I was 98.6% sure that's what he meant, but you know every now and then Casey fractures a syllable or two. :wave: Seems like our LB's and DB's are looking to the sidelines for signals while the play clock ticks towards zero. Not good.
Miscommunication from the sideline & failure to get the plays in falls on the coaches, but blown assignments & miscommunications between the DB's are the fault of the players.
Blitzes do not have to be disguised to be effective. The only DB I see getting burnt is Jai Eugene & alot of times the Safeties aren't giving the help they should be. Yup.
This is my main point & one nobody seems to be really addressing. Any defense will struggle with an offense that continually turns the ball over & puts the defense in poor position. And any DC will have blown assignments when you have young DB's.
Miles addressed it well today. He said he sees players shucking their discipline in attempt to make big plays getting burned. They will stay sound 3 plays in a row, and then get outside their responsibilities. Perhaps there were some late play calling but I did not see any real mismatches in the Georgia game. Just players not staying home and taking care of business. Players like Stafford and Moreno will exploit that every time. Not sure how you fix that. I got the impression that Bo was pretty intense and maybe some of that is lacking? Probably doesn't help that Mallory still coaches his position, instead of only being the DC. I think there can be improvements across the board. At least, there better be.
The explosive plays (20+ yds) are the big difference. We would not have allowed near the amount we are allowing right now if Pelini was still here.
Ok, I'll say it. I think this part of the equation is blown out of porportion. When the defense set foot on the field for the 1st time, the score was 7-7, which is no different than 0-0. They gave up a 14 play 78 yard drive and got pushed around. The defense wasn't "in a hole" like some have said. They weren't tired, they weren't under any more pressure than any other opening possesion of any game. Second possesion, they again go 70 plus and get a TD. All of Georgia's TD drives were pretty long (78, 71, 72, 68, 63). These were not the results of bad field position. This just our defense being unable to come up with that key stop to kill drives, and failure to force turnovers. In UGA's previous 3 games, they only went on a total of 4 drives of 60+ that went for TDs. We gave up 5 of those. Stafford had thrown 5 picks over that stretch, we didn't get any.
Well in defense of the players, I don't see a lack of talent at any position. I really don't see us getting straight up beaten often, but I do see a lot of Dbs breaking off coverage and LBs just flat running into the back of tackles and ends. Is it not obvious when you see a wall of meat in front of you, you pick a side and go there? Seems like all of those plays are the result of the same things, or in some cases, just poor tackling. I do think this last game was a wake up call for Miles and his coordinators. They can't trade the players, but they can sure change the staff.
Let's not get things all twisted here people. As CParso alluded to, Kentucky and Arkansas scored 28 and 27 respectively in regulation. Lots of key people were hurt last year and we still managed to keep it together. Thanks to Pelini. Watch the replay of the Florida and Georgia game. Notice linebackers and safeties and corners all running around as if they have no clue what their assignment is. Totally embarrassing. I have rarely seen that under Pelini. Under Pelini, it was just a DB getting beat (usually McCray). Arkansas got to us cuz of a couple of guys named McFadden and Jones and a coach named Nutt. Kentucky had one of the finest dropback passers in all of college football last year and a key DB got hurt in the 2nd half for LSU and we got torched. You've seen the talent of Hawkins and Eugene covering people. They are more than capable of doing their jobs. The blitz schemes are too predictable and the zone coverage is just an abomination at this point and should be scrapped. It's just time to face it. These Co-DCs are in over their head. We have one more strike to go, Bama. Three strikes on D....well you know the rest.
