The Snowflake Thread: Defense

Dominated, as expected.

WHERE IS THE PRESS COVERAGE AND WHY IS THE SECONDARY STRUGGLING

nice turnaround for them

No smart coordinator is gonna run on this Michigan D. That can be taken 2 ways and they are both correct. 

Defense pitched a shutout, still worried about the DB's though

They looked great, especially with Wilson, Taylor, and Morgan out. Having Peppers back is definitely huge for depth and our man-to-man coverage plays.

loved the defense today.  hope taylor can get back in the lineup really soon.  this unit really let me down last week.  good effort today.  see what happens next week. 

Great performance; really probably deserved to have a shutout.  I still have concerns about the secondary just because they let WRs free more than you'd like (Hendrix really should have had a couple of longer completions with a bit more touch), but the line obviously caused a number of those false starts and, overall, the unit looked solid.  LBs look to be coming into their own a bit more as well.

They played well but i would like to see more turnovers generated, especially against MAC teams.

Defense looked very good considering we were missing 3 starters. When Taylor, Wilson and Morgan return they should take another step forward.

Also, Peppers looked pretty damn good.

Leave Countess at Nickel and let him do his thing for the rest of the year. Ride and die with Peppers, Lewis, and Taylor on the outside.

That's awfully impressive consideirng the lack of turnovers and sacks. UM has take a step towards defensive dominance. The next step is turnovers and sacks.

I actually like the coverage today. No one was running wide open and the plays the men from Oxford(NTO) made UM had guys right there.  Considering the absence of Taylor and Wilson I was happy.

D looked pretty good. Nice to see Peppers out there--kid has an edge to him. Lots of Miami receivers getting open, though, which was concerning. Lucky for us, Hendrix is not Everett Golson and missed a lot of opportunities. I give our front seven credit for some of those misses.

Defense played outstanding. Even with 3 starters out.

After looking at this game, Michigan was in no danger whatsoever of losing. Would've been a shutout without the turnovers.

Great to see Peppers back. 

Beat utah

Teams are going to attack the defense via pass all year.  Run defense looks stout; all 3 games.  Still issues in coverage.  Safeties were not too good but lets remember our only experienced safety is out with an injury.  Thought Lewis was ok and Peppers was solid.  I like that they tested Peppers so much and he did fine.  Pass rush was "better" but nothing special and I still didnt see collapsing of a bad team'sOL - same issue as game 1. There were moments but not consistent and the short game was there if they had better quality players.

I will be interested to see how Utah attacks us.  I think this defense dominates a Minnesota type team that cannot throw.  Any team that can throw we know how they will attack.  Maryand, PSU MSU etc I see issues.

Hoping these Taylor and Wilson injuries are not long term. 

They need to either be a press team or a zone team, dammit.

the best CB we have. he has great closing speed and actually knows how to play the ball when it gets near the receiver. if/when he gets healthy, i think they need to get him back to returning punts or on offense. ondre pipkens is a mystery, either he isnt even close to 100% or something else is going on. i really wish between taco, wormley, or willie, somebody would get more push up the middle. I think Mone is going to be a beast eventually.

and they should have scored two TDs! But at least the defense played well! But they should have done a lot more against this weak opponent!

This defense, IMO, doesn't have many problems, but they are big problems and they are in the secondary.

Countess gave-up another easy slant (on fourth down) and got lucky with the Miami player dropping the ball.  TV called it "great coverage," but giving up the inside is unacceptable.

Lewis was beaten on a deep post and we were saved by a bad throw and an even worse adjustment to the pass.

Right now, our coverage is just not very good.  Peppers and Lewis look capable, but not great.  No one else can seem to play man.  The safety help has been average, at best.

I'm afraid Utah is going to tear us up.

To start, Monne, from the few times I watched him directly they double-teamed him.  If he can work that into a starting role it would be the another step forward for this defense.

Miami definitely targeted Peppers and I think he did great, he was following the receiver without regard for sideline and tracking the ball the whole time (which I view as intense concentration and ability).  I thought he did a nice job in run support when the play was obvious ground.

I'm not a football technician but it seems like with two wideouts, the safeties could do a better job jumping inside of the route to lessen the window that an opposing QB has to throw.  Seems like the CB island is mostly good but the receiver has a big advantage with the inside position as the CB always has to protect against a game-changing double move/long ball.  However having a safety to fall into the short flat if its a pass play seems like it would make it a lot different (meaning harder) for a QB.  Maybe I'm 100% wrong and the CB should try to jump if he sees the opportunity and rely on safety help deep (?)

Ryan did a great job in pursuit as always and made the guy in front of me laugh a couple of times when he was on an angle and at top speed to blow up a QB running to sideline but just sort of "scared" him out of bounds.  Smart football not to incur a penalty.  I'm going to take a go-back to last week on the penalty when he gave the QB a Viking Push.  I would think that would be entirely appropriate after watching some other games, really its completely along the lines of not making hard contact with the QB and absolutely no helmet is involved.  You just knock the guy down assuming its a reasonable part of the play.  Hope the refs are reading my post (lol).

So back to JMFR, I think its naturally a challenge for him to read, read, read at the snap rather than exploding off the ball but I think he's getting it down.  Bolden also did a nice job yesterday, hoping for Morgan to come back soon as I like his play as well.

Frank Clark seems to be about 1 step short on 10 different plays.  So I read that as a solid overall effort.  Beyer got there as did Taco, Beyer was able to finish the deal, Taco is a little slower and got beaten in a footrace.  I think as the secondary play tightens, the Dline is close enough to get some QB contact.

All in all, I would say solid defensive performance, obviously a few things to work on, but we look very serviceable in current form especially with some injuries.

I don't care if it was Miami (NTM). It was great to see a collapsing pocket in week 3.

Ryan, Thomas, Bolden, Mone, and Peppers all seemed to have good games.