Our Defense is too Complex

dark rum finished in bourbon (or sherrey) barrels

 

Wow, this thread is doing a good job in teaching the rest of us a "Defense 101 Course"!
I like the insight and the competing opinions.

 

Our defensive schemes are good. Talent and experience aren't there yet. Depth is an issue.

Guys jogging to the ball is concerning. They'll eventually get replaced with better players.

 

I watched the 2nd quarter this morning and my re-watch confirms the OP.
We are failing at simply lining up.
Mizzou's first TD was a simple run to the left side of the line.
The RB got past the line and there was NO ONE there.
He had an easy path for a 40 yard TD but he could have gone 70. He was untouched.

There was a critical 3rd and 7 after the Mertz INT where Mizzou ran a simple option play and gained 34 yards. It set up a FG.
Before the play our defense was looking at the sidelines- completely lost.
The ran to the right and 19 I think took the QB and let the RB run free- no one covered the pitch man!
34 yards!

So yes- I think the OP is onto something.

 

Good job so far . . . talk schemes, talk results, but these kids are all Gators, and mostly very young Gators, so no questioning effort or heart. We assume they're all trying their best and either certain lightbulbs just haven't lit up yet or they have a bad play at the most inopportune time. Thanks!

 

All it takes is one guy to make the wrong decision and any qb that can read the field has an easy play to make. Our players are young and even the older ones haven’t been with this defense very long. Sometimes the run or correctly and often times we have broken plays. We don’t have intimidating tacklers behind the los and we don’t have an elite pass rusher. Not a good combination. It’ll get better with time and talent both of which we are lacking.

 

That’s what young defenders in a new defense do.

 

This is true. We need a few top 5 classes in a row to return to seeing a great Gators D. I see a lot of nervous fans seeing an underwhelming D and pointing fingers. Still shellshocked from the past few years. Being a Gators fan not for pussies the last 10 years or so.

 

We need those top 5 classes to be legit national champion contenders no doubt. A few years of classes in the teens and the majority of the players playing together for 3-5 years will allow the cohesion to beat the average sec teams on our schedule.

 

A top 25 defense would make Saturdays a lot better.

 

Re-watching that 4-17 play … the defensive players were not bunched up at all. Castell backed out of the zone and Nunnery didn’t back into the zone, so the receiver was just wide open. Two guys messed up and I guess just forgot where the 1st down line was. That seems to be a recurring theme and as much as you want a 4* safety to know what to do (and he should this far into the season) Castell, being a true freshman, decided to cover the 4th and 35 play instead of the actual situation. The kid did not have a good game, unfortunately, and he was involved in most of the major mess ups. He’s a true freshman, and they do that. Sucks but this is just what happens when your best safety is a true freshman. I’m definitely not going to get down on Armstrong about scheme. Maybe it’s too complex for young guys … but that was ZONE. How much simpler can he make it? On a positive note I do think this will be a lot less of an issue next season.

 

I am going to point the finger where it feels the most correct: Napier and directed at the assistant coaches and what they need to focus on. Napier is obsessed with the "process" and right now, less about one-more-win than last year, which was disappointing. If he directs the coaches to make sure everything they want in their players isn't up to snuff, then they are removed from the rotation (see just about every receiver we have). But to me, it should be about who gets in first, then second, and finally third. When the non-ideal practice players get in and decide to ball, you play THEM and not the "ideal candidates." But like I said, it is ALL about the process in his first two seasons.

I know this is tangential to the thread, but someone needs to explain to me what is this thing called Max Brown and playing time? Not at any time this season did I see a sense of urgency to get a VERY viable Plan B QB weapon out there and get some valuable experience doing what HE does well (and not what Mertz does), unless Brown "blossomed" this past week or two. Highly unlikely.

So, two plausible scenarios: First, Napier is too pre-occupied with too many hats to get into serious QB talent evaluation during the season and so, he chose Mertz and that was that. That works (sort of) in the NFL. It is a DAMN BAD philosophy in college. But the next is not where I want it to go:

He is as stubborn with his "talent evaluation and putting players in play" as was Mullen. Brown was NOT Trask during the last spring game. Trask looked WAY better, especially when compared to what we saw in Franks. But still, he patently did NOT want Brown out there during real (not mop-up) action until he was forced to play him via injury. As I posted before, it all felt like Brown needed more seasoning this year to have won the game at Missouri and Senior Day. Why not, Napier???

 

Mertz has been really good all season and as much as I want Brown to ball Saturday I have a feeling we are going to find out why he doesn’t play a lot. I hope I’m wrong, will be happy to be proven completely clueless, but I think Napier knows what he’s doing and has a much better read on these guys than we do.

 

Zone requires decisions. Man is pretty simple.

 

Just need Brown to be solid and no turnovers. Move the sticks with his feet a few times and let playmakers do the work.

 

19 in no win takes 1st threat, hard to know what the defensive call was and who had what responsibility usually is CB or Safety because its impossible for LB to cover pitch unless its a replacement due to a blitz and responsibility changes.

FWIW all defense schemes should begin with the soundness test of how will we cover option (if you cant account for it by alignment) the defense isnt sound.

How many reps you devote weekly depends on likely hood of seeing it that week st least a minimal review of assignments during installation day.

 

Yes I have no idea if 19 played it correctly or not.
I DO know there was NO ONE on the pitch man- so he took it 34 yards and that led to 3 points.
I also know multiple players were looking at the sidelines when the ball was snapped.

 

I can agree to an extent early in the year say week 5-6 harder to give a pass with the tools at their disposal like the all 11 tv projection room where we can simulate game sets my assumption is multiple players can interact at the same time may by position groups would be an extension of valuable on field practice time.

This is a valuable tool to get presnap look and then ask about assignments, keys, favorite play/routes what if scenario and then roll the tape to gauge accuracy of the “guess” to enhance play recognition also allows us to critique alignment stance, 1st step etc all to make us more efficient in games wrt repetitions leading up to gameday.

 

Not an excuse but in basketball there is always talk of freshmen hitting a wall in the middle of the sec schedule the season grinds wears them out mentally. This very well be the case for a young kid playing the snaps he has in 2023 also correlates to the ip and down performance we see this season.

 

There’s a reason the good teams play very few freshmen and there’s a correlation with us playing the most.