It would be interesting to see the time frame in the game where the 16 downs that we blitzed were and what down it was, I know late in the game after Beasley sacked Rattler they had 3rd and 20 something and it was four down lineman and he had a month to throw and they converted, plays like that are back breakers, to me that is the ideal time to bring pressure.
It can be fixed. It is a risk/reward decision. You press at the LOS and hope you can hold coverage until the blitz gets home. You can also put more guys in coverage and hope that the down 4 can get home. What makes literally no sense is blitzing and giving the QB an automatic throw for 5-10 yds.j
It's not always talent, I lean towards it being mostly effort/execution in this case. South Carolina was really dialed in and we weren't. They got up and the crowd got behind them and they rode that wave to victory. We are not yet to the point as a program where we can bring our C game in the SEC and win.Not doubting it just thought we brought way more heat against Bama. That was really noticeable. Can't imagine carolina has a better offensive front
Giving up explosive plays on defense is the worst outcome, if you don't think you can stop a team whether you blitz or not, one philosophy on defense is to keep everything in front of you and make the other team drive the field and hope they will stop themselves (as all offenses are inclined to do from time to time, via penalties, drops, fumbles, missed blocks, etc.), the theory being if you can make a team execute 10 plays correctly instead of 1 there is alot more opportunity for them to screw up. Also, the idea is that when they get in the red zone because the field compresses there and there isn't as much room to maneuver, that area (the red zone) is where you are most likely to be able to hold. We did that some Saturday too, tried to keep them in front of us and make them drive the field, they were able to execute the long drives too though, like I said they were dialed in execution wise. I'm as repulsed as anybody about giving up 63 points. I grew up on defensive football, but we did try different strategies Saturday, it's just we didn't have success with really anything on that side of the ball.
There is a difference in competition percentage: 69% with blitz vs 90% without blitz. Yards per completion 18 with blitz vs 11.3 yards with out the blitz. Neither are executable, but I think we have a better chance of getting an Int with a blitz than without one. I would blitz more with those stats because the receivers appeared to be more open without the blitz and the QB had all day to pick out the open receivers.
Not really because 9 touchdowns on 9 plays is worse than 9 touchdowns on 90. Percentage wise an offense is a hell of a lot more likely to screw up when they have to execute 90 snaps than 9. It's also harder to score in the red zone where the field is compressed than in the open field. You've got to tip your cap to South Carolina's execution and deplore our lack of execution more than erroneously just think we didn't try different strategies on defense. We attempted to mix it up, nothing worked. You blitz every play, you are going to get screens, draws and quick slants for 50-90 yard touchdowns, lot's of one play or two play TD drives. You can't blitz every play, just like a pitcher in MLB can't just throw one pitch. I'm an advocate of aggressive defense, but a 43% blitz rate is pretty aggressive. Alot of people seem to be under the impression that we didn't blitz Saturday, we did ALOT, we just didn't get much pressure.
This. I almost started a thread mentioning this cause everybody is saying we couldn't get pressure or wasn't blitzing. I saw I can't remember how many of rattlers passes coming out when his back foot hit on a three step drop from out of the shotgun. So he's 7 yards behind the LOS 2 seconds after the snap and the ball is coming out. Von Miller couldn't get there that fast. It looked like to me USCe game planned expecting us to blitz alot ( because we do) and had short and intermediate routes timed well to come out of their break when the ball was well on its way-and very accurate. We would have had to play tight man very well to defend to allow the past rush, and we didn't. Even when we had good coverage Rattler put a perfect placed ball to his guy. Give them credit for great execution. We had no answer.
Have you seen alot from our secondary to make you think they can handle that? I'm not sure I have. Our staff probably figures that's going to be alot of 1-2 play TD drives too. Hindsight is always 20/20 but I think we were more outplayed on defense than out-coached. I don't think there was a magic schematic bullet Saturday that could make up for how bad we got out played.
