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2018 Defense

onealcd said:
I feel like there is some depth there for 2018 if Umu makes it back.

DT: Malumba, Antwine/Umu (Hopefully)
NT: Edwards, Tuiloma
DT: Tuiloma, Franke, Lang

If Edwards can get his **** together, get in better shape and use his size/strength combo it would go a long way to cover up some of the deficiencies in the linebacker group and allow guys like Taylor and Lewis to really show their athleticism. If Edwards doesn't develop this offseason though it seems like a 4 man front could be the way to go with Malumba, Tuiloma, Franke and Sparaco though.
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It will be interesting to see if when Coach Drake gets here, how he truly feels about our ability to stand up as a 3 man front as base defense. I thought that I just read something about the fact that we are going to bounce back and forth between 3 man fronts and 4 man fronts based on the situation, and based on an honest analysis by the staff (Eliott) that spoke about the real type of players we have on the roster and can attract to the program. I feel that there are some really creative fronts that we can throw at people with different sub packages. The ONE thing that I want to see from front to back this year is to get back to TACKLING like we did in 2016. The 2016 team was one of the best tackling teams that I have ever seen and it is why many drives were killed. Every guy was willing to tackle like a man. I think Evan Worthington is a stud, he should have a great year, and I think he is a good leader and should step forward and be the leader in the back this year!
 
Sykobuff said:
Having antwine and lang ready to go in the rotation would be big.

Your thoughts on fami?
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I like any 340lb DL who can dunk from standing. If he has a good attitude and work ethic he will learn quick. That is the only question to me.

...but I don't think he is a nose tackle.
 
4BienemyTDs said:
It will be interesting to see if when Coach Drake gets here, how he truly feels about our ability to stand up as a 3 man front as base defense. I thought that I just read something about the fact that we are going to bounce back and forth between 3 man fronts and 4 man fronts based on the situation, and based on an honest analysis by the staff (Eliott) that spoke about the real type of players we have on the roster and can attract to the program. I feel that there are some really creative fronts that we can throw at people with different sub packages. The ONE thing that I want to see from front to back this year is to get back to TACKLING like we did in 2016. The 2016 team was one of the best tackling teams that I have ever seen and it is why many drives were killed. Every guy was willing to tackle like a man. I think Evan Worthington is a stud, he should have a great year, and I think he is a good leader and should step forward and be the leader in the back this year!
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tackling - the best indicator of how hard a defense worked during the offseason.
 
Yeah, a 3-4 that plays "multiple" is just a more realistic/flexible defense that can change alignment/personnel based on the offensive groupings.
Sometimes there will be a nickel corner, sometimes a "Buff" linebacker, and sometimes another OLB on the field. Sometimes that OLB will play standing up and sometimes he will play on the line with a hand in the dirt as a DE. It's a great way to disguise pressure and help solidify the trenches if needed; as long as those players are coached well in every aspect of those positions and have the speed/strength required to be a "swiss army knife" player.

Certainly with Worthington and possibly D. Taylor (and maybe down the road with Ray Robinson) the Buff backer spot looks like a mainstay.

Having true tweener WDE/OLB that can play coverage, stop the run from standing position, and rush the edge from either stance (think Von Miller here) is a more difficult task because the athleticism/size/strength needed can't be "coached" it must be recruited.

There are some decent prospects on the CU roster but not as much depth in top talent level. Adding Falo to the mix at OLB will help with that along with what looks like good prospects in Sparaco and Callier to be hybrid OLB/DE types. I had hoped that Hasselbach would be there by now.

Of course, all of that depends on the 3 down linemen to hold their blocks, penetrate the gaps, etc. Depth and talent are issues. Any injuries to the 2-deep could derail the season unless freshman can save the day.

Franke, Noel-Johnson, Antwine give us 3 healthy bodies at the 3-technique DE position but that isn't much "depth". Antwine looks like the true star potential here but is still a true frosh. Franke is serviceable and offers some position flexibility, but we can only hope Noel-Johnson provides a challenge and gives quality rotation.

Mulumba, Roberts, Lang, and Finau make a solid grouping at the 5-technique DE position (I think Roberts was miscast as a 3-technique on the depth chart last year) with some real upside.

The Nose Tackle spot is obviously the key cog in stopping the run and with Edwards, Tuiloma, and Sami we can only hope they all take some big steps forward after last year's constant backpedaling gave away the line of scrimmage to opposing teams. Again, talent and depth are big concerns here; and probably the key decision making to start moving towards more multiple fronts to shore up the weak spots. If I were the new DL coach I would talk big grayshirt frosh OG Casey Roddick to move to NT; that kid is nasty, strong, and disruptive.
 
