Doug Mathews secondary suggestion

#76
#76
Helton1 said:
For the guys who know football, could Slaughter make a decent DB or is he stuck at safety? Remember him playing a decent bit his first year and has fallen off quickly since then.
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They have him at safety/star. He was barely mentioned in any practice reports this summer. It was strange.
 
#78
#78
Stevo1 said:
This. We play what appears to be a "soft zone" most of the time. If the QB has time, he just waits for the receiver to get into the open spot, add to that our lack of speed and for whatever reason, inability to make a tackle in the secondary, and you get what UF did to us the whole game. Maybe the game plan was to play zone and keep an eye on Richardson, I don't know, but our defense was much more aggressive against Pitt. Play man and bring more pressure...its more risky, but I'd rather get burnt trying to get to the QB than by allowing the QB to hit wide open receivers.
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I definitely think they were guarding against the run but I also think they should have adjusted to what Florida was doing especially in the fourth quarter when they had to throw, we just kept on defending against him running while he was killing us in the air, idk, maybe if we changed things up he would have hurt us with his legs but just seems we should have dialed up more pressure at the very least
 
#79
#79
For me, the biggest concern on D is our inability to adjust during a game. Last year vs Ole Miss, anytime they were faced with 3rd or 4th and more than 1 or 2, they would spread the field and allowed their QB to keep it. We always countered with 5 in the box and Ole Miss had 5 blockers + the QB. We were out numbered every single time. I kept watching for the adjustment to get us to even numbers but it never happened. Ole Miss converted most of those situations if not all. Sat vs Florida, we never seemed to adjust and allow someone to guard a receiver. All game long, we let em catch it and then attempted to tackle. It didn't matter if it was a 5 yard route or 30 yard route, we let em catch it. Looks like a coaching issue to me but I'm an arm chair QB.
 
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#80
#80
vols2345 said:
I think our secondary will be fine. Nothing like live reps to improve yourself. Idk why people think these young men cant improve as the season goes lol
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I think it’s because they have been here 2-3 years already and they are probably about as good as they are going to get.
 
#83
#83
Vfl2407 said:
He didn’t mince words on his Sunday morning radio show.
Said the secondary is just not SEC caliber. Said he’d rather see untested but more athletic freshmen see more playing time than the veterans.
Also thinks we should move some wide receivers to the secondary during the bye week.
Maybe go to a 4-3-4 instead of the current 4-2-5.
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You don't just move wide receivers to the secondary week 4.The 2020 DBs were all 3 star players. Not sure they are going to do much there either. We have what we have and we are not winning an NC or even the East this year unless the rest of our team is so good they carry these guys. We have awesome guys coming in to help and it will take a couple of years to feel those benefits. Rome wasn't built overnight, but it seems part of it may have been when looking at the rest of our team. We should be very happy with what we have, hope our O and rest of D can keep it up and continue to improve and just hope our secondary can find something else in themselves. I mean Hadden... Good lord he his really bad right now.
 
#84
#84
37620VOL said:
But Heupel has said (and it makes more sense) that he wants to be aggressive on D. Force turnovers and negative plays; take chances.

"Keep it in front of us" style 12-play drives keeps his offense off the field. That is precisely what he doesn't want, and it's exactly what the opponent does want.

I think the UF game was a calculus that AR could not beat us if we keep him in the pocket, make him read coverage, and complete tough throws. I think that gameplan was errant. Yes, we should have kept him in the pocket, but we also needed to bring 5/6. Bring LBs, bring safeties, bring corners, mix it up while having the DL keep contain and collapse that pocket right in his face. I think he would have struggled to make the quick reads. As it was, AR had more than enough time to read the field, set his feet, and made some excellent throws against the weakest area of our defense.
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I think this is a great post.
 
#85
#85
Vfl2407 said:
He didn’t mince words on his Sunday morning radio show.
Said the secondary is just not SEC caliber. Said he’d rather see untested but more athletic freshmen see more playing time than the veterans.
Also thinks we should move some wide receivers to the secondary during the bye week.
Maybe go to a 4-3-4 instead of the current 4-2-5.
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We listened to the show on the way back from Knoxville. My main takeaway with his observations about the secondary: we just don’t have the players and/or the athleticism on the back end. We don’t play either zone or man well at all. Guys out of position too often. Little situational awareness. We didn’t get a hand on a FL pass one time, except for the final interception. And, finally, we are terrible at tackling in the secondary.

Plenty of room for improvement. And we have 13 days to work on these things before LSU. We might see some new blood out there come game time.
 
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#86
#86
Moving wr isn't going to help right now. Kids don't just switch positions in the SEC and become game changers. That takes some time. Tyler Byrd was a very good cb coming out of highschool and he played several years at wr and he couldn't make the switch back.
 
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#87
#87
Hadden is actually decent as a cover corner. Maybe should swap out the safeties for the two transfers? I think the main thing though is the game plan this time was to contain Richardson and make him throw it to beat us. When he got out of the pocket we were more scared of losing contain and lost the WRs.

Anyway, I hope they get some people healthy and clean it up this week. I am still enjoying this win though, going to watch replay later this evening.
 
