Post-Game Ramblings – Cal
- Thread starter Godz40Acrez
- Start date
You're too close to the cliff, I don't think the TEAM is undisciplined nor unorganized.
Maybe. I do see a team that improved immensely offensively so it's not the same crap as last year, but we are still committing a ton of penalties and making a ton of mental mistakes. Take the hurried XP block against ND. That wasn't a fluke it was a combination of several poor decisions. Those aren't things that this team is going to quit doing from one week to the next, imo.
I agree. Mental errors are something we have seen from the beginning of the new staff till now. Talent is one thing mental errors are another. They have got to be cleaned up. False starts drive me bonkers....blocked extra points make me furious.
He's a little more detail:
"Cover 3 – Charlie Strong is a Cover 3 and zone-blitz (also 3-deep) guy. Cover 3 isn’t sexy, but it’s Strong’s strength. It’s also conservative, but can play similar to man-coverage as well, another Strong staple. From there, coverage can be rotated in such a way as to account for primary threats. Make the offense beat you with their 3rd or 4th best players. You can maintain your base by matching and or bracketing certain receivers as well. The bottom line, if you’re great at your base, you can work in wrinkles, small deviations.
Cover 1 – This one is obvious, as it relates to Cover 3, but places the defensive backs in man-coverage with a single-high safety. Again, subtle alterations can be made from week to week, including bringing pressure from this look. It’s a bit riskier, but I think Texas has the talent to match-up against most opponents.
Cover 2 – , Texas doesn’t run a lot of Cover 2, but when they do, they sure find ways to make it awful. The few times I’ve seen them run it well was when they match the receivers underneath (in man), what’s called 2-man. From there, they can decide to rush four or drop another and rush 3. This should be reserved forsituational use only, as the defense hasn’t shown much consistency with it at all. It also places an extra athlete away from the ball when he can be applying pressure or doubling a threat.
Packages – In my mind, they are doing too much. I didn’t mind seeing a corner at the nickel position, but I imagine it’s difficult having a player like PJ Locke play both the nickel and linebacker (in 6 defensive back personnel) in different packages. If the staff trusts Locke at nickel, leave him there to master it. Until then, don’t ask him to do anything else, just my opinion. Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of situational packages, but they should stem from having players who’ve mastered the base. It doesn’t appear they’ve done that, yet.
Pressure – Back to being aggressive and attack-minded, the Texas defense needs to send numbers. This includes from the corner and safety positions. Again, one of Strong’s babies is the zone-blitz, which can come in many forms. Want to make things simpler, arrange to have secondary support players prepared to attack the run and the quarterback with reckless abandon.
Front 6… This is where things get interesting and the most tinkering’s been done. It seems the staff got personnel-happy with the fronts too. Against Notre Dame we saw a twist, Jordan Elliott at 3-3 SDE. Hager was deployed in different spots as well, against all three opponents. Against Cal, a front including Malcolm Roach at WDE, Poona Ford at NT, and Naashon Hughes at SDE. What gives? It’s been a strange milieu, that’s for sure. That said, my takeaways are as follows.
3-3… I didn’t think I’d find myself saying this, but I think the 3-3 is the best way forward and I have several reasons that I’ll get into. Mainly, the defensive line has been a pleasant surprise. The veterans are all playing well and the newcomers have also shown they can hold their own, that is Malcolm Roach, Jordan Elliott, and Gerald Wilbon. If continual improvement is achieved here, this could be where the defense’s heart lies. There’s currently an odd mix of versatile players who I feel can augment each others’ strengths."
