Only area of concern from what I saw was a possible lack of team speed on the defense.
We have a great D coordinator, Defense will keep us in games and give us a chance to win games we might otherwise lose.
Practiced every day of spring camp. Saturday he was dressed and took part in drills, did not scrimmage.