Did anyone else find the defense completely vanilla?

[Palatine]

Thinking back on Thursday (masochist), I was surprised how passive the defense was. The only blitzes I recall were Smallwood up the middle on third and long.

We never stacked the line and forced the QB to make a read. We lined a four down lineman with three LBs away from the line on every first down.

We never brought pressure. It was as if we only knew one way to line up. I was very disappointed in the scheme.

 

[uconndogs]

Yes I did. But, I'm not sure we have the horses for last year's pressure. Neither Stewart or Donahue run anywhere near the way Sio could and Stewart's lines and tackling were for . Jory may not have been the fastest LB in history, but he played great positional defense and was a sure tackler. Willman played well, but is not the athlete Trevardo is and I fear Jesse is not the same player since the injury. Couple that with the fact that Gratz and Blidi are now starting NFL corners and you have to wonder if pressure defense like last season is even an option.

That all said, I think this can develop into a solid defense this season. I would not be surprised if some changes take place at LB though.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

One thing that infuriated me was that we always had one DE out exceptionally wide (often three lanes outside of a standard set) and two (at times all three) of our LB's lined up inside. We gave Towson both an open interior lane and an advantage getting to the edge. I don't get what we were trying to do unless it was to bait Towson into running into B gaps (and as we did not wrap up when we made contact this absolutely did not work to our advantage).

 

[Dooley]

If folks remember, Hughes ran a very vanilla defense under Edsall. Very little blitzing with a bend-but-don't-break mentality. The problem with that then and now is that while our defenses didn't give up too many long plays, it did stay on the field way too long. But I agree with the post above: we don't have the same personnel to blitz like we did. Our corners are not NFL quality like last year and we've lost alot of speed and athleticism up front in our rush. I expect that the defense will be pretty vanilla this year, maybe blitz 1 LB in some packages, but probably alot of deep zone coverage.

 

[ibleedhuskyblue]

It was as vanilla as I've seen since Randy.
No pre-snap movement (which, opponents even mentioned was effective last season)
No blitzing (at least none that were imaginative at all)
No pressure (sat back in weak, slough-off zone)
Nothing at all that would cause an offense to rethink its strategy. Nothing worked.

I didn't like Hughes schemes when Randy was here, although i thought Randy handcuffed him like he did to Ambrose & Moorehead, and i don't like them now.

I would much rather we blitzed more, and were burnt sometimes. Feast or Famine is better than Just Famine...which we had Thursday.

 

[metsfan2323]

Yes I did. But, I'm not sure we have the horses for last year's pressure.

It's not a lack of horses, it's the scheme. BC has no talent on defense and they were blitzing, stunting, and really bringing the pressure on Saturday. BC's D looked exactly like what we had the last two years and they don't have Blidi, Gratz, Sio and Trevardo.

We were lied to by the coaching staff, we were told the same Don Brown scheme was going to be used with a little extra, well all we got was the little extra and little it was.

Our offense had very few drives on Thursday because the garbage D that P and Hughes threw out there couldn't get off the field.

Our only hope is that we were saving things for Maryland, but if that is true how stupid is P?

 

[ibleedhuskyblue]

Our only hope is that we were saving things for Maryland, but if that is true how stupid is P?

I thought that about our offense last season after Umass. We saw how that worked out. I was hoping beyond hope. I was heart broken after NC State.

Unfortunately, we are what we are. And what we are is what we were Thursday night... a big pile of it.

 

[huskymedic]

Thinking back on Thursday (masochist), I was surprised how passive the defense was. The only blitzes I recall were Smallwood up the middle on third and long.

We never stacked the line and forced the QB to make a read. We lined a four down lineman with three LBs away from the line on every first down.

We never brought pressure. It was as if we only knew one way to line up. I was very disappointed in the scheme.

Here's what the coach had to say about the pressure @ the 2:08 mark of this morning's teleconference(in response to a question by JS)

http://theamerican.org/showcase/?Archive=59

We can argue whether it was the right planning or not but this was the thought process.

 

[metsfan2323]

Here's what the coach had to say about the pressure @ the 2:08 mark of this morning's teleconference(in response to a question by JS)

http://theamerican.org/showcase/?Archive=59

We can argue whether it was the right planning or not but this was the thought process.

His answer was basically we weren't aggressive on D because we didn't want to give up a big play. Apparently now that Don Brown is gone our new mantra is "solve your problems with cowardice"

 

[uconnell]

After hearing PP's response to the first question I turned it off.

 

[Srqhusky]

It's not a lack of horses, it's the scheme. BC has no talent on defense and they were blitzing, stunting, and really bringing the pressure on Saturday. BC's D looked exactly like what we had the last two years and they don't have Blidi, Gratz, Sio and Trevardo.

We were lied to by the coaching staff, we were told the same Don Brown scheme was going to be used with a little extra, well all we got was the little extra and little it was.

Our offense had very few drives on Thursday because the garbage D that P and Hughes threw out there couldn't get off the field.

Our only hope is that we were saving things for Maryland, but if that is true how stupid is P?

Ageee i watched the bc game and thought the same thing. Watched bc overloading sides an blitzing was bribging back memories Miss don brown