Indiana Snowflakes: The Defense

Submitted by LSAClassOf2000 on November 18th, 2018 at 3:00 PM

This will be your thread for snowflakes and hot takes regarding the defense and defensive playcalling in our game versus Indiana.

DairyQueen

November 17th, 2018 at 11:56 PM ^

Hmm not so sure. Our DBs have been vulnerable to the early slant routes all year.

DL need to get their arms up of course. But lets not discount IU had a pretty solid RB which really baited our LBs.

IU put up 3 points in the 2nd half. Not sure of the yardage, but adjustments were solid.

Winovich will be sorely missed if he can't make it, but we have been doing well on the D-Line rotating in and showing new looks while dealing with injuries all season.

The real key is how our Linebackers will fare. Bush is obviously an All-American, but beyond that the other Linebackers really need to step up. They seem to have not been heavily tested in coverage.

M-Dog

November 17th, 2018 at 7:50 PM ^

We sure showed a lot that Ohio State can work with.

Crossing routes over the middle.  QB runs in the vacated space.  DB's that can be beat one on one.  A D-Line that can't get pressure much of the time.

We've got some work to do. 

KC Wolve

November 17th, 2018 at 8:17 PM ^

Meh, that’s been an issue for a few games. This game didn’t show them much they didn’t already know. We’ve also seen them shut down the slants and crosses. Hoping this was just a case of a vanilla scheme and poor execution that won’t push to next week. 

Squash34

November 18th, 2018 at 1:09 AM ^

The scheme was vanilla on both sides of the ball for the most part. Brown has changed coverages to take away patterns all year, but didn't here and he could made pretty easy adjustments to keep bush in when they motioned the back, or had one of the ends be a spy (which he has this year too), but he didn't .

I don't think he just forgot how to coach so I think he maybe setting up some stuff for next week. 

LKLIII

November 17th, 2018 at 11:26 PM ^

There are a couple off odd blitzes but not too many. And the reason we couldn’t get to the QB all night was about 70% because they didn’t do long developing pass plays (it was all quick slants, crossing routes, hot reads etc) and also 30% atrocious officiating they didn’t call a bunch of Indiana OL holding calls

EGD

November 18th, 2018 at 9:06 AM ^

I'm not sure what counts as a "crazy" blitz but M did blitz a ton in this game.  I was actually wishing we would have not done that, as it was leaving space open in the middle of the field that IU was taking advantage of.  But M wasn't getting pressure with four, so Brown must have felt it was necessary.

rd2w10

November 17th, 2018 at 7:51 PM ^

Bad first half. Decent second half 

As soon as the sack that wasnt a sadk happened i knew it was gonna be one of them games. 

Terrible 3rd down d. Same play beat us everytime

StirredNotShaken

November 17th, 2018 at 8:37 PM ^

Come on... We had 507 yards of offense today balanced almost 50/50 between run and pass. We just shit the bed in the red zone. That happens sometimes and we should just be glad we got a two score win. The offense wasn't the problem today or the concern for next week; that would be the defense. I'm pretty confident we'll see a different defensive team next week though. 

AZBlue

November 17th, 2018 at 8:12 PM ^

Case in point — I was watching the OSU game during one of McFarlin’s long runs and thought..”Great effort by that OSU DL to keep running after the play but he is way too slow to do anything.  Then I noticed that it was Tuf Borland, his body just looks like that of a D-lineman.”

Goggles Paisano

November 17th, 2018 at 8:26 PM ^

As poorly as we played today, it wasn't even close to as bad as Osu played today.  Those of you  -who watched their game today can chime in - they have lots of issues in lots of areas.  If Pigrome didn't have a case of Lewerke syndrome, they easily convert that last play for the win.  

EGD

November 18th, 2018 at 7:44 AM ^

OSU was blowing their run fits all game.  They adjusted by putting seven guys on the LOS and forcing Piggy to throw—which he generally did, two-point play notwithstanding.  That adjustment didn’t really work against MD and doesn’t stand a chance against M.

I thought Wannstedt had a good point about the OSU defense.  He said that if OSU’s defensive players know what to do and give great effort, the results would be better.  So either they don’t know what they’re doing or they’re not giving great effort.  It’s looked to me all season that OSU’s back seven isn’t sure what they’re doing.  So unless they suddenly learn how to fit the run this week, it’s a pretty good bet Harbaugh will find ways to confuse them too.