Could We Stop With the Pure Stupidity Please

[junglehusky]

With all due respect, you have absolutely no idea how the game would've played out had we not employed the death by a thousand cuts defensive scheme. We were so scared of getting beat over the top and we treated BYU as though they were the Greatest Show on Turf.

That's not a great or even good football team we lost to last night. That we were in the game late tells me more about them than any defensive scheme we employed.

Circular logic is not logic. I trust my eyes. We were tied in the 3rd quarter and if we had an offense that could put points on the board we would be looking like AAC title contenders. We knew this was a multi year process and that is what this team looks like right now.

 

[junglehusky]

FWIW, my original reply to BL was done tongue in cheek. I can be a self admitted condescending on this board myself. I don't lack that self awareness that others do and I'm more than comfortable with it.

Okay, I admit I missed that.

 

[noeynox]

Circular logic is not logic. I trust my eyes. We were tied in the 3rd quarter and if we had an offense that could put points on the board we would be looking like AAC title contenders. We knew this was a multi year process and that is what this team looks like right now.

This I agree with. The defensive strategy to me is simple keep everything in front of you and make them go the whole field to score. It worked despite tons of yards they missed a FG, and we blocked a FG, and led 10-7, late in 3rd quarter.

Our offense while better is still bad. Shirrefs while better is in experienced and learning. The OL especially in the interior are struggling. The tackles while better than the interior still whiff or miss assignments too often. It is a multi year process, your right, and were still trending in the right direction.

 

[UConnDan97]

Did the defense play well and give us a chance to win? Yes.
Should the defense have played tighter on the receivers? Yes.

Those two things are not mutually exclusive. This defensive front is built for taking away the run, but they are not necessarily built for pressuring the QB. If you play soft on the receivers, you are going to have to do it for a long period of time. And against a team that was already banged up at the RB position, there was no reason NOT to dare them to run it against us. Let's not forget that part of the reason we had a chance to win until the 4th quarter was because of a botched QB handoff fumble and a strange QB heave into the endzone pick by their QB; neither one can truly be attributed to our defensive strategy.

This coaching staff has a defensive identity that I think doesn't change very much from game to game (outside of playing the triple option). Much like Don Brown who had a defensive strategy that didn't change very much from game to game, you live with its strengths and weaknesses. It's hard to blame anything about last night on the D because they played admirably, but in my perhaps stupid opinion, it was the wrong strategy to play with...

 

[Pudge]

Can you just once disagree with people without being a condescending ?

Amazing lack of self-awareness.

 

[zls44]

I said with all due respect.

Jane, you ignorant shut.

 

[J187Money]

The team is better? Haha. You're an idiot.

If you think last years team would be 2-3...

 

[J187Money]

With all due respect, you have absolutely no idea how the game would've played out had we not employed the death by a thousand cuts defensive scheme. We were so scared of getting beat over the top and we treated BYU as though they were the Greatest Show on Turf. That's not a great or even good football team we lost to last night. That we were in the game late tells me more about them than any defensive scheme we employed.

I agree that it was tougher to watch, but considering we held or caused turnovers when it counted I preferred it to what happened against army. Maybe I'm wrong but I believe if we played tight all night we would have been gashed with 2-3 50+ yard scores and everyone here would be yelling that he didn't lay people back.

 

[J187Money]

And guess what?

BYU may not be good.

Mizzou may not be good.

Navy may not be good.

But they are better than us. This "we are a good team that us losing to bad teams" argument is lunacy. The fact that we have been bad and have yet to prove that we aren't still bad means we are bad. Improving, but bad.

 

[businesslawyer]

I agree the defense wasn't the problem, but for the life of me I don't understand why you tale criticism of coaches so personally.

They are public figures getting paid 7 figures to do their jobs in the public eye. We are arm chair qbs, on a message board. If everything was kumbaya this place would suck.

I don't take criticism of coaches personally. When I write 241 up, I will be critical about things the coaches did. My only point is that if you feel free to say someone else is behaving stupidly, you shouldn't be shocked when someone says you are behaving stupidly. I'm not going to throw a hissy fit about the incoming I take -- it's the price of speaking plainly.

 

[SubbaBub]

With all due respect (now I can say whatever I want), the criticism of the overall defensive strategy is dumb. The bottom line is that playing at Provo against a team with more talent than us, we had held them to 13 points in 50 minutes despite not being able to generate even a scintilla of offense. Yes, they made mistakes. It's much harder to move in the red zone than all over the field, and that's especially true with a frosh QB who is learning. We kept everything in front of us and it worked fine. You can't play tight man coverage all day if your pass rushers aren't fast enough to bother the QB once he leaves the pocket.

