• Hi Guest,

    We've updated the site to combine all the forums that were part of the Big Sky Fans Network into one location. This will make it easier to navigate and participate in all the discussions for each school without having to have multiple accounts, etc. We are still working out some tweaks but please let us know if you notice anything.

    With the migration, in some circumstances, your username could have been merged with one of your other usernames from the other forums. If this is the case, you can request to change your username in your account details page of your profile.
  • Hi Guest, want to participate in the discussions, keep track of read/unread posts and more? Create your free account and increase the benefits of your eGriz.com experience today!
  • Guest, do want an ad free experience on BigSkyFans.com among other benefits? Upgrade your account today!

    Simply click your profile name > account upgrades > BigSky Club > choose between the year long subscription (two free months) or month to month

    Thanks for the continued support. Cheers!

Defense

E

eaglesfootball

Active member
why was it so bad today? I didn't seem Hamlin on many plays so assuming he's hurt. Our two new corners looked lost most of the time and were overmatched. Did not see the ASU transfer play at all. Don't remember hearing Cody Mccarthy's name called much. D-Line looked much worse than last year. I think we can all agree that overall just a poor performance and not how we wanted to start out the year. What gives? This team will goes as far as our defense takes it.
 
I thought they played pretty well up until giving up the two huge run plays. Agreed on the corners, we need to figure that out. Gotta think that Wadood would have played at least as well as either guy we had start. Run support was just not very good, and you could probably chalk that up to lack of experience. Overall, it might be another year of having to out-score the really good teams to have a shot at beating them.
 
eaglesfootball said:
why was it so bad today? I didn't seem Hamlin on many plays so assuming he's hurt. Our two new corners looked lost most of the time and were overmatched. Did not see the ASU transfer play at all. Don't remember hearing Cody Mccarthy's name called much. D-Line looked much worse than last year. I think we can all agree that overall just a poor performance and not how we wanted to start out the year. What gives? This team will goes as far as our defense takes it.
Click to expand...

The linebackers seemed quiet but McCarthy was the second leading tackler with 9 tackles while Zamora had 11. Hamlin added 6. I thought the corners played pretty well especially Jake Hoffman. He did give up a touchdown but he was all over the receiver. Wadood was out there and made some plays. The tackle totals were pretty spread out. I'm not sure what to think of the dline, they were penetrating but not making many tackles behind the line of scrimmage. They seemed kinda slow at times getting off at the snap of the ball. They will need to improve if they expect to hang with Washington.
 
I don't think they did that badly. Here is why:

1) They didn't get to prepare for SHSU. It was a new offense and new players, so they didn't have anything to go off of.

2) One of the scores was a pick six. Take that away, and the defense only gave up 28 points. Not great, but last year teams like Weber would put up those points against us.

3) They pretty much only gave up big plays. Last year, teams marched down the field in 5-10 yard chunks. It was UGLY. This year, they were stout and only gave up big plays. Big plays are bound to happen and they only happen when there is a breakdown in synchronization within the defense. It's the first game of the day, and our defense will not be out of position.
 
The defense definitely needs to improve. However, their offensive line looked pretty damn good. I think they returned four starters from last year, and I doubt besides the Huskies we see a better offensive line in the regular season.
 
GoldenEagle said:
The defense definitely needs to improve. However, their offensive line looked pretty damn good. I think they returned four starters from last year, and I doubt besides the Huskies we see a better offensive line in the regular season.
Click to expand...

:nod:

They had the 3 drop down receivers who had good size and speed.

We only gave up 35 yards of offense in the decisive 3rd quarter.

Tevin McDonald played very well.

LB's should be our strength, but seemed lost at times.
 
kalm said:
GoldenEagle said:
The defense definitely needs to improve. However, their offensive line looked pretty damn good. I think they returned four starters from last year, and I doubt besides the Huskies we see a better offensive line in the regular season.
Click to expand...

:nod:

They had the 3 drop down receivers who had good size and speed.

We only gave up 35 yards of offense in the decisive 3rd quarter.

Tevin McDonald played very well.

LB's should be our strength, but seemed lost at times.
Click to expand...
we played well in the 3rd quarter and McDonald played well overall, but it's the two huge plays we gave up I have a problem with. Where were our LB's, they didn't seem to play very well.
 
I don't think it was a horrible performance, but it looks like our D will be a bend and sometimes break variety again.

We stopped the run fairly well considering how potent of a running game they have, but we are LUCKY their qb couldn't throw it very well because he missed a bunch of WIDE OPEN receivers. And, when I say wide open it was by 15 yards.

There definitely shouldn't be any confusion between our secondary and the Legion of Boom. If was the first game, so hopefully things will come together.
 
Rjones61 said:
I don't think they did that badly. Here is why:

1) They didn't get to prepare for SHSU. It was a new offense and new players, so they didn't have anything to go off of.