Did Mustafa Johnson not make it on to the team? No mention of him in this thread. Is he on campus?


Oh never mind. I see the post above mentions him as Noel-Johnson.
 
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I'd go with this if Mustafa made it in:

DT: Mulumba, Lang/Roberts
NT: Franke, Tuiloma/Edwards
DT: Johnson/Antwine, Umu

Edit:
Keep the redshirts on Sami and Finau. Interesting thought above about Roddick. If that panned out then Franke could move back to the 3.
 
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cu62nu36 said:
I'd go with this if Mustafa made it in:

DT: Mulumba, Lang/Roberts
NT: Franke, Tuiloma/Edwards
DT: Johnson/Antwine, Umu

Edit:
Keep the redshirts on Sami and Finau. Interesting thought above about Roddick. If that panned out then Franke could move back to the 3.
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Edwards will be the starting nose. No chance Franke is that guy
 
IMHO, Dline was a major reason the defense took a step back last year. The Buffs had zero pass rush and usually couldn't stop the run (especially if Edwards wasn't in). And I still think it'll be the weakest link of this year's defense. With Falo back and VanBeast and Landman having a year in the program, I think LB's will be fine. I hope losing Olivier doesn't hurt the DB's too much, but we seem to be have players there as well. This year's defense will be better/worse depending on how much the DLine improves and performs.
 
bar9716 said:
IMHO, Dline was a major reason the defense took a step back last year. The Buffs had zero pass rush and usually couldn't stop the run (especially if Edwards wasn't in). And I still think it'll be the weakest link of this year's defense. With Falo back and VanBeast and Landman having a year in the program, I think LB's will be fine. I hope losing Olivier doesn't hurt the DB's too much, but we seem to be have players there as well. This year's defense will be better/worse depending on how much the DLine improves and performs.
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If Abrams is as good as I think he is, we've got no worries in the secondary.

The success of 2018 is almost totally riding on how CU performs in the trenches from both sides of the ball.
 
Reading some of the posts in here, some of you guys seem to think DL recruiting was just fine under Jeffcoat.
 
Buffnik said:
If anyone thinks that, please understand what is going through everyone else's head any time you try to post a defense of Jeffcoat's recruiting:
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Just saying we can be honest and say some of the DL guys cannot play. One of the huge keys starting this spring is to start turning over the roster some on the DL and front seven in general.
 
It's easy to point fingers at Elliot (I sure as hell did throughout the season), or any of the position groups, but the defense as a whole went through MAJOR transition last year that most teams do not experience. New Coaches, coordinator, and player turnover losing the entire D-line, 3 DBs to the draft, and the likes of Gilbert, Gillam, and Olugbode (not to mention Falo, Julmisse, and Umu). It's exciting to see whats on the horizon in 2018-19 with the Buffs defense, and this year should be an indicator of what type of coaches we have on the D.
 
Duff Man said:
Just saying we can be honest and say some of the DL guys cannot play. One of the huge keys starting this spring is to start turning over the roster some on the DL and front seven in general.
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We had a couple recruiting misses on the DL who moved to offense last year.

We have guys who played last year who didn't perform well.

We have guys who didn't play or played sparingly last year that we don't know the answer on yet.

Where I'd be completely dumbfounded is if a CU fan tried to defend the recruiting. Between the guys recruited by Tuiasosopo (Solis, Kafovalu, Tupou) and now, there has not been a single high school recruit who has been a starter on the DL unless you count very limited spot duty due to injury. We've plugged with JUCOs that were recruited by other coaches on staff. We've also gotten some really promising youngsters with Lang and Antwine that other coaches took the lead on recruiting. Jeffcoat was not a recruiter. Fixing that recruiting issue was one of the most important offseason moves this year.

I also think that Eliot doing more 1-gap responsibility within his scheme while attacking more is another important offseason move to address the issue.

Hearing really good things about Lang adding weight and getting himself ready. I've been pretty open in my opinion that Antwine looks like a guy who is a heavy rotation player, if not a starter, as a true frosh.

I think it's been a good offseason so far for our DL.

Getting good news on Umu returning would bump things even better because I think he'd be another heavy rotation player, if not a starter.
 
8Jah said:
tackling - the best indicator of how hard a defense worked during the offseason.
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One of my biggest frustrations with Hawkins teams was their seeming aversion to tackling. When asked about it, Hawkins actually said that he didn’t emphasize tackling in practice. He happily pointed out that they never did any tackling drills. His view was that tackling would take care if itself so long as the other “little things” were all dealt with. It made me want to stab him in the eye.
 
