Legitimate question about defensive failure

[SaintLouieVol]

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.

 

[Glocker_Alum_2005]

I have heard he (Shoop) couldn't bring in his own assistants, and that his system is "complicated" and it might take a year to get the knowledge level up. But mostly injuries. We lost 20 players on Defense. Most significantly JRM. Loosing our main MLB (Defensive Signal Caller) - hamstrung us. The defense took a huge nose dive after JRM went out. We had to play a less talented player, Jumper, because he was (reportedly) the only player who knew what how to line up the defense. Danny Obrien getting kicked off along with Shy and McKenzie being lost for the year left us with only one true DT. All of that exposed our inexperienced secondary. I think that about sums it up.

 

[QuickSmurf]

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.

Imo he had less experience on the field, backups after injuries etc, here than at those schools.

 

[Chilmonty]

I really Do Not think we lose to USCjr and Vandy if JRM, Tuttle and Mckenzie are on the field the entire season, JMO!!




.

 

[dhb92]

I have heard he (Shoop) couldn't bring in his own assistants, and that his system is "complicated" and it might take a year to get the knowledge level up. But mostly injuries. We lost 20 players on Defense. Most significantly JRM. Loosing our main MLB (Defensive Signal Caller) - hamstrung us. The defense took a huge nose dive after JRM went out. We had to play a less talented player, Jumper, because he was (reportedly) the only player who knew what how to line up the defense. Danny Obrien getting kicked off along with Shy and McKenzie being lost for the year left us with only one true DT. All of that exposed our inexperienced secondary. I think that about sums it up.

These are 100% my thoughts and why I'm not down on Shoop (assuming he doen't bolt) for next year.

 

[EconVol92]

I think that Shoop has to get a pass for this year considering that it's his first year with all the injuries and not having his assistants come with him.

Any one of those three factors can be big, but with them all together I think that it is understandable.

 

[TuVol4u]

I really Do Not think we lose to USCjr and Vandy if JRM, Tuttle and Mckenzie are on the field the entire season, JMO!!




.

I also believe we would have had the aTm game with them in. Obviously 7 (or however many turnovers) it was we gave up, we still took it to overtime. A healthier defense probably would have tilted the game in our favor.

 

[SaintLouieVol]

I have heard he (Shoop) couldn't bring in his own assistants, and that his system is "complicated" and it might take a year to get the knowledge level up. But mostly injuries. We lost 20 players on Defense. Most significantly JRM. Loosing our main MLB (Defensive Signal Caller) - hamstrung us. The defense took a huge nose dive after JRM went out. We had to play a less talented player, Jumper, because he was (reportedly) the only player who knew what how to line up the defense. Danny Obrien getting kicked off along with Shy and McKenzie being lost for the year left us with only one true DT. All of that exposed our inexperienced secondary. I think that about sums it up.

Agree with all your points. Most troubling aspect of this is that our depth was not nearly what we expected.

 

[Vol4ever]

Barnett said injuries was not the issue. :shades:

 

[basspond]

Makes me think of Remember the Titans. Coach Boone (HC and OC) and Yoast (DC) were down in the game and Yoast decided to take over and told the Defense "It's on me". This was his defense and they would play by his commands and no one else. Maybe a lesson in there for CBJ.

 

[jakez4ut]

historically, Shoop has pretty drastic improvement year 1 to year 2. and there's no where to go but up at this point....

injuries, while i won't say are an excuse, did happen, and did impact the overall performance. if nothing else, it really halted development and teaching that might happen normally during the course of the season. when you're constantly revamping the defensive roster, not knowing necessarily who's going to play....that presents a challenge in just getting a game plan in....and you do so, maybe not accounting for strengths/weaknesses of a particular player....

