Our Defense

[FireFoley]

Im ready for open tryouts from the student body for safety. There have to be hundreds that are better than the garbage we put on the field.

At my old age I can't completely remember, but if not mistaken I believe that Louis Oliver was originally a walk-on. So it might be possible.

 

[Swamp Donkey]

At my old age I can't completely remember, but if not mistaken I believe that Louis Oliver was originally a walk-on. So it might be possible.

Shyt, just move some of those receivers who do nothing but block over.

Walkons.

Kids from the band.

Basketball players.

Whomever.

You truly have to work hard to find a play when they did something right. I saw Taylor actually MAKE a tackle once last night. I was shocked.

 

[ufgator812]

f v c k grantham

 

[Gator Fever]

That KY RB might break a few long runs on us if we don't get our act together on defense by that game.

 

[Concrete Helmet]

Shyt, just move some of those receivers who do nothing but block over.

If I'm Wells I'm talking to TG by Monday morning. The kid has been here for about 8 years now and supposedly he's one of the best athlete's on the team(speed/agility/jumping) yet never gets on the field.....

 

[78]

@ 812:

Phuck Grantham for always being the only one to wear all-black. Why is it? Hokie black? Dwag black? Is he sending a subliminal message?

I demand an investigation.

 

[G8trwood]

If we don’t get pressure against a decent qb, we are fire trucked

 

[soflagator]

I'm not gonna bag on the Defense. Are they great? No....but they played decent up front....LBer coverage is gonna get exposed this year just like most of us knew.
DB's would have been running stadium steps today if I were their coach for their lack of desire to put someone on the ground.

My feelings as well. They had some bad moments but overall weren’t the problem. Put in bad spots repeatedly, held on virtually every play, and found ways in the end. The tackling is a concern, but is definitely correctable. It just struck me as odd because we saw such improvement from guys like Henderson and Gardner last year. So it’s concerning but something we’ve seen fixed from this staff.

 

[soflagator]

I’ll also add something I mentioned in cover2’s thread. Our issues at safety are more because of Stewart and his behavior than what the actual starters are doing/not doing.

Watching the replay, Stiner is clearly not an SEC player, but the kid tries really hard and his effort is visible on every play. He’s squeezing whatever he can out of his limited ability and made several big plays last year.

With Taylor. I’m struggling to find a positive. There’s just nothing that he does well.

 

[Marine1]

If I'm Wells I'm talking to TG by Monday morning. The kid has been here for about 8 years now and supposedly he's one of the best athlete's on the team(speed/agility/jumping) yet never gets on the field.....

Wasn’t he suspended....again? If so, He holds the answer to his own questions.

 

[Zambo]

Seems like after our horrendous tackling effort against KY last year that we nutted up quite a bit in that department. Hopefully the same thing happens this year after these guys watch themselves getting embarrassed on film.

 

[soflagator]

Wasn’t he suspended....again? If so, He holds the answer to his own questions.

He’s been suspended for at least one game in every one of the 12 seasons he’s been here. Everything from the guns thing, to the cc fraud, to whatever the latest is. So yeah, I agree. Good idea in theory, but he’s obviously not reliable and we already have one of those at safety.

 

[InstiGATOR1]

We're so busy debating the offensive side of the ball that we may have missed the obvious fact that there were issues on defense.

Starting with the tackling.

Part of the reason we are talking so much about the offense is we learned little about the defense. Miami's young QB and young OL mean the defense should have played as well as they did. Sure the tackling was pathetic as it usually is some early game each season. I am sure that will be taken care of.

I also am sure UF will not average 10+ sacks per game. So while that was fun, it is not clear to me that we learned much about the pass rush against this group. Heck even a Miami board I saw had posts about how their OL was holding every play.

I am concerned that the safety play did not seem better after a year of experience. Surely with everyone back the will be some improvement in coming weeks.

So:

1. We learned little about UF DL against good experienced competition.

2. The CBs looked goods as expected.

3. The safeties looked less good as worried about.

4. Maybe we learned the LBs a bit better and a bit deeper than we thought?

 

[SeabeeGator]

Part of the reason we are talking so much about the offense is we learned little about the defense. Miami's young QB and young OL mean the defense should have played as well as they did. Sure the tackling was pathetic as it usually is some early game each season. I am sure that will be taken care of.

I also am sure UF will not average 10+ sacks per game. So while that was fun, it is not clear to me that we learned much about the pass rush against this group. Heck even a Miami board I saw had posts about how their OL was holding every play.

I am concerned that the safety play did not seem better after a year of experience. Surely with everyone back the will be some improvement in coming weeks.

So:

1. We learned little about UF DL against good experienced competition.

2. The CBs looked goods as expected.

3. The safeties looked less good as worried about.

4. Maybe we learned the LBs a bit better and a bit deeper than we thought?

Well, I’m sure the penalties will get better too. I am less concerned with the defense today than I was before the season started.

 

[Concrete Helmet]

Seems like after our horrendous tackling effort against KY last year that we nutted up quite a bit in that department. Hopefully the same thing happens this year after these guys watch themselves getting embarrassed on film.

Could be just getting used to game speed again. I'm told that teams don't tackle all that much in camp anymore to cut down on pre season injuries so maybe by the second game they tighten it up again.