JMBuffs said:
It's easy to point fingers at Elliot (I sure as hell did throughout the season), or any of the position groups, but the defense as a whole went through MAJOR transition last year that most teams do not experience. New Coaches, coordinator, and player turnover losing the entire D-line, 3 DBs to the draft, and the likes of Gilbert, Gillam, and Olugbode (not to mention Falo, Julmisse, and Umu). It's exciting to see whats on the horizon in 2018-19 with the Buffs defense, and this year should be an indicator of what type of coaches we have on the D.
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Yes.

And all of that needs to be taken into account.

It cannot excuse some of the performances, though, particularly the poor tackling and lack of fire we often saw from the defense.
 
cu62nu36 said:
I'd go with this if Mustafa made it in:

DT: Mulumba, Lang/Roberts
NT: Franke, Tuiloma/Edwards
DT: Johnson/Antwine, Umu

Edit:
Keep the redshirts on Sami and Finau. Interesting thought above about Roddick. If that panned out then Franke could move back to the 3.
Click to expand...

Sami is my dark horse, wouldn't be surprised if plays this year.
 
That would be CU fans saying Jeffcoat was a good coach.

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Why did the coaches decide to move Brett Tonz (6'3 295 lb DT prospect) to be a depth O-line player and Eddy Lopez (6'3 290 lb DT prospect) to be a rarely used jumbo TE/H-Back when we have such a glaring lack of bodies at the DL positions?

If Edwards gets hurt and/or Sami isn't ready to play NT; we might as well flip back to a 4-3 front and we could really use those type of guys on that side of the ball.
 
ScottyBuff said:
Why did the coaches decide to move Brett Tonz (6'3 295 lb DT prospect) to be a depth O-line player and Eddy Lopez (6'3 290 lb DT prospect) to be a rarely used jumbo TE/H-Back when we have such a glaring lack of bodies at the DL positions?

If Edwards gets hurt and/or Sami isn't ready to play NT; we might as well flip back to a 4-3 front and we could really use those type of guys on that side of the ball.
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As I recall, Lopez had been recruited over and MM wanted to get some utilization out of the scholarship so they moved him to the thinnest spot on the team. This was Spring last year, I think, when Irwin was done, Keeney was hurt, Frazier was getting reps at DL and all we had was Bounds.

I'm not sure why Tonz moved over to O but it sure might come in handy with the injury to Lynott.
 
ScottyBuff said:
Why did the coaches decide to move Brett Tonz (6'3 295 lb DT prospect) to be a depth O-line player and Eddy Lopez (6'3 290 lb DT prospect) to be a rarely used jumbo TE/H-Back when we have such a glaring lack of bodies at the DL positions?

If Edwards gets hurt and/or Sami isn't ready to play NT; we might as well flip back to a 4-3 front and we could really use those type of guys on that side of the ball.
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I'm still puzzled over Lopez's move to the offense too...he would have been a decent 3-4 DE given his pass rushing skills in his recruiting videos which would have shown that he might not have been a good NT recruit after all. And Edwards was disappointing as well. That is why Jeffcoat is no longer a CU assistant coach.

There's also the 4-2-5 and even USC did run a 5-2 defense at times but HCMM is fixated on the 3-4...must be from his days as a Dallas Cowboy assistant. I still like the 3-4 since you could have all the DL be run stuffers with really good pass rushing OLBs.
 
With only losing one noteworthy player on D...Oliver...adding some talent and bringing back some kids after dismissal...I expect an improvement in the D for sure. How much? Who knows? I'm not a big Eliot fan...he's not a transformational guy like MFJL.

I think with all the coaching changes in the PAC south and most of the south games we lost close were winnable, an improved D and hopefully improved O, we should win 6-8 IMO. But my last guess was we are gonna win 9 cuz why the fvck not.
 
ScottyBuff said:
Why did the coaches decide to move Brett Tonz (6'3 295 lb DT prospect) to be a depth O-line player and Eddy Lopez (6'3 290 lb DT prospect) to be a rarely used jumbo TE/H-Back when we have such a glaring lack of bodies at the DL positions?

If Edwards gets hurt and/or Sami isn't ready to play NT; we might as well flip back to a 4-3 front and we could really use those type of guys on that side of the ball.
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I think it's pretty clear that they weren't good enough. Which is quite damning considering how poor the DL was last year.
 
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