Honestly, so much to be concerned about and people are talking about the part of the game plan and effort THAT WORKED AND GAVE US A CHANCE TO WIN.

I'll do a 241 later, but this team, overall, is where we hoped it would be after 5 games -- a record of 2-3, and having played the losses tough enough that there is hope that we can beat some teams now that we start the conference schedule. Yeah, I HATE losing as well, especially having stayed up until 2 a.m. to lose. But there is no reason for anger to make anyone stupid.

Sorry Biz, other than the interceptions the defense was completely reliant on BYU not coverting in the red zone, a bad handoff exchange and at least two wide open drops in the end zone. The run defense was good, but it matters little if they can pass underneath at will and pick up 6-8 yds or more. Their #10 was killing us all night. It was a good defensive result for 50 minutes, but that's not justification for the scheme. Maybe we aren't capable of more but I don't see why. Other teams do more with less talent on that side of the ball.

I could not figure out why we allowed the easy pitch, catch, turn run for 5 yd before the defender arrived. Are we that worried about getting beat deep?

I think people talk about the defense because that has a chance of getting fixed. The O doesn't look like it will improve until we get better line play.

 

[SAMCRO]

Not clear on why people are saying BYU is not a good team. They've won at Nebraska, beat Boise at home, lost by a point at 7th ranked UCLA and got smoked at Michigan. They're a good, not great, team with a nice home field advantage.

 

[J187Money]

Sorry Biz, other than the interceptions the defense was completely reliant on BYU not coverting in the red zone, a bad handoff exchange and at least two wide open drops in the end zone. The run defense was good, but it matters little if they can pass underneath at will and pick up 6-8 yds or more. Their #10 was killing us all night. It was a good defensive result for 50 minutes, but that's not justification for the scheme. Maybe we aren't capable of more but I don't see why. Other teams do more with less talent on that side of the ball.

I could not figure out why we allowed the easy pitch, catch, turn run for 5 yd before the defender arrived. Are we that worried about getting beat deep?

I think people talk about the defense because that has a chance of getting fixed. The O doesn't look like it will improve until we get better line play.

Edsall's D worked mostly the same way. Opportunistically attack, but grind them down, make them have a lot of 3rd downs, don't give up big plays, and hope they make mistakes. It isn't always sexy, but our best records came under this defensive strategy. Don Brown ran a different kind of D (that I think we all loved) - but it was more prone to giving up big plays, and was matched to an offense that was worse than this. I personally believe he will attack more as he continues to build trust in the unit, but he ISN'T Don Brown - so don't expect that sort of scheming.

 

[J187Money]

Not clear on why people are saying BYU is not a good team. They've won at Nebraska, beat Boise at home, lost by a point at top 10 UCLA and got smoked at Michigan. They're a good, not great, team with a nice home field advantage.

Because logic is not in high supply on the BY.

 

[businesslawyer]

Not clear on why people are saying BYU is not a good team. They've won at Nebraska, beat Boise at home, lost by a point at 7th ranked UCLA and got smoked at Michigan. They're a good, not great, team with a nice home field advantage.

Why are they saying it? Because they think making up facts strengthens their arguments.

 

[UConnNick]

Edsall's D worked mostly the same way. Opportunistically attack, but grind them down, make them have a lot of 3rd downs, don't give up big plays, and hope they make mistakes. It isn't always sexy, but our best records came under this defensive strategy. Don Brown ran a different kind of D (that I think we all loved) - but it was more prone to giving up big plays, and was matched to an offense that was worse than this. I personally believe he will attack more as he continues to build trust in the unit, but he ISN'T Don Brown - so don't expect that sort of scheming.

It's quite a stretch to indicate that this teams' offense is better than any during the Edsall/Brown coaching era. We have an OL that can't protect the QB, and receivers that can't catch the ball. At least Edsall's teams had decent to very good OL play, and we had some receivers who could catch it. I think we're confusing the comparisons because we finally have a QB that shows signs of promise, and probably is more talented than anybody since Dan O, but last night he took a step back, albeit not all his fault since he was under siege on many passing plays throughout the game.

 

[Excalibur]

It's quite a stretch to indicate that this teams' offense is better than any during the Edsall/Brown coaching era. We have an OL that can't protect the QB, and receivers that can't catch the ball. At least Edsall's teams had decent to very good OL play, and we had some receivers who could catch it. I think we're confusing the comparisons because we finally have a QB that shows signs of promise, and probably is more talented than anybody since Dan O, but last night he took a step back, albeit not all his fault since he was under siege on many passing plays throughout the game.

Um, he never mentioned the offense.

