To Blitz or Not to Blitz

#76
#76
Boone&Crockett said:
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.
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I totally agree with you on this, and during the game as I was watching on this particuliar play, I said we need to blitz and not give him time to throw, we didn't blitz. I am going to rewatch the game to see when we did use the blitz, because their is a huge difference blitzing on 3rd and long, than 3rd and 5 or 6
 
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#77
#77
unfrozencvmanvol said:
One of the common fallacies of the casual fan is to equate "blitzing" with pressure, and when we don't get pressure, to draw the conclusion that we did not blitz, or didn't blitz enough. It's hard to tell on TV when you can't see all 22 players on the field exactly what happens or what the plan was on every play, but my initial impression the other night was that we had blitzed quite a bit, we just didn't get home much or have much success moving the QB off his spot when we did blitz. I was watching SEC Now this morning and got the stats to back that up.

View attachment 517124

It appears from this chart that we blitzed on 16 of 37 passing snaps, that's 43.2%. That's quite a bit of blitzing. The bottom line was, it wasn't effective. We got torched whether we blitzed or we didn't, so I think Banks is getting some undue criticism for not changing things up. One definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results, and he didn't do that, he tried to mix it up, it just didn't matter. Now this can be alot of things and a combination of alot of things, sometimes talent is the issue, and I might could buy that if this was the result against UGA or Bama or someone, but against South Carolina, our talent level was fairly even (at least per the 247 talent composite). I haven't broken the film down and I welcome any input from those who have but this is more than likely mostly an execution issue. Now I don't let Banks completely off the hook either, 63 points is unacceptable to anybody, perhaps his blitz packages were too predictable but I suspect alot of this was what Beasley eluded to, on defense at least, we just thought we were going to roll over these guys and South Carolina wasn't inclined to cooperate.
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One blitz I saw that got home was a delayed blitz. We then twisted next play, and also had a nice stop. 3rd and a gazillion was then picked up. There needs to be some more tools in the arsenal.
 
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#78
#78
The word “blitz” is a problem in this discussion. Banks calls the extra man blitz from the box. The safeties blitz from dead sections in the zone, and corners blitz on a coach call. Almost all of our “blitzes” were just a late comer from the box, when their RB or TE stayed in. It’s not really a blitz. That late rusher didn’t get to the qb once. We did run a true designed blitz two or three times. One worked and we sacked Rattler deep and put a big hit on him. One other resulted in a TD when McCullough released from the zone. They saw that and released a blocker who caught a TD pass. We were just awful on the back end in zone and man. Missing Banks, Turnage and MacDonald was not something we could handle. Missing Banks hurt the most.
 
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#79
#79
Blitz and blitz more. But the DB’s have to play up on the line. Banks tried zone with a big cushion so they could dink and dunk us. Which they did too. I would have to rewatch the game. But I don’t believe UT blitzed that much.
 
#80
#80
Stoerner Fumbles said:
The word “blitz” is a problem in this discussion. Banks calls the extra man blitz from the box. The safeties blitz from dead sections in the zone, and corners blitz on a coach call. Almost all of our “blitzes” were just a late comer from the box, when their RB or TE stayed in. It’s not really a blitz. That late rusher didn’t get to the qb once. We did run a true designed blitz two or three times. One worked and we sacked Rattler deep and put a big hit on him. One other resulted in a TD when McCullough released from the zone. They saw that and released a blocker who caught a TD pass. We were just awful on the back end in zone and man. Missing Banks, Turnage and MacDonald was not something we could handle. Missing Banks hurt the most.
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This makes sense, just having a stat is a little misleading, good info.
 
#81
#81
kell7517 said:
Blitz and blitz more. But the DB’s have to play up on the line. Banks tried zone with a big cushion so they could dink and dunk us. Which they did too. I would have to rewatch the game. But I don’t believe UT blitzed that much.
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We played zone and man. Neither worked.
 
#82
#82
EZE said:
This all day long. We blitzed and then had corners 10+ yards deep on the outside and safeties at 20-25+ in the middle. Well, guess what, when you blitz a LB with that cushion, the middle of the field is WIDE open. See the 3rd and 20 pass as an example. Easy throws for the QB with even a limited amount of time.

Blitzing requires shorter release times, so we shoulda at least tried bringing the back end of the defense closer to the LOS when we blitzed. We mighta given up a long one, but we were getting torched underneath and we shoulda at least tried the adjustment IMO.

Bottom line is that our defensive schemes were laughable in that game.
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I’ve said all season that when we get opponents in 3rd and long they have us right where they want us.
 
#83
#83
youcancallmeAl said:
Face it, we've got a bad defense with mediocre talent. Since that's true, I'd rather us attack a hot quarterback more than the 40% and if that means they get quick touchdowns 2 of 3 possessions rather than touchdowns on 90% of long drives then that would at least rest our defense more. I say attack them 2/3 of the downs if that's what it takes. Not sure about Vandy, however. If they aren't good at throwing it, not that many.
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We have a bad DC that can’t utilize the mediocre talent he has.
 
