With a naked eye, everyone wants to point toward the secondary, Jones said. Well, thats not how pass defense works. Its all 11 individuals, and it starts up front. It starts up front with generating the pass rush. It starts up front with our get-off off the ball, the use of our hands. It starts with the second level, with our linebackers, and then the third level is our secondary.
And we did not play well defensively at all in the game, and we had some individuals do some uncharacteristic things.
Jones said Bowling Green quarterback Matt Johnson and his receivers simply made good plays in many cases during Saturdays game. At other times, Jones said his team gave Johnson too much time to throw.
Sometimes it was a really good quarterback making a great throw and the receiver making a great play, and other times it was maybe us not generating a pass rush, Jones said.
Playing great pass defense, theres a lot of working parts and pieces and components. And everyone wants to look at the secondary, because thats what they see. They see the end of the play. But theres a lot of things that go in at the beginning of the play, as well.
Mental errors, poor fundamentals and techniques, and occasionally even a lack of effort, Jones said, also were issues at times.
It gets back to that baseline performance, and our players take pride in their performance, he said. They understand that, and the great thing is we can work to correct the problems this week. But it wasnt just the secondary. And football, its played by good players. Theyre going to throw the ball up a 50-50 ball; thats why theyre called 50-50 balls and theyre going to make plays.
Everybodys on scholarship. I dont have a problem if youre in man coverage and, hey, the opponent makes a great play, and its a great throw and its a great catch. Its football. Its sport. You line up and you compete. You snap and clear, and you play the next snap.
But if we have a mental error, if we have a lack of effort, lack of fundamentals or technique, thats where we have the issues and the problems. And it was a combination of both.
