The Snowflake Thread: Defense

I put this in the game thread but I think it belongs here as well. 

 

We have troubles against the spread... and coverage issues... End of story.

Young guns on D need more time to get stronger and develop.  If Planet X or an economic crash doesn't destroy by this time next year we will have a pretty good team in 2014.

People seem to be discounting Indiana's offense because they are Indiana.  But they are a good offense.  They put up double the average number of points that MSU gives up, put up more on Missouri than Georgia did, and their head coach is the former OC from Oklahoma who had some pretty good offenses under him.  They will continue to put up a ton of points and I can see their game in November against OSU being 1500 yards of combined offense.

We don't have a great defense, but we still have a good defense.  Now that we have won, I'm kind of glad that Mattison gave Lewis and Stribling all that exposure.  The more experience they get, the more they will start picking off some of those balls.

As an aside, my oldest son gave up a couple of long balls in this week's high school football game in just the same manner.  Then today he was moaning for Mattison to get the freshmen off the field.  I enjoyed pointing out the irony to him.  It is not easy to learn how to turn and find the ball.  A skill that comes with experience (or that comes with Jabrill Peppers...).

This kind of stuff happens. We played a lot of young guys against a very good, up-tempo offense. I'm not going to criticize Mattison too much because the man is a proven commodity and he knows what he's doing. Should they have played better? Yes. But IU put up 28 on MSU, argued by some as the best defense in America, and put up 48 on OSU last year. And that was only their second year in Wilson's system.

This experience, while humbling for guys like Stribbling, will only make them better going forward. We got the W, and at the end of the day, that's what matters. Now we have 2 weeks to clean up before heading to EL. Bye week's coming at a great time.

The only thing that frustrated me about the defense was how they kept getting caught off-guard by the tempo.  Is it so hard to make a play and get to your position?  They all just stood there and walked into position most of the afternoon.  

Also, let's not discount the factor of both offenses moving up and down the field at ease.  What was the longest scoring drive, 3:00?  We all knew this was going to be a tough game for the defense; they actually did quite well in the first half.

Ehh.... I don't know what to think after that show.  I guess only things I'm confident of:

• Tackling was very poor - might have been partially attributable to the weather and conditioning.
• Stribling is always in the right spot but...

IU can score 30+ on anyone. UM DBs just need to play the ball in the air better and it takes away at least 14 pts in this game. This was always going to be a high scoring game.

Thanks for making these totally boring snowflake threads. You're the greatest mod ever.

Thomas Gordon.  Gallon, DG and Fitz were all great (obviously), but we were set to lose the lead (and probably the game) until Gordon made that pick.  Silver lining to a pretty ugly defensive game.

Was bad, Iu destroyed us. We looked out of position and unprepared for the whole game. I'd like to know what we practiced? Defensive scheme has been odd all year

Gordon's first INT was HUGE. Props to him.

I am glad Stribling and Lewis got a lot of time. Indiana is a great team to play as a DB with many teachable moments.

Was Gedeon in at MLB or WLB?

Please, can he not see the field again until the year 2015. I think most of the board would be happy. Is Terry Richardson even alive?

And for all the talk about Dymonte helping us in multiple roles this year on Defense... I'm glad that we could not use him and redshirt him.. . . Oh never mind.

The Indiana spread had a number of mismatches they could exploit against our d.  The corners are young, but I think this experience will be valuable down the road.  The important thing is that they came up big in the end and had two critical interceptions that helped seal the win.  

What was Mattison doing all week? Force feeding the entire defense hot dogs? God that was brutal. I realize IU has a pretty good offense, but that was worse than Rich Rod bad. Another game like that is inexcuseable. 

That was a terrible defensive performance.  There is no sugar coating it.  So lets take a breather from blaming Borges for everything for a bit please.  These are our coaches, win or lose.  This is our team, win or lose.  Lets start acting like a team instead of eating our own just because we think there is an intellectual point to be made.

Michigan played the "ball in front" style of D the majority of the game. While they gave us LOTS of big plays via blown coverage, I thought they had players in position to make big plays at times.

The players just didn't make the plays all the time.

The tackling looked like late era Carr vs. the spread. It was the worst tackling game M has played in the last three years. The DB's need to make plays on the ball in the air. I do wonder about the coaching technique. It seems like most DB's, Stribling excluded, never get their head around. 

In the long run, M needs to get more athletic up front. They need to press the pocket and be quick on the outside and up the middle. Too many times the lane really developed up the middle. And yes, the DB's need to make more plays on the ball in the air. 

Actually, in general, I just wish M was meaner on defense. I wish they hit guys hard. They seem to lack that violent type of play that worries doctors and delights fans. Keep recruting, keep coaching, get better next week.