Legitimate question about defensive failure

#27
#27
I think you couple the fact that all the quality depth we had along the front 7 were injured with the fact that they played the equivalent of an extra game in terms of amount of snaps over the last 3 games...shoot, seems to me there's your problem. They were f-ing worn out! The DB's didn't have the legs to cover worth damn and the front 7 couldn't get off blocks to save their lives. No wonder we were gashed by 3 mediocre offenses. Oh and bad angles to the ball carriers.
 
#28
#28
Sea Ray said:
I hate to say this but we need to consider all possibilities...Is it possible that we have dumb players who don't have the IQ to learn Shoop's system?
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RIGHT!! I have been saying this for years. Dbacks look slow because they don't understand what to do until it's too late. Not sure if it's coaching or not. We've had more than a few in the last few years. Surely one or two of them could teach. Personally I think it's not smart enough players over the long haul. We have a far dback like Cam come along once in a while (note fair) and he looks like a world beater because he seems so much smarter than those around him. This is not to say these kids are not smart in the normal sense, just not football smart. The have been playing on athletic gifts until college. Now everyone has athletic gifts and football sense.
 
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#29
#29
ptcarter said:
Great thread. I like Shoop. If he was a buffoon, it would have been exposed at previous stops.

Won't beat the horse and get long winded. Couple of things to add to the discussion:

(This came out in a previous post/article and I couldn't find it). Count the number of snaps this defense was on the field in the 3 games prior to Vandy. Over a 4 game stretch, this is a factor. The inability to get off the field on 3rd down just killed this bunch.

Also - if you listen to Doug Mathews radio show - he (as a backseat driver) said he would be inclined to throw some of our offensive ballers (like Jennings and Byrd(?)) at safety and see what happened. Jennings was on defense for 1 play and tied 2nd place for most interceptions, in just 1 dang play.

Of course they didn't do that, but I thought it was a good idea.

I cut Shoop some slack. If you have a couple of guys on the field that can get burned easily, opponents pick on those guys. Whether they were physically outmatched or whether they have given up (Foreman).. they were burned. Even Sutton got burned against Vandy.

Just seemed like Vandy wanted it more and that's the part we all hate.
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Talking about Jennings. Is he not a coach's son. Seems I have heard this. Either way (is or isn't) he has the football smarts I was just talking about in post above.
 
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#30
#30
SaintLouieVol said:
The previous five seasons before coming to UT (three at Vandy/two at PSU), 2011-2015, Bob Shoop’s defenses’ national ranking in total defense were: 18th,19th, 23rd, 2nd & 14th or an average of 15th in the nation over those 5 years. This year at UT his defense ranks at 109th. While everyone can agree that the defense has been atrocious, I have, to date, not seen a “reasonable” explanation of how/why this coach’s defense dropped 94 slots in national ranking. Most will agree that athletic talent at UT is superior to what he had at Vandy and at least comparable to what he had at PSU. Almost every knowledgeable media outlet called this a great hire when it was first announced. So the question is, unless he had a full frontal lobotomy before stepping on campus at UT, what happened? Some will answer injuries, which certainly contributed, but cannot be the sole cause of such a precipitous fall. Was Shoop hand-cuffed by CBJ? Or was it something else entirely? Really curious to hear what others think.
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Don't know about the complexity of his system but will tell you from an (old) exlinebacker that our injuries to our defensive front created a situation that is exceedingly difficult to overcome. If our bigs don't get push it disrupts flow to the ball. If the bigs get pushed back it creates massive run lanes. We sold out against the run against Vandy thinking their QB couldn't beat us and he had one hell of a game. It's always next man up but we simply ran out of tackles and had to plug in defensive ends that were undersized by 30 to 50 pounds. It's really difficult to scheme your way out of this without sacrificing elsewhere. Shoops numbers don't lie. I believe he is a really good DC. Let's just see how next year goes.
 
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#31
#31
All of these are wonderful ideas ...but the biggest reason is injury . The reason for all the injuries ? The inordinate amount of reps . They were on the field more than almost any other defensive unit in the game. The more reps, the more chance of injury. The more week to week fatigue and micro injury, the more chance of major injury. The more injuries there were, the more exponential the reps were on the guys still standing. Why were they on the field so much ?

The offense either went 3 and out , or scored extraordinarily fast , or turned the ball over ( they led the nation ! )

So I am in favor of retaining butch rather than suffer the years of 'suck' that will be with a new 'year o'. I am critical , and he uses the term complimentary football an awful lot to not understand this. The arena league approach is not sustainable unless you can get a large lead upfront and then slow the came down to a ball control approach with 6-8 minute drives that end in scores...and keep your defense off the field
 
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