No matter how bad those individual factors or the combination of them may be, it should never equal 131/131 in Division 1 football. We have poor defensive talent, but it is better than the likes of Buffalo, Coastal Carolina, and Charlotte. Mullen and Grantham got comfy and tanked recruiting, but they recruited better than Duke and San Jose State. Grantham is a bad DC, but he is better than the worst in Division 1. 131 out of 131 in 3rd down D is inexcusable. If Toney cannot take the bye week to tweak SOMETHING, he needs to be shown the door.
The most glaring issue that I heard him mention was stats on how the LSU offense fares facing zone vs facing man coverage. Man coverage giving them less than a 50% completion rate. Yet we rarely went with man coverage and were almost always in some sort of overly soft zone. Our DC played directly in to their preferred method of play. Even IF you doubt the ability of your players use them in the manner more likely - if well executed - to succeed against their offense. Only if they fail at that should you fall back to the big gain limiting (but otherwise ineffective) approach of the soft zone.
I agree with this. At the beginning of every game we sit back in a soft zone and allow the offense to do whatever they like. Our coverage is such that it guarantees that certain routes will be there for the opposing team. And most of those routes are past the first down marker. So even if we get them in 3rd and long, our pass coverage gives up a first down almost by design. Once the opposing QB gets in a rhythm it is much harder to stop him even if you have a better defensive call.
Too many people trying to point a finger. I agree with your post. You can point a finger and turn in a circle. As for coaching and teaching, looks like a lot of players thinking too much. They're being taught so much the firehose of info has got their heads spinning. Afraid to make mistakes. It's a process.
There is most likely more than one of the defensive staffers who is NOT improving and NOT able to coach up the players. In addition, there is also most likely more than one of the potential 2023 defensive scholarship returning players who is NOT improving and NOT able to effectively play winning SEC defense. It is up to Napier to jettison those coaches and players for the 2023 season, plain and simple, and yes, harsh. There is no need (cause it won't do any good right now) to fire staff and rescind scholarships immediately, assuming there is no issue with attitude, behavior, work ethic and divisiveness. But during Billy's postseason evaluation phase, the gloves MUST come off and doing hard things MUST be done. It will not be fun or easy to take away a scholarship and send a coaching buddy packing. SEC football is the real deal, as well as football in Gainesville. The defense the last 3 years is putrid, maybe not even that good. It is unacceptable. Whatever is being done IS NOT working. And practicing insanity by continuing the same song and dance IS NOT the answer.
Definitely an issue overlooked is trying to unteach players bad habits that have been ingrained. I’ve worked with many high level D1 players on their off seasons and they have hitches or bad habits. It is really hard to change what’s ingrained. Rep after rep after rep and you still see the same thing. Even times when the mechanic is fixed in a controlled setting once back under fire the players will always revert back. It’s tougher then people think. Some players can get it with tons of work and other can never make the adjustment. Having said that the pro level these type of players are able to make the adjustments much easier. Is it because their compartmentalization is better or just the ability to adapt. I don’t know but having worked with all types amateurs and pros there’s a big difference in adjusting.
Devin Moore being hurt the last few weeks seems to have really hurt our pass defense. The kid is pretty darn good for a true freshman.
Im convinced Grantham is still calling our defense....dont try and convince me Im wrong because Ill have none of it. Let me know when Geoff Collins shows up.
Dead horse here. Once again, playing well enough to force multiple 3rd and longs would seem to say the talent is enough to put us in those situations. What changes on 3rd down?? Playcalling?
As I’ve really deep-dived (dove?) these vids this year, it seems to me that we try everything and everyone and there is always SOMETHING. The wacky cushions especially by safeties are the biggest mystery. This is probably the “inside the room” info I’d most like to know. However, against MO Hill seemed to “end” that trend by playing tight cover 3 all day, even as Marshall was still loose on the very same play, other side of the field. Only to appear to go right back to the giant cushion the next week. LSU also went at JH hard all night, so maybe that loosened him up early. Or not. But you can see basically every coverage and personnel every game. Teams do indeed attack the certain players who make so much “news” but they aren’t always in the same place or scheme, they just have a way of blowing it in new ways from anywhere. I am very confident some of these things are actively coached against (there is no drill that exists to teach you to spin yourself twice on one route, but there are drills that do the opposite) and the zone concepts we’re talking about are so basic that no coach at any level doesn’t know/teach them (you don’t literally cover a “zone”, you are M2M in that defined area, i.e.; we have one guy who quite literally covers a spot on the field in zone, and I cannot figure out how this keeps happening.) And we see definitive improvement. The edge ideas are light years better. You will see Helm, Perkins, Hill, and others intentionally run to good edge positions now. Cox and other DL still have moments but they intentionally maintain gaps now. You can see the DL stay in lanes on the backend clearouts now—that used to be auto15 up the middle for the QB. You see Burney *better* in gaps, Shemar getting some tough life lessons but also scraping better. There ARE improvements. But the flaws are, well, devastating. I mean we make 50 yard mistakes. So much for the solid edges, a WR just ran a bad post straight up the seam for 30. I have to think that some of those cushions should be executed with much more aggressive crashes and squats. We bail at the snap. Otherwise I can’t think of a logical explanation for a 12 yard cushion to the first split on 3rd and 6. You see big cushions like that all the time, basically baiting a throw so the S coming hard stops it for 3. Tre-vez did a decent job of that late against MO. But typically it’s just bail bail bail. Again, I cannot imagine that is the stated plan. But then again I’m not in the room, so I suppose it’s possible. But what “scheme” would that even be? Give up a first on purpose to……what? Toney or any other DC has no motivation to NOT stop 3rd downs, so again, there is no rationale that supports intentional schemes like these.
So we are not trying to suck on purpose, just sucking at trying to do the right thing. Toney’s defense is the worst in the SEC in all categories by which you judge a defense. It is also dead last in the country in 3rd down conversion. Those things should never happen at UF. We are too big a school with too many resources in place, drawing from the biggest talent pool in the country to ever be the worst at anything. Grantham never ranked worst at anything, and the AD basically had to force Mullen to can him. Toney MUST do something with this bye week.
Would love to know about our safety play as well. Also, good OCs should tailor games to exploit weakness, i.e. put Miller in coverage. Curious why we continue to pass off receivers we know he can't cover instead of trying to scheme against that and playing right into what they want. Not as concerned with our offense but again as pointed out, we run what we run instead of exploiting weakness in kind.
