Properly reading our defensive keys
There were many things that disappointed me, but this one just seems baffling. There are some things that a defensive player should simply "read and react" to, particularly 7 games into the season. The LBs were consistently stuck in the wash, on the ground or watching guys run to the edge with an offense that doesn't seem that complicated to read (compared to a spread 'n shread). Our DBs were not blameless either, case in point being our 5th year senior watching Kovacs get cracked back by the receiver he was covering and decide to sit back instead of breaking to the LOS. Since I have no inside knowledge of what the coaches are telling these guys, I am interested to know if:
1) Our reads are simply too complicated (Mattison claims to made it easier)
2) We simply are terrible at reading an offense (seems odd considering recruiting, new coaches)
I guess it could be an combination of both, but it just doesn't seem to make any sense.
October 17th, 2011 at 10:02 AM ^
The play you cited -- where the receiver blocked down on Kovacs -- was even more annoying because once the DB finally started to charge the line of scrimmage, he took a lousy angle, allowing the runner to get outside of him. Poor read followed by poor execution.
October 17th, 2011 at 10:06 AM ^
And I believe that the DB was our veteran Troy Woolfolk. I think MSU just played better than we did, plain and simple.
October 17th, 2011 at 10:11 AM ^
It was Troy. Love the kid, but hes just not getting it done. He is banged up and looks slow out there. Time for Countess to step up and start. The coaches have to realize by now that he is one of the beat 11 defensive guys we have and needs to start.
October 17th, 2011 at 11:31 AM ^
Woolfolk took a bad angle, and Kovacs did a poor job of fighting off that block. I really expected Kovacs to do a better job on that play when I saw it coming, but nobody's perfect.
October 17th, 2011 at 10:14 AM ^
Admittedly I didn't watch our LBs much, but after the game I just wondered where the hell they were all game. Brian had pointed out after last week's game that our LBs were slow to diagnose and react to plays, and that was certainly a huge issue this past weekend. Inside the Boxscore confirmed this, with no linebackers in the top four tacklers. Big issue that needs fixing quick!
October 17th, 2011 at 12:16 PM ^
We're still weak on the edges just like we were last year. We don't have stellar defensive ends and our linebackers aren't good enough to move to the edge of the defense and make plays, especially when they have to navigate past that castrofuck that MSU set out to create on the edges with cut blocks. Woolfolk is banged up, and almost certainly about half as effective as we've made him out to be, and Gordon is still growing with every snap. MSU went out to neutralize Mike Martin, get the LB's moving from edge to edge, and force Gordon and the corners to step up. They went where we're weak (and really, so did Northwestern, but that was just by default). The team make reads like you would expect first year players to make reads, especially when everyone around them is learning too. They're seeing it just fine, they need more reps to practice their reactions though. That's the complicated thing.
October 17th, 2011 at 11:13 AM ^
The worst part is, the ran the crack more than once and it worked each time.
We also got hooked on the ends.
And our ILBs struggle to defeat even the basic blocks. I watched the linebckers from the get-go. State would would cut them off with a base block and we'd get hemmed in. They chop blocked and we'd go down. Damn it was frustrating.
October 17th, 2011 at 11:28 AM ^
I'm guessing Mattison et al. will be working quite a bit on defeating chop blocks in the next couple weeks. That hurt us, and I'm sure our upcoming opponents are taking notes.
October 17th, 2011 at 12:23 PM ^
We simply are terrible at reading an offense (seems odd considering recruiting, new coaches)That could be part of it. This defensive staff has pretty much started from scratch. Recall that the coaches mentioned back in the spring that the players didn't seem to know what to look for when watching film. The learning curve may have been steep. The other thing is that we just don't seem that fast on D, especially at linebacker.