LB's were a problem from day 1, and a 4-2-5 is not the desired formation. then you lose your 2 best LB's....and another back up( sapp)....and another back up (McDowell)....all the sudden Colton Jumper is your best player.

the secondary.....was just awful. i took it for granted, i just thought there's plenty of talent and experience, nothing to worry about.....no one got any better, and you can argue that they all regressed. especially MF, EM and JM...i'm on board with allowing Martinez to go work for the competition....

and then you go from having a very solid DT rotation with DO, KM and ST....to KV and reserve DE's playing out of position.......the DL the last 3-4 weeks was a shell of its former self.

add it all up, and you get inexperienced players making tons of mistakes, missing assignments, blowing coverages, and not communicating properly, or understanding what they're supposed to be doing in a given situation.

once blocked, we stay blocked. we don't cover worth a darn, we tackle high.

the bulk of the issues this defense has are teaching issues....so either shoop needs to get more involved with the position coaches so they're teaching his defense the way he wants it taught, or he needs to be allowed to make changes and bring in the teachers he wants.

either way....

also, the idea of complimentary football...the offense wasn't always the defense's best friend. while we score a lot of points at times....but we go 3 and out a lot, punt a lot and led the SEC in turnovers. that's a lot of extra possessions we gave to opponents, and more time on the field for the defense.....

all of it cumulatively gets you where we are today on defense.

 

[Fijivol72]

I just do not believe the total lack of defense can solely be blamed on injuries. We may have had the worse line backing corp in the SEC, and I saw no evidence Jumper could set the alignment. We never looked set on defense almost never. Because of poor tackling by our front seven our defensive backs had way to much run support duties to play legit pass defense. I have said all year Shoop should be on the field, stopping some of the miscommunications. But in my book Shoop doesn't get a pass, he never set the edge all season and we sure as hell should have played our best athletes instead of going all year with say a Jumper who can't shed blocks,and gets pushed around like a rag doll. Plus I never saw any damn improvement from people who were next up, they just did not improve. Shoop must take responsibility for this lack of progress.

 

[56vol]

I have heard many times and I am beginning to believe it now that CBJ micromanages the coordinators and will not let them do their job. From all indications CBJ will be here at least one more year. I think Shoop can get the job done but he must have some tools ie coaches that understand and can teach his system. CBJ must be smart enough to see that what he is doing now is not working. We must have an offensive coor. with a good line coach. The DC must also have a good line coach and other position coaches. CBJ needs to let the coordinators go after the people they want and let them do their job and quit micro-managing everyone. He is a terrible game coach.

 

[Sea Ray]

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?

 

[Glocker_Alum_2005]

As brought up by other posters, Butch,like Dabo could be successful being the CEO and Brick by Brick face man/great recruiter, but he doesn't seem the type.

 

[YorkVol]

historically, Shoop has pretty drastic improvement year 1 to year 2. and there's no where to go but up at this point....

injuries, while i won't say are an excuse, did happen, and did impact the overall performance. if nothing else, it really halted development and teaching that might happen normally during the course of the season. when you're constantly revamping the defensive roster, not knowing necessarily who's going to play....that presents a challenge in just getting a game plan in....and you do so, maybe not accounting for strengths/weaknesses of a particular player....

LB's were a problem from day 1, and a 4-2-5 is not the desired formation. then you lose your 2 best LB's....and another back up( sapp)....and another back up (McDowell)....all the sudden Colton Jumper is your best player.

the secondary.....was just awful. i took it for granted, i just thought there's plenty of talent and experience, nothing to worry about.....no one got any better, and you can argue that they all regressed. especially MF, EM and JM...i'm on board with allowing Martinez to go work for the competition....

and then you go from having a very solid DT rotation with DO, KM and ST....to KV and reserve DE's playing out of position.......the DL the last 3-4 weeks was a shell of its former self.

add it all up, and you get inexperienced players making tons of mistakes, missing assignments, blowing coverages, and not communicating properly, or understanding what they're supposed to be doing in a given situation.

once blocked, we stay blocked. we don't cover worth a darn, we tackle high.

the bulk of the issues this defense has are teaching issues....so either shoop needs to get more involved with the position coaches so they're teaching his defense the way he wants it taught, or he needs to be allowed to make changes and bring in the teachers he wants.

either way....

also, the idea of complimentary football...the offense wasn't always the defense's best friend. while we score a lot of points at times....but we go 3 and out a lot, punt a lot and led the SEC in turnovers. that's a lot of extra possessions we gave to opponents, and more time on the field for the defense.....

all of it cumulatively gets you where we are today on defense.

Agree with this. Mistake number one was not bringing in some of his own guys to help teach the techniques needed to run his defense.

Mistake number two was Shoop deciding to keep the terminology in place, rather than put his own in. This must have led to a lot of confusion with him learning the terms and the assistants and players trying to understand what he really wanted when he called something. You could almost see the confusion as the players looked to the sideline almost up to the point where the QB was about to snap the ball.

