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Defensive scheme thus far

JesusGordo

Active Member
With three games behind us, I like the new defensive schemes thus far. It seems that for the most part the scheme has put guys in position to make plays.

Most of the yardage gained by CSU in the run game was after first contact, even though the scheme had players in position. Our tackling was atrocious and must get fixed if we are going to be the defense we want to be. I was a little dismayed by the analyst comment that tackling is almost impossible to fix during the season due to the lack of full contact drills to reduce injury risk. I hope this is not true or we will not win many games.

The pass defense has been a mixed bag. Some blown coverages, some guys getting beat, some great plays and some turnovers created. The db’s have been pretty solid in run support.

I am an optimist, but I believe that as the players gain experience in this defense they will become quicker to the ball, more aggressive and tackle better. Fingers crossed.
 
My wife was very displeased with our tackling. If she noticed, it's a huge problem.
 
I'm not sure how we get pressure on the quarterback, but we had better do that in the Pac. I kind of suspect we underestimated Steven's a bit and figured all we had to do was go with the 3 man rush. It did not work. We need a little more deception and some blitzes. Better timed blitzes at that.
 
From a high level, I think a defense's success can be attributed to 50% scheme/right play call at the right time and 50% having the players talented enough to actually make the play once in the right position. I think we are seeing a dramatic increase in competence on the scheme side compared to last season, but only a slight increase on the personnel side. I think you can see this in all 3 games so far, when you consider how the defense seemingly gets better as the games go on, after JL and MM are able to make adjustments. Would have loved to see what kind of difference Tupou would have made.
 
was only really disappointed with the tackling. they got 5-7 yards even with us being in position to make tackles. we are going to give up some yards at times, more important is pts given up. i only noticed us blitzing a handful of times and seemed like a delayed blitz that was either too late or got swallowed up. csu got us with the screen / dump off a number of times which probably cut down on the blitzing as well.
 
TSchekler said:
From a high level, I think a defense's success can be attributed to 50% scheme/right play call at the right time and 50% having the players talented enough to actually make the play once in the right position. I think we are seeing a dramatic increase in competence on the scheme side compared to last season, but only a slight increase on the personnel side. I think you can see this in all 3 games so far, when you consider how the defense seemingly gets better as the games go on, after JL and MM are able to make adjustments. Would have loved to see what kind of difference Tupou would have made.
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Tupou I think would have fixed my biggest complaint. Lack of pressure. Really need to start generating more of it if we want a chance in conference play.
 
BuffNut99 said:
I'm most impressed by the adjustments. Hawaii held to 10 pts after the half, UMass shutout after the half, CSU held to 10 pts after their first two drives. Bodes well if we can stay healthy.
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This! Opponent total scores by qtr:
1: 29
2: 17
3: 10
4: 10

Offense and defense start off slowly...which doesn't bode well for PAC12 play...much tougher to come back against those teams. Not sure why Mac's teams are such slow starters...annoying.

Ultimately it's all about points, and we've held the first 3 opponents to an average of 22. A HUGE improvement.
 
tackling can be fixed. It really was "this game".

The analyst (was the same for Hawaii and CSU) is the worst I've ever heard.
 
Having Tupou and Gillam missing up the middle is a huge problem. It's still glaringly evident that we lack speed on defense. We've got plenty of guys who were defensive MVPs of state championship-caliber HS teams but at this level have trouble closing on a runner who's getting up the sideline, as I saw from one particular linebacker Saturday. CU may have guys in the front seven who I'm personally happy to see contributing to the team but as entire position groups I've been worried there since the Hawkins years.

Coaching seems to be much better on defense. I like the intensity they have to start the game. Fewer penalties mean fewer second chances to get torched. The biggest weakness I see on the defense aside from athleticism is stalled offensive drives leading to the defense being gassed late in the game. The adjustments in the second half have been encouraging but there's only so much the defense can hold before they're on the field too long and end up getting sloppy. Lindgren's calls have been better but he and his players need to improve execution so 4 yard rush - 1 yard rush - overthrown pass - punt don't leave the defense staggering back to the field when they've barely made it to their sideline to rest from the last series.
 