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#88
#88
EtowahVol said:
Dudes it's the coach. Matthews knows the problem but want call out the name. Willie Martinez. He was the worst when butch was here. Couldn't coach um up then can't now. Go look at his Bio longest he stay anywhere is 2 to 3 yrs. Some of you older guys help me back several years ago we had a group of DB's that led the SEC and I think the nation for the season that had over 20 INT's for the year. Who was the coach?
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Martinez put something like 6 DBs in the NFL under butch. Had former 2 star 150 pound Emmanuel Moseley start day one and was one of the most efficient slot corners in the country as a true freshman. When recruiting fell off and Martinez left and was replaced by Charlton Warren is when our DBs got really bad under butch. Martinez was one of Butch's most productive coaches.
 
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#89
#89
Secondary is soft and they don't know how to play zone pass coverage. You have to go with the receiver when he passes through your zone, you can't just find a spot and sit there.
 
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#90
#90
We don’t have the talent needed in the secondary, help us on the way if you pay attention to recruiting. Defensive secondary is slow, it doesn’t really matter what scheme you run if you don’t have the horses. These kids do play hard, it’s not for lack of effort.
 
#91
#91
EtowahVol said:
Dudes it's the coach. Matthews knows the problem but want call out the name. Willie Martinez. He was the worst when butch was here. Couldn't coach um up then can't now. Go look at his Bio longest he stay anywhere is 2 to 3 yrs. Some of you older guys help me back several years ago we had a group of DB's that led the SEC and I think the nation for the season that had over 20 INT's for the year. Who was the coach?
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Defensive coordinator was Ken Donahue and defensive backs coach was Ron Zook and defensive backs included Chris White ( 9 int's ) and Charles Davis ( 3 int's ) with a total of 22 interceptions. 1985.
I think we had either 2 or 3 Testaverde interceptions in the Sugar Bowl vs Miami 1986.
 
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#92
#92
norrislakevol said:
It was the scheme more than anything. We stubbornly stuck with soft zone coverage even after Florida was having success. We went after their running game and shut it down. Gave up a ton through the air.
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It’s not just scheme. We don’t have the speed or athletic ability to close on a ball that’s laid up in the air either. There was plenty of plays to be had yesterday with zone.
 
#94
#94
Replace Hadden and somehow get Flowers to stop getting trucked 3-4 times a game and we'd be at least average.
 
#96
#96
VolNRaleighNC said:
Hadden is abysmal. Should be playing flag football somewhere because he doesn’t want to or just flat out can’t tackle.
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CAVPUT said:
Same with Flowers. He's nothing but speed bump. Kid gets trucked almost ever weekend. Can't tackle worth a crap either.
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I think you guys are on with the problem with both scheme and individual issues right now. Even with the issues that Burrell has shown, it is now evident why he was starting over Hadden. We lost our best CB and best Star as well. Hadden has good talent, he just seems to be thinking to much and getting himself out of position. This is a good selling point for new recruits as playing time is almost a given for talent. Let's see what happens this bye week with what we need the secondary to do. They have a lot of tape to show what they did wrong.
 
#97
#97
GoVols64 said:
The 4-2-5 is a good scheme and plays well against a pass happy team (which it seems is everyone these days). Its weak link is that it can be vulnerable to the run so you basically count on stud safeties to act as hybrid LB/DBs. You can run a myriad of coverages and blitz schemes out of it too which is nice. So scheme is not the issue in full, it is execution. Moving to a 4-3 or 3-4 scheme only puts more pressure on the secondary so not sure that is the answer.

DBs were playing very soft and did not have elite closing speed when the ball was in the air. Part of that is AR has a cannon and part of it is slow reaction to threats in zone. This is likely, as the broadcast called out, a focus on AR to avoid letting him get a head of steam.

DBs also struggled to press the WRs off the line. You have to disrupt the route and timing; didn't see that happening much (lack of speed?).

DB talent is questionable in all honesty. As someone else pointed out a few AR passes floated and should have been broken up fairly easily by either the CB or Safety. The 4th down against Hadden comes to mind. It was 1v1 and he was beat (playing the short route) allowing a good (but floaty) pass to complete 20-30 yards downfield. In all honesty that was a great play by the Gators. Quick pass avoids pressure, accurate throw makes it essential to stay over your man and we did not do that.

Martinez is a good coach (and I have been on a defense he coached). He is smart, passionate and produces good results. A lot of the moves for college position coaches are based on the HC or coordinator changes; not all are performance related. UGA was pretty good under his watch. I believe the move to DC was not the best for him and he enjoys being a position coach but that is my opinion.

Coaching a player to perform to the best of their ability is their job. If that ceiling is low you have to run a safe scheme that minimizes risk. As your talent level improves you can put guys on an island and be more aggressive (like Bama, UGA, OSU etc.). We will get there but, for now, I think we need to count on the guys we have improving.

GBO!
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Exactly! You cannot run a 4-2-5 without safeties and we don’t have a good one on the roster.
 
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#99
#99
vols2345 said:
this is just a false statement.
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I was actually being generous.
Slaughter. Jr
Flowers. Sr
McCollough. Sr
Dee Williams. Jr
Burrell. Sr
McDonald Jr
There are about 10 others listed on the roster who have never seen the field. They are all Fr and So. Maybe those are the ones you are referring to. I was talking about the ones that actually play.
 
#100
#100
Ashevillevol said:
I was actually being generous.
Slaughter. Jr
Flowers. Sr
McCollough. Sr
Dee Williams. Jr
Burrell. Sr
McDonald Jr
There are about 10 others listed on the roster who have never seen the field. They are all Fr and So. Maybe those are the ones you are referring to. I was talking about the ones that actually play.
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Did dee williams and burrell play vs florida?
 
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