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#84
#84
Franklin_Vol09 said:
We don’t have the guys to cover 1 on 1. We ran man most of the year. Look at the stats, we can’t do it with this group of guys. We tried to run more zone with a bracket blitz against UF and Bama, and got torched. Our secondary has only looked good in 1 meaningful game and that was Kentucky. In fact, we were lucky to play LSU earlier in the season. We can’t stop the pass at all. The secondary and linebackers are 12-13 best in the SEC.
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You telling us that our secondary is incapable of locking onto an SEC receiver for 3-4 seconds? Enough to give the blitz package time to get to the QB?
 
#85
#85
Im all for more aggression and more blitzing even if it means giving up a big play.

More often than not, these DBs aren't gonna cover anyone for long.

That being said, lethargic doesn't begin to describe this defense last Saturday. They can't play call around piss poor effort.

There were times when they did blitz that they missed Rattler or didn't even throw their hands up to alter a pass.

Guys were running in mud all night and the tackling out of the secondary was pathetic.

What is so galling about it is that it was still a 4 point game with 5 min to go in the 3rd. They just completely imploded in the 4th.
 
#86
#86
kell7517 said:
Blitz and blitz more. But the DB’s have to play up on the line. Banks tried zone with a big cushion so they could dink and dunk us. Which they did too. I would have to rewatch the game. But I don’t believe UT blitzed that much.
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I am goning to rewatch as well. I reallly don't think we had very many all out blitzes. But when we do blitz we don't need to give a 10 yard cushion as they will just dump it off there. I will know more when I rewatch the game, but I don't think we did any all out blitzes when it was third and long, we rushed 4 and supposedly droped back in coverage, but the coverage was not there. I will say though Rattler hit several receivers that were not that open, he just made a great throw on many occasions.
 
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#89
#89
Blitz or die. And we'd better be damned successful at it. Otherwise, 9-4 isn't just a worry, it's an almost certainty. We aren't going to be putting up the offensive numbers from here on out so if we're going down, go down attacking.
 
#90
#90
Stoerner Fumbles said:
The word “blitz” is a problem in this discussion. Banks calls the extra man blitz from the box. The safeties blitz from dead sections in the zone, and corners blitz on a coach call. Almost all of our “blitzes” were just a late comer from the box, when their RB or TE stayed in. It’s not really a blitz. That late rusher didn’t get to the qb once. We did run a true designed blitz two or three times. One worked and we sacked Rattler deep and put a big hit on him. One other resulted in a TD when McCullough released from the zone. They saw that and released a blocker who caught a TD pass. We were just awful on the back end in zone and man. Missing Banks, Turnage and MacDonald was not something we could handle. Missing Banks hurt the most.
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Well, you've got to give South Carolina credit for adjusting their protections and picking up the blitzes. It doesn't mean we didn't blitz because they blocked it well. It's like I said from the top, people are confusing not getting pressure with not blitzing. A blitz is when you bring more guys than the base formation calls for. We blitzed, they just shredded us whether we blitzed or not. They out executed us consistently, plain and simple.
 
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#91
#91
unfrozencvmanvol said:
Well, you've got to give South Carolina credit for adjusting their protections and picking up the blitzes. It doesn't mean we didn't blitz because they blocked it well. It's like I said from the top, people are confusing not getting pressure with not blitzing. A blitz is when you bring more guys than the base formation calls for. We blitzed, they just shredded us whether we blitzed or not. They out executed us consistently, plain and simple.
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They beat us like rag dolls. That wasn’t my point. A fifth man blitz because a rb or te stays in is not really a blitz, but it shows up as one in the stats. That MLB coming in late has almost no shot at a sack. It’s too late. It’s a broken stat.
 
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#94
#94
Stoerner Fumbles said:
They beat us like rag dolls. That wasn’t my point. A fifth man blitz because an tv stays in is not really a blitz, but it shows up as one in the stats. That MLB coming in late has almost no shot at a sack. It’s too late. It’s a broken stat.
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I'm not trying to give you a hard time because I've always liked your content but this isn't a stat from Fansided or something, this was on SEC Now, I trust Takeo Spikes, Roman Harper and Co. to know what a blitz is. You see late blitzes work all the time. When their running backs stayed in they stayed on their assignment and didn't lose their man.
 
#95
#95
unfrozencvmanvol said:
I'm not trying to give you a hard time because I've always liked your content but this isn't a stat from Fansided or something, this was on SEC Now, I trust Takeo Spikes, Roman Harper and Co. to know what a blitz is.
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I understand the definition of a blitz. It’s literally rushing five or more. I’m trying to point out that there are designed blitzes and discretionary blitzes. When the MLB reacts to an RB staying in to block, it rarely turns into a sack. We had very few designed blitzes.
 
#96
#96
Stoerner Fumbles said:
I understand the definition of a blitz. It’s literally rushing five or more. I’m trying to point out that there are designed blitzes and discretionary blitzes. When the MLB reacts to an RB staying in to block, it rarely turns into a sack. We had very few designed blitzes.
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I'd often say I was going to go back and watch the tape but I don't think I ever want to see it again, lol.
 
#98
#98
unfrozencvmanvol said:
I'm going to trust that Roman Harper and Takeo Spikes know what a blitz is. They played many years in the NFL. I don't know what else to do, I remember seeing us rush 5 quite a few times and it getting picked up.
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99% sure those guys didn't work up the chart or go back through game footage to check. That said: I'm in complete agreement that if we were blitzing, it was ineffective.
 
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