The pass rush was definitely more aggressive in the first 2 games. In the CSU game there were times when I wondered why we were only sending 4 guys on obvious passing situations. Best guess is Leavitt did this on purpose going against a first year starter who has struggled so far this season.
 
Early in the game we were burned by the short dump pass behind a charging d-line. I don't know how much that played into the strategy later in the game.

The schemes did put linemen in place to tackle the RB's behind the line of scrimmage. Not sure whether talent or technique is causing the failure to get the RB down.
 
Sykobuff said:
Poor tackling and no pressure on the qb, dont think i saw a blitz all might. This must change.
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Agree. My son and I each commented that we saw no blitzes. Didn't really need them, so why give away all your secrets prior to the Pac?
 
This is a bend don't break defense by design. I suspect that's not the kind of defense he wants to run, bu we simply lack the front seven guys to run an attacking defense.

Baer ran a bend don't break D his first year, but tried to get more aggressive the second year. The result: we gave up an absurd amount of big plays.
 
Buffenuf said:
Wouldn't call those DE edge rushes "blitzes". No safety, corner or ILB blitzes at all that I recall.
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Surely you jest. If there's a replay of the RMS I would strongly suggest you take another look at the 4th quarter. CSU was playing 3 wide sets and CU was blitzing the nickel almost every single time, and putting a safety on CSU's slot. I can think of at least one instance where it happened 3/4 plays in sequence.
 
We got burned early by the screen, so there was an adjustment to cut that play out of their attack. In the 4th quarter when CSU had to move the ball further down the field Leavitt started dialing up the blitzes, but none of them made it home. Did get some pretty good edge pressure on Stevens though. He was not able to really step into a lot of his throws late in the game.
 
J.R. Ewing said:
This is a bend don't break defense by design. I suspect that's not the kind of defense he wants to run, bu we simply lack the front seven guys to run an attacking defense.

Baer ran a bend don't break D his first year, but tried to get more aggressive the second year. The result: we gave up an absurd amount of big plays.
Click to expand...
What makes a bend but don't break defense by design?
 
Denver_sc said:
Surely you jest. If there's a replay of the RMS I would strongly suggest you take another look at the 4th quarter. CSU was playing 3 wide sets and CU was blitzing the nickel almost every single time, and putting a safety on CSU's slot. I can think of at least one instance where it happened 3/4 plays in sequence.
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I'd have to re-watch the game, but it my recollection is that when we did that, the blitzer was always late to the party. Our blitzes just didn't seem to be timed well. I'll go back and re-watch it.
 
DBT said:
I'd have to re-watch the game, but it my recollection is that when we did that, the blitzer was always late to the party. Our blitzes just didn't seem to be timed well. I'll go back and re-watch it.
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Having a good snap count will do that. CSU also changed the play quite often so the first count was a dummy count.
 
buffaholic said:
tackling can be fixed. It really was "this game".

The analyst (was the same for Hawaii and CSU) is the worst I've ever heard.
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It's taylor the ex notre dame lineman. He is awful. Had to make his comment about the rocket punt return.
 
I am impressed with what Leavitt has done on the defensive side of the ball. We still aren't good but guys seem to be in better position, we have forced some turnovers, and it doesn't look like we are as outmatched as we have been.

We still haven't seen from him what we will see though. He has been forced into doing certain things simply due to our lack of talent on that side of the ball. We don't have the linebacker talent to run LB heavy sets. We don't have the speed at LB to use them to cover up for a lot of DB blitzes. Our DL seems to be better at holding up at the point of attack but we still don't have the kind of individual talent that breaks up plays and disrupts drives. How often this year has a DE simply beaten an OT and pressured the QB. How many times has a D-lineman disrupted 2 or more OL creating a gap for a LB to run free to the ball.

Coaching has gotten better, in some ways much better, but the game is still about talent. If we are going to take another step forward we have to sign some of these guys who have the talent to do more than develop into "decent starters." We need to recruit some disruptors on the defensive side of the ball just like we need more gamebreakers on the offensive side of the ball.

When he has those guys then Leavitt is a guy who will be able to create situations for them to really impact games, right now we don't have them.
 
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