 

[Jimdish255]

Seriously, though, I started this post. I called an opinion that was disproved by the facts dumb. That ought to be viewed differently than me actually calling a poster dumb. (Although I still don't get the rule that anyone with a buttcrack can call a coach dumb anonymously, and that's o.k., but someone criticizing the criticizer should be tabu.)

So yes, I can be condescending. But I don't think every opinion that differs from mine is dumb -- just some.

You just did it again. Just because we weren't expected to win the game doesn't mean we shouldn't expect our coaches to give us the best opportunity to win the game. Did you see Shirreffs freaking out early in the game because of the confusion sending in plays? Did you see the beating he took partly because of the play calling? Did you see the amount of times BYU receivers were given space beyond the markers for easy first downs? Those aren't even opinions, just simple facts you choose to dismiss as uninformed whining. Count me in with the whiners who expect better, if not now then at least learning from these errors and making adjustments.

 

[J187Money]

It's quite a stretch to indicate that this teams' offense is better than any during the Edsall/Brown coaching era. We have an OL that can't protect the QB, and receivers that can't catch the ball. At least Edsall's teams had decent to very good OL play, and we had some receivers who could catch it. I think we're confusing the comparisons because we finally have a QB that shows signs of promise, and probably is more talented than anybody since Dan O, but last night he took a step back, albeit not all his fault since he was under siege on many passing plays throughout the game.

Don Brown coached under P. He had a better D and a GDL coached O which was much worse than this.

Edsall coached a D like Diaco does, but had a much better offense, especially at OL and RB.

My point being, they were two different eras.

 

[J187Money]

You just did it again. Just because we weren't expected to win the game doesn't mean we shouldn't expect our coaches to give us the best opportunity to win the game. Did you see Shirreffs freaking out early in the game because of the confusion sending in plays? Did you see the beating he took partly because of the play calling? Did you see the amount of times BYU receivers were given space beyond the markers for easy first downs? Those aren't even opinions, just simple facts you choose to dismiss as uninformed whining. Count me in with the whiners who expect better, if not now then at least learning from these errors and making adjustments.

He said he would be critical of the coaches in his 241 update. You missed his point.

As to how we covered the BYU receivers, it is an interesting debate. I would argue that covering closely would have garnered more penalties and big plays, but I could be wrong. Given where we were before everything imploded even though it "seemed" wrong and the announcers kept harping on it, the result was favorable. I'm more of a results oriented person, so I'm not going to pretend that I'm in the position to know better and why D decided to play it the way he did.

 

[king conn]

I don't take criticism of coaches personally. When I write 241 up, I will be critical about things the coaches did. My only point is that if you feel free to say someone else is behaving stupidly, you shouldn't be shocked when someone says you are behaving stupidly. I'm not going to throw a hissy fit about the incoming I take -- it's the price of speaking plainly.

Translation: Only I can be critical of the coaches and when I do, I am correct. Otherwise, it is pure stupidity.

 

[noeynox]

I don't take criticism of coaches personally. When I write 241 up, I will be critical about things the coaches did. My only point is that if you feel free to say someone else is behaving stupidly, you shouldn't be shocked when someone says you are behaving stupidly. I'm not going to throw a hissy fit about the incoming I take -- it's the price of speaking plainly.

Fair enough and good points. I just assume most of what I'm gonna read here is stupid.

 

[geordi]

Do you realize how difficult it is NOT to be a condescending when you come onto this board and read the dumb stuff many of the posters spew out here? It's simply contagious!

 

[Jimdish255]

He said he would be critical of the coaches in his 241 update. You missed his point.

As to how we covered the BYU receivers, it is an interesting debate. I would argue that covering closely would have garnered more penalties and big plays, but I could be wrong. Given where we were before everything imploded even though it "seemed" wrong and the announcers kept harping on it, the result was favorable. I'm more of a results oriented person, so I'm not going to pretend that I'm in the position to know better and why D decided to play it the way he did.

My point is this. There's a lot of smart people on this board but there's no "smartest guy in the room" at all times. A thread like this gives off that aroma of pretense.

My rule of thumb is that we're a glorified water-cooler here. 50% of what you read is fact. 25% of what you read is opinion. And 25% of what you read is rumor, pure hysteria, or comes from the car wash. Occasionally people get annoyed that everyone doesn't share their perspective and they forget that they are in the same boat as any fan. They're perspective filters their interpretation of what they see so that it aligns in perfect harmony. I'm in that group but so are most everybody else here. "From my perspective."

 

[BlueDogs]

I think they put up 500 on us BL. Lifespan is short when you live by dodging bullets. I don't understand the cushions and once again the LBs were terrible, especially Stewart who just is perpetually out of position to make plays.

The D issues pale in relation to the O. BS will not make it through the season if we don't get an OL and backfield that can pick up blitzes.