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

Against Utah, we forced 2 punts, one turnover on downs at the goal line, and one interception on the goal line. On their other 5 possessions, they scored 3 TDs and 2 FGs. In the second half, Utah was basically driving the ball at will.

From what I read, Toney seems adverse to risk. He isn’t going to blitz like Stoops did.

 

Barry Odom immediately improved Arkansas D. We could have had Charlie Strong back again as our DC and I think we would have been improved compared to PT defense. The GT coach should be hired by UF as an Analyst to help

 

you mean the CS coached defense that lost to Middle Tennessee St?

 

1) Kevin Steele is the DC
2). Miami only gave up 99 rushing yards and Middle Tennessee averaged less than 4 yards per carry. Charlie Strong coaches LBs whose job is to stop the run.
3). Middle Tennessee had all their yards passing against a weak Miami secondary.
4). How many yards rushing is UF D allowing per game by comparison?
5). Charlie Strong has won a National Championship. For anyone to think a coach with 2 years experience as a DC off Lousiana is a DC is experienced enough to compete in the SEC against the best coaches in college football is beyond me. Kirby, Muschamp, Saban, Odom are in a different league.

 

Unpopular, but correct take.

 

Unfortunately, coaching may well be the problem.
Not impressed with our schemes and coaching on D.

 

While I don't have a firm opinion either way, a lot of people complain about scheme and coaching without explaining anything specifically to back it up. I have a general complaint in that I find it hard to believe our talent is so bad that we should get dragged up and down the field against the likes of usf and Eastern Washington but I can't say specifically why the scheme is the problem. I can't be too critical of a guy that improved the teams defense significantly year over year at his prior stop but again, I can't point to specifics of his scheme vs other DCs

 

Yes, and so to believe we have a great scheme and coaching we have to believe talent does not exist on our roster to play reasonably sound D1 level and SEC football. I admit mullen and his staff recruited somewhat poorly in retrospect, but we should at least have a one deep. They recruited well enough for that, no? It is perplexing that a sixth year SR(?) is still the lynch pin of our LB corps, no doubt. But it seems like start of game to finish, we are giving up big plays. The QB for Tenn having open lanes for huge gains is suspect. South Florida having huge lanes to run through seems suspect. So my point was that it is easy to say we want to play man and pressure the QB. So? All he needs to add to that apparently is that while we play man and pressure the QB we will also fill gaps to stop the run. Poof, it's done!

 

Reading some articles yesterday about Toney’s desired defense, he likes to confuse the opposing offense by threatening to bring pressure from multiple directions, and then only rushing 4-5, which brings the best of both worlds by confusing the offense with the potential for blitz pressure while maximizing the number of players back in coverage. The problem with that is if the pass rush doesn’t get there, most QBs can easily pick apart a zone defense even with 6-7 guys dropping back into coverage.

I would prefer a more aggressive attacking style of defense with man-to-man coverage, but I am not sure that Toney is that type of coordinator. Like I said above, from what I read above about his scheme it seems he likes to play it safe over having an all out blitz. Not a fan of the huge cushions and the deep drops our secondary take. What I have seen so far by this defense doesn’t scream aggressive and attacking.

 

I don’t think Toney likes to play man and pressure like most of us understand it. He likes to play a safe-ish zone and confuse the opposing offense with simulated pressures. We will have 5-6 people along the LOS, and then only rush 4-5 while dropping the remaining players back into coverage. Basically a zone blitz. I am not sure if he really likes to play man at all.

 

The rudimentary understanding I have is that we haven't matched numbers well. We wasted numbers covering the deep backfield against Tennessee despite their tendencies (not counting the blown coverages) while letting other teams line up with numbers advantages in the run game against our smaller and undermanned front 7

 

He does play man at times. We get beat when he does.

https://www.readandreaction.com/wp-...9-James-doesnt-get-out-to-help-corner.mp4?_=2

 

Sounds familiar

 

That is putting a lot on a true freshman LB for him to recognize he has the RB in man coverage and then to widen out when he goes into motion. So I am not sure if James was supposed to follow him out, or maybe a safety was supposed to rotate down in response to the motion. That is putting James in a tough spot.

That Tennessee playcall put our defense in a tough situation. If James follows the motion out, then they have numbers in the box for a QB draw. If James doesn’t follow/widen out in response to the motion, then the pass is there because there is no way for James to make up that amount of distance while playing run first. Even if James immediately ran to the RB at the snap, it is still a very difficult play to make. So unless the CB makes a hero play and beats the block, we were screwed from the beginning on that play.

Edit:

If that was man-to-man, then another way to attack that defensive formation is to have the RB run a wheel route while the receiver runs the CB off instead of blocking. That defensive formation reacting in that manner to the RB motion puts the offense 2 on 1 with the CB every time. We killed UGA in 2020 because their LB couldn’t get out to cover the wheel route. That is a difficult ask for any LB to accomplish.

 

Rushing defense is 113th nationally out of 131 teams. Bottom quartile. In addition, we are allowing QBs to complete 61 percent of their passes. Team 3rd down efficiency is even worse. They can’t get off the field. The opponent’s punter is the loneliest guy on the field.

 

I'm not disagreeing with what you are saying. Just pointing out that we do play man from time to time.

 

So check out this video posted March 2022. Is his prediction off the mark? I realize this youtuber is using highlights. But is our D anything like this? If U of L can run this D, shouldn't we have the athletes? I would ask if it could be that we play a higher level of opponent except that we played USF and Eastern Washington.

 

I asked the guy that does the GNFP breakdowns and he said "
"Our front 7, mainly LBs, struggles to read plays well, that is the cause."

 

That really was rare for the Gators to give up that many rushing yards until Grantham took of from a 4-3 to a 3-4 defense... This is a line of scrimmage league, and we need 4 true DT's on the defensive line.

I think our coaches know that fact and it's the reason why we're recruiting so many DT type D-lineman this year.

The 4-3 or other with 4 DTs line-up puts pressure on the opposing team's O-line... slows the running game... puts more pressure, faster, on the opposing team's QB... forces their QB to throw the ball early. This allows our DBs to play bump-and-run schemes.

It all starts with the Big-Nasties up front. We need to go back that Gator football and play the type of defense that made the Gators' defense so fearsome from the miss '80's until before Grantham. Forget the finesse, bend over and break, defense.

 

Which is why when we lost Hopper I was praying we would land any linebacker transfer....