 

[Bushmaster]

The biggest thing I tell my defense every year is there are two things you can control and need to do well. Line up where you are supposed to line up. Bring your arms when you tackle.

We do those two things against um, it turns into a blowout.

The rest is window dressing.

 

[Bushmaster]

Having coached on the hs level the last 10 years or so, the biggest thing I see in tackling is kids are going for the big highlight hit instead of sure tackling. They think college scouts get off on seeing the big hits when the ones I talk to tell me its a sign of lack of discipline and technique. When a tackler gets his hands on you and you go down right there, that is impressive. But that doesn't make ESPN.

See dunks and 3 pointers in basketball.

 

[neteng]

My thoughts on this game, without even reading a single thread or statement made about this game on this board yet, are so negative. I lost a lot of motivation to follow college football this year after Saturday night. Its like groundhog season.

With that said, after some time to cool down and rethink it, I don't think the defense is too bad. It was the first game. Contact and tackling takes a bit to get in a groove and should improve. I thought the obvious and great positive is the disruption our DL had on Miami. The counter to that is the UM OL is pathetic so its hard to say our DL is great ... but they did manhandle that OL just like they should so that is a positive.

No clue what was going on in the secondary. Partly because the TV camera was so contained on the LOS that until the ball left the QB headed downfield it was impossible to see anything. This really frustrated me a lot more when we had the ball because I have no clue what the heck was going downfield when the ball was in Franks hands and that drove me bonkers. But that is a red herring to the discussion about the D.

I do know who had a horrible game though ... Grantham. His lack of playing up on the WRs and allowing their QB to get the quick throws out all the while our DL was getting steady and reliable pressure on a freaking freshman QB making his first big game start behind an OL that was garbage made me pretty angry. His soft zone BS calls on the 3rd and longs that we seem to give up every freaking time drove me bonkers.

 

[theoriginalmadgator]

Part of the reason we are talking so much about the offense is we learned little about the defense. Miami's young QB and young OL mean the defense should have played as well as they did. Sure the tackling was pathetic as it usually is some early game each season. I am sure that will be taken care of.

I also am sure UF will not average 10+ sacks per game. So while that was fun, it is not clear to me that we learned much about the pass rush against this group. Heck even a Miami board I saw had posts about how their OL was holding every play.

I am concerned that the safety play did not seem better after a year of experience. Surely with everyone back the will be some improvement in coming weeks.

So:

1. We learned little about UF DL against good experienced competition.

2. The CBs looked goods as expected.

3. The safeties looked less good as worried about.

4. Maybe we learned the LBs a bit better and a bit deeper than we thought?

The CB's weren't tested downfield really as UM could not set a pocket. However, their putridity of their tackling was only surpassed by their inability to step up in run support. UM's WRs were able to effectively take our corners out on any wide running plays.

Wilson is also over-rated in coverage. Henderson is a blanket but does little else.

The safeties were abysmal....

 

[theoriginalmadgator]

My thoughts on this game, without even reading a single thread or statement made about this game on this board yet, are so negative. I lost a lot of motivation to follow college football this year after Saturday night. Its like groundhog season.

With that said, after some time to cool down and rethink it, I don't think the defense is too bad. It was the first game. Contact and tackling takes a bit to get in a groove and should improve. I thought the obvious and great positive is the disruption our DL had on Miami. The counter to that is the UM OL is pathetic so its hard to say our DL is great ... but they did manhandle that OL just like they should so that is a positive.

No clue what was going on in the secondary. Partly because the TV camera was so contained on the LOS that until the ball left the QB headed downfield it was impossible to see anything. This really frustrated me a lot more when we had the ball because I have no clue what the heck was going downfield when the ball was in Franks hands and that drove me bonkers. But that is a red herring to the discussion about the D.

I do know who had a horrible game though ... Grantham. His lack of playing up on the WRs and allowing their QB to get the quick throws out all the while our DL was getting steady and reliable pressure on a freaking freshman QB making his first big game start behind an OL that was garbage made me pretty angry. His soft zone BS calls on the 3rd and longs that we seem to give up every freaking time drove me bonkers.

I had a hard time figuring that out as well.....why didn't we press coverage considering our dline's dominance? I could understand on the first drive not wanting to give up a big play and sort of feeling out what their game plan was going to be. But UM could effectively do nothing downfield, so why not press coverage and play aggressively? UM's QB was limited to one read quick throws down the LOS. If we pressed we could've had him second guessing and with no time would've led to a lot of scrambling. Seemed like Grantham was willing to give up those quick hitters which I didn't agree with as they build confidence for a young QB.

I was there in the north endzone side and had a good view of the secondary.....the safety play was consistently horrendous in all aspects. The CBs are a non-factor on running plays and I'm worried about Wilson in coverage in games against teams that can get their QB some time in the pocket.

 

[CGgater]

Wilson is also over-rated in coverage. Hammond is a blanket but does little else.

Considering how well Wilson played as a true freshman (and before his injury), I think this statement is premature. He definitely needs to play better, though.

The fact that you think Hammond plays CB makes me think you’re drunk posting... on Monday morning... Get help.