What was encouraging on Defense?
Yes, our defense sucks, but I was encouraged by a few things.
1. William Campbell making some plays.
2. J.B. Fitz coming in and getting some playing time.
3. Increased time for Brandon Smith
4. Donovan Warren (is it just a foregone conclusion he's turning pro?)
5. Craig Roh growing into a leader
6. Mike Martin is our third-best defensive player.
7. Teric making a few plays.
With the exception of Warren, these are freshmen and sophomores making plays for our team. It is the upperclassmen (OBVIOUSLY NOT INCLUDING BG) that have let us down. And while BG and DW are NFLers, it seems we don't have leaders on that team to settle the rest of the players down, and that the losing mentality on defense has been pervasive even before RR took the reigns.
All of our young recruits will not pan out, but these guys are all contributing at different levels. Our experienced defense flat-out blew last year, and we've improved just slightly. It seems our best hope is to get some more PT for our young kids over the next few days, then say goodbye to high-star, low-talent holdovers from the Carr Regime.
November 7th, 2009 at 4:48 PM ^
"What was encouraging on Defense?"
The off season.
November 7th, 2009 at 4:52 PM ^
Nothing was encouraging on defense today. Let's not even go there.
November 7th, 2009 at 4:49 PM ^
What was Teric Jones doing? I saw a few people mention him, but I didn't see what happened. Also, at this point I'm with many other people when I say that we should put in a lot of the young backups. Putting in Fitzgerald will help his development, and we didn't see much of a drop-off. Put in Vlad and see what happens. Williams didn't do anything today that showed that he should have a lock on the position.
November 7th, 2009 at 6:32 PM ^
I didn't see dropoff, I saw pickup. Fitz read running plays better than Ezeh, filled gaps, and made contact in the backfield. We haven't seen much of that with Mouton or Ezeh lately.
November 7th, 2009 at 4:53 PM ^
Here's one-we held them to less than 500 yards of offense.
November 7th, 2009 at 5:00 PM ^
It seemed like Fitzgerald was in on a few plays today. I guess that was encouraging. But perhaps, after the midweek UFR, we'll find out he was responsible for some big plays against (though my money is on Williams and Kovacs getting toasted on the UFR).
November 7th, 2009 at 5:00 PM ^
We had 11 people on the field instead of 10 or 12
November 7th, 2009 at 5:04 PM ^
i have no clue why we put obi and mouton in there. at least get the young guys some playing time. from what we heard last week leach graded out the highest out of all our lb's. fitz was playing decent outside of that missed tackle on the td run.
November 7th, 2009 at 5:08 PM ^
was pretty cool.
November 7th, 2009 at 7:24 PM ^
game and i did't see brandon smith or teric jones on defense once. did i miss something???
November 7th, 2009 at 9:37 PM ^
Smith played on kick-off but Jones I never seen him on the field.
November 8th, 2009 at 12:24 AM ^
i didnt see jones or bsmith all day?? on defense, that is.
November 8th, 2009 at 11:28 AM ^
According to the participation report, neither Brandon Smith nor Teric Jones played defense. They both played special teams, though.
http://www.mgoblue.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/110709aab.html