Did he only get it taught to his 1st and 2nd teams? If so that would make the impact of injuries even more dramatic. I'm sure the replacements didn't get the same number of reps so it wasn't second hand to them. That means they were thinking too much and reacting too slowly. We saw that a lot and teams put up a lot of yards and points because of it.

And, yes, our football wasn't very complimentary. Even when we scored, we rarely had 6 or 7 minute drives. We scored fast, which put the defense back on the field with little rest. And we saw a lot of big plays by our opponents, which also would tire our defense. So, tired, over thinking, under prepared and confused does not make for a high quality defense.

 

[jakez4ut]

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?

no, not in the quantity that would lead to a performance like we've seen.

when you get down to the 3rd, 4th and 5th level on your depth chart...things get dicey. those are the guys that need the most development and teaching, and usually are the youngest guys on the roster.

this year, those guys were asked to play meaningful snaps in meaningful games.

if there is a silver lining, they have plenty of film to learn from going forward...especially from a technique, dowan distance situation, and formation understanding standpoint....their development, while not necessarily the most desirable way, got put in to warp speed this year.

now...what they do with it over this off season....that's the real question.

 

[fernandomike]

We are really bad at defensive tackle. This means not only are we vulnerable to the run, but we are also horrible in coverage since the secondary has to take on added responsibility.
Derek Barnett was relentless, but the most difficult pressure for quarterbacks comes from the middle. Remember seeing any pressure up the middle from us?
Shoop takes a hit on the development piece, but injuries to too many guys playing important roles have a lot to do with our struggles. Specifically, the guys in the middle.

 

[Sea Ray]

I'm wondering if Shoop's system only works at brainy schools.

 

[jakez4ut]

Agree with this. Mistake number one was not bringing in some of his own guys to help teach the techniques needed to run his defense.

Mistake number two was Shoop deciding to keep the terminology in place, rather than put his own in. This must have led to a lot of confusion with him learning the terms and the assistants and players trying to understand what he really wanted when he called something. You could almost see the confusion as the players looked to the sideline almost up to the point where the QB was about to snap the ball.

Did he only get it taught to his 1st and 2nd teams? If so that would make the impact of injuries even more dramatic. I'm sure the replacements didn't get the same number of reps so it wasn't second hand to them. That means they were thinking too much and reacting too slowly. We saw that a lot and teams put up a lot of yards and points because of it.

And, yes, our football wasn't very complimentary. Even when we scored, we rarely had 6 or 7 minute drives. We scored fast, which put the defense back on the field with little rest. And we saw a lot of big plays by our opponents, which also would tire our defense. So, tired, over thinking, under prepared and confused does not make for a high quality defense.

yeah, it's hard to replace those reps the 1's and 2's got in the off season....especially when for a lot of those guys, only started getting those really meaningful reps after the season started.....

i don't like it as an excuse. but it just got to the point where it was comical. every significant player at every position on the defense, except defensive end, sustained significant injury that missed the whole season, or a large part of it.

i think the bigger issue is really understanding why we had so many injuries in the first place.

 

[AM64]

I'm wondering if Shoop's system only works at brainy schools.

I think defense is more difficult. Offense has a set method to work from; defense has to decide what the other guys are going to do and counter it, so it really makes sense to have your best and brightest on defense. I would have tried Jennings catching the other guy's passes for starters; he appears to have the kind of savvy that is missing on the defense.

Offense is flashy, and it appears today to be the part of the game getting the most attention, but put a couple of real sharks in a pool with Olympic swimmers and it gets interesting. It may be "ugly" to others, but I thoroughly enjoy watching a shark-like defense absolutely terrorize an offense - like the Sugar Vols and Miami.

On the positive side it looks like there has been a lot of effort made toward defensive players this year - and offensive linemen, so maybe Butch, Shoop, and Co are trying to plug the holes.

 

[ptcarter]

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.

 

[N2TheVols]

Bottom line is Shoop run Butch's defense this year. Until Butch let's go of the reins on offense and defense we are never going to be better than 8-4.

 

[ptcarter]

I'm wondering if Shoop's system only works at brainy schools.

As a UT alumni, I take this to mean it's gonna pay dividends soon!

 

[1967vol]

I'm wondering if Shoop's system only works at brainy schools.

PSU is not a brainy school. It is a state university just like UTK. And even at so called "brainy schools" there are all these exceptions for football players.