Help me understand how teams run up the middle with this much success

Wurd! This would be a great start.

 

Our 2016 team D was ranked 9th in the country. Looking at our D, we had many 230+ LB's and also a load of D linemen who could run. This team we don't have many quick LB's who carry weight. Our Dline has the big guy in the middle (if we had any kind of depth he wouldn't be playing as much as he does) who is good at clogging but his lateral pursuit if the RB or QB goes through a hole is not there. IMO, our problems are mostly personnel related. I guess we will find out at some point.

 

Definitely personnel related. You could put all 11 on the line of scrimmage and they couldn’t stop the run. Add one Will Anderson to this defense and it would be completely different. We lost this battle in the high school halls in past years. All we can do now is move forward and recruit better players. Those bitching about the scheme are just hoping there is a quick fix…there isn’t.

 

So I guess we
Need to out recruit Alabama, Georgia, Texas A& M, Miami and FSU. Let me know when we do this. Coaches coming into new programs have to work with what they got. Kelly LSU, the Pirate MSU, Norvell FSU, Miami and their coach. They aren’t complaining, but being aggressive on the field and off. Scheme and play calling do matter. Athletes matter also, but getting all five stars won’t happen without being aggressive. Recruits will be watching our homecoming game, if we lose this due to bend but not break, that five star recruit will see this. Playing time yes, but maybe the three DL getting doubled and triple team, just as much turn him off.

 

Do you see the plethora of SDEs committed as part of that? That they will gain some weight but still be able to play solid line D and move laterally? Or, are we just having a great SDE cycle?

 

When you put Dean/Torrence on the LOS instead of a dedicated DL or LB, you are right it is harder to stop the run. Toney doesn’t seem to modify his scheme to counter what the offense is doing. The other team comes out in a heavy 2-TE set, and we stay with our base 3 DL and maybe walk up a safety. If you have Alabama/Georgia talent then maybe that works, but we don’t have that level of talent. For an analogy, look at how much better our offense looked under Mullen than it did under McElwein. The players were mostly the same, but the results were not. At this point in time, I am not sure the talent we do have on defense is being maximized by Toney’s scheme.

I am also watching other schools with lesser talent play much more aggressively on defense than we do. Our scheme seems to be hoping the other team makes a mistake, instead of forcing the other team to make a mistake. And the funny/sad thing is our defense is usually the one making the mistake instead of the opposing offense.

 

OK. Let's compare Butter's offense when the boy wonder was at QB before he got jacked at the nutrition store to Mullen and FF and tell me which one was better. Or lets look at how bad our O was last year under Mullen.

Mullen didn't start looking good until FF got his leg broke at UK and we were down a couple TDs and Trask came off the bench and saved the day.

We have a personnel problem and it won't get fixed in 9 months.

 

lets face it, it has to be our offense if we are going to win games. We have to score 35 points to win.

 

I'm not into finer points of the coaches recruiting strategy but i do believe that like Bama and Georgia, we will be going after guys that are solid and can move with some degree of a quick first step.

 

I see this staff recruiting for the position ( measurables) not going for the athlete or tweener that they try to make fit.

 

I think there's more to last year's team than just calling them a 7-loss team. They were night and day different by the season's end as compared to when they started.

Take a look at these two back-to-back stretches for the defense (A: #7 Bama, #9 Tennessee, #47 Kentucky, #118 Vanderbilt; B: #90 LSU, #26 Georgia, #110 South Carolina, FCS-Samford)

A:

4.92 yards per play (257/1265)
4.36 yards per rush (118/514...sacks removed)
5.99 yards per pass play (146/875...sacks added, 11 total)
1.37 points per possession (59 offensive points, 43 offensive possessions - end of half take it the locker room drives removed)
22 forced punts

B:

6.6 yards per play (272/1797)
6.33 yards per rush (147/930...sacks removed)
7.62 yards per pass play (141/1075...sacks added, 5 total)
3 points per possession (147 offensive points, 49 offensive possessions - end of half take it the locker room drives removed)
13 forced punts

I think people hoping for an improvement are looking at the potential for much of last year's collapse being between the ears.

Tennessee and Bama last year, by the way were #7 and #9 in terms of total offense. 10 punts forced combined; Samford averaged more yards per play against FLORIDA than either Tennessee or Alabama did, only 2 punts forced against Samford.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

Everyone complained when we had Grantham about all the plays given up on 3rd and long. You can’t have it both ways.

 

i read an article (don't know if i can link here on3) on Toney's D scheme. He said he wants tight coverage and QB pressure, neither of which is happening now. It reinforces my belief that our issues are personnel related and we don't have the players for his preferred scheme.

 

It isn’t all personnel. We have no excuse for looking as bad as we do on defense. When the scheme results in personnel playing 6 on 8, then I don’t blame the personnel for the result. This is like Muschamp blaming his lack of offense on not having good enough players. While that may be true, the main problem was his desired scheme didn’t fit the players he had on hand.

To this point, the defense has been disappointing. I never expected amazing, but I hoped the defense would be at least functional.

 

We went 10-3 with Franks when the experts thought we would be lucky to have an 8 win season. But I get what you’re saying.

 

It’s not the talent, it’s how they are used. If you look at our DL in the Mac years with Brantley, Bryan, Bullard etc. they were natural DL …Davis, Morrison, Anzalone etc were LB. They had natural instincts because they played the position for years before coming to college.
Todd just went full athlete and… “we’ll figure it out later”.

Now, you have 30 guys on defense that are great athletes but all look and are built the same. Former Edge rushers playing Mike & Sam …Former Safeties at LB or trying to play CB or Nickel coverage. Interior lineman that spent HS setting up the edge and blowing up QBs, moved inside. Our D is loaded with this!

Our personnel is a freaking mess and it will take at least 2 more cycles to correct it.

 

Yet, I recall our D playing pretty well vs Utah. Our LBs were filling gaps and meeting their ball carriers head on. I agree, it's not all personnel.

It's one thing to say he wants tight coverage and pressure. But can they coach it? Just asking.

 

Just seeing those names is a shocking illustration of how poorly the last staff recruited position players. That's not a knock on the guys on the team because they just weren't recruited appropriately for their positions or abilities.

We would be ecstatic with names like those above if we had those types of players today.