I hate the death by 1000 cuts D, so I would give it back to Armstrong, I'm sure most would disagree. The bend over and break defense is worse to watch than coin flip 3 and out or 70 TD IMO. I can't believe all these coaches have truly lost the ability to coach, it makes no sense. It's time to use the old addition by subtraction method starting at the top. Throw shit at the wall and see what sticks, the opposite of the process. Edit: 37 minutes and 46 seconds of watch the defense suck 7 years with commercials added.
From the film review, it isn’t close. Armstrong had players in position to make a play last year, and they couldn’t make them. This year under Roberts, they aren’t even in position to make a play most of the time. His play calls aren’t helping the players look good and personnel decisions are questionable at best. But personnel decisions seem to be a team-wide issue, as performance doesn’t appear to impact playing time at all. The LB injuries last year had us in a hole. I think with the LBs we have this year, having Armstrong call the defense would work out better. Because once James was out at LB last year, the defense fell off a cliff.
Defense is abysmal either way. That's not going to change. They all ran the same system and it sucks. I was for firing him immediately after TAMU. He is the worst coach we've had in my lifetime (although screw Doug Dickey). Now I feel like it is a done deal so there is no need to rush. We get to use the time wisely and fire him at our leisure when we feel like we have a better handle on how to approach his buyout and use the Rashada stuff, how we are going to go about a coaching search, whether are we firing SS and I'm sure a whole host of things. And we didn't have to worry about running the team because this years die is cast anyway. We all want him gone NOW but I think that is mainly because we are so pissed about what's happened. But I see no benefit in doing it until we are comfortable and that may be next week. Actually, I see one benefit and that is being able to say it is over. The big downside is it speeds up the raid on our players because other schools can contact them presumably and it opens the window for the portal.
You believe Roberts came in and tried to change the system? I imagined he's here to call the same Defense but better than Armstrong. End of day, doesn't matter, Napier hired two inadequate DCs.
It's Roberts system, that was the whole rationale. Bring in the teacher because the student couldn't get it done last year. Well IMO the student had surpassed the teacher because we look as though we don't care to stop drives, just don't get beat deep, and doing neither.
Maybe he's strategically making poor hires just so there's nobody to replace him. Only reasonable explanation I've seen so far for his hiring although I'm sure that's not it
The scheme may be the same, but the play calls are different. Passive versus aggressive. The play calls by Roberts aren’t putting players in position to make plays. Armstrong’s play calls last year did, but once James went down, the defense was cooked.
It's wild that Roberts is somehow worse. I don't think the firing Billy timeline matters all that much but if they fire Roberts with him maybe our defense would improve a little...
TBH, IF we are running a new, different, revised scheme, would last year's have been any better? I do not know. But it would appear we cannot get our players coached up and ready to play Defense regardless. Once this segment of ongoing nightmares is over, we'll probably hear some things that may or may not be true. End of the day, the entire staff was forced not to be good and get their units prepared or Napier hired a group of assistants that, apparently, cannot coordinate from top down to position units. Feels like we all have been bamboozled.
Our problems this season could be that Roberts really is in charge and blowing it mightily. Hard to know. From Steven Harris's comments, they all are. But lets say Roberts is in charge and Napier sees the results so far. What's he doing about it? We know the answer. I foresee our Defense becoming frustrated and players just start making plays, playing football, doing what they believe they need to do to make plays. Maybe?
If the bolded happens, then we will most likely look worse. Part of our issue the past two years is players not playing their assignments, which leaves a gap in the defense. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem players get benched or yelled at by the coaches for doing that, so it continues to happen. There doesn’t appear to be any consequence for bad play, or reward for playing well, as players continue to get snaps and rotated in/out during the game no matter what.
Agreed but also, if they are out of position, is that because they are doing what was coached, or not? We really don't know if they are just playing the way they were told, or doing the wrong things but were never coached out of. Definitely a mystery.
Sure you're not wrong, but at the end of the day who is responsible for making sure players know how to tackle? I complained all year about lack of fundamental skills like tackling. Bad tackling game 1 and 2, fine. Same issues game 11 with no measurable improvement? No fine. As much as people harp on winning championships the job is actually improving your players week over week for 4 years (or as long as they stay). Typically winning is associated with this.
For those that think the talent level is fine, explain why pup Howard couldn’t get on the field at South Carolina and, yet, he is one of our best players on defense. I think it’s realistic to assume we have personnel and coaching deficiencies.
and watch, wherever he lands at next after UF, assuringly, let’s him go….he’ll be the OC and QB coach there too.