2) One of the scores was a pick six. Take that away, and the defense only gave up 28 points. Not great, but last year teams like Weber would put up those points against us.

3) They pretty much only gave up big plays. Last year, teams marched down the field in 5-10 yard chunks. It was UGLY. This year, they were stout and only gave up big plays. Big plays are bound to happen and they only happen when there is a breakdown in synchronization within the defense. It's the first game of the day, and our defense will not be out of position.
Click to expand...

Defense execution was OK, effort was great. Weird substitutions and play calls that didn't match situation a couple of times hurt. Would like to see LB's another couple yards off the line of scrimmage and get better backpedal drops as they seemed to always have back to QB. Hard to make a play in the passing game that way. Oddly, D stopped moving their feet on many plays in first half and started diving; not going to make plays against speed like that. Thought D-Line held their own against a good O Line of SHSU. Safeties were playing at or near line of scrimmage a lot and that helped SHSU on the big runs. Certainly room for improvement. Proud that when the team got behind, everyone stepped up and didn't show any panic. Real credit to Coach Baldwin.
 
I don't see the sky falling yet as far as our D. I will say I am biased to EWU but after watching the game again and seeing our mistakes I think most of the mistakes can be chalked up to 1st game mistakes and playing live speed. Our starting LB's did not play in the spring and the younger players have been getting lots of reps to prepare for the adversity that will come throughout a very long season.

SHSU was a very athletic team with great speed and scored 35 points on us. 7 of those were from the pick 6 and another 14 points on 2 plays that after watching again were bad mistakes that I am certain will be corrected. 317 yards were gained on us through the air and 225 on the ground. Again when you look at those 2 plays they equal 132 yards. Take those 2 plays out and you have 30 carries for 93 yards or a 3.1 yards per carry which is not bad considering there was no viable scouting of SHSU before the game and there was no real knowledge of what personnel they had prior to the game due to 10+ drop downs. I also noticed that our LB's were playing slow agianst the read option which I am sure is a result of learning from mistakes last year and being vulnerable on the outside edge. Both LB's were playing wider in alignment then in the past. The secondary takes time to gel and the only way to do that is with live play which between this game and the next 2 we will get that taken care of before we enter the BSC games.

SHSU had 15 possessions where they scored 4 times on offense with a total of 85 plays. That is less than 6 plays/possession. This was a great game for our team to play as I believe there is a ton of film that will lead to a lot of knowldge and developement of scheme, technique and mental preparedness. This D showed signs of being very good with a little more consistency which will come over time.

My
 
Very well put coach, I thought the D played very well considering there was no film on this very good Sam Houston team. After watching the game I counted Zamora with 11 Tackles, McCarthy 9 and although Hamlin was listed with 6 tackles I counted 10, not sure who is keeping the stats but they need to pay more attention. My point is that is 30 tackles by our LBs which shows they were very active in this game. Our run D will be fine once they get the playing time and the speed down.
 
59 points. Not a good effort, don't care if we were playing the Seattle Seahawks. I think at this point this is how this season is going to go. I think we're going to get into a lot of shootouts with teams that have a good offense.
 
I'm sorry, but who are we to say our defense didn't play with effort? Let's not turn into that kind of fan base. I'm sure there are many players who scan this forum. Those boys played their damn hearts out. They were beat, so what? Who are we to expect more than their best effort?

Be supportive. It's the best way to encourage improvement.
 
To elaborate on my friend ewuEag's post on another thread- scheme is the issue.

The caliber of athlete we recruit is evident on our offense. It doesn't make sense that there would be a very sizable drop in the level of talent for our defenders. We have the tools, but they are being put in bad situations. I think Coach Graham is a quality coach and person, but he needs to do something different. I wouldn't go so far as to call for his firing, but the strategy needs to change.

I don't think anyone on this board, save one or two individuals (I think you know who), would disparage the effort or talent of our players.
 
Rjones61 said:
I'm sorry, but who are we to say our defense didn't play with effort? Let's not turn into that kind of fan base. I'm sure there are many players who scan this forum. Those boys played their damn hearts out. They were beat, so what? Who are we to expect more than their best effort?

Be supportive. It's the best way to encourage improvement.
Click to expand...

I saw a ton of effort from the D. Some of the solid plays they made were with no regard to life or limb! We were going against a solid Pac 12 team. We spotted them 21 points, and had a late fumble. Yet, we were very much in that game.

It's the big plays that have been killing us, especially on some of the long run plays. The same thing happened in the SHSU game. In most of those situations, once the runner hit the second level, there was no-around to catch them or slow them down. It was several run plays and swing passes that got us. If we can figure that out, teams will have a much tougher time scoring against us.

I don't think we will see another offense with this type of speed possible all year. I don't see EWU as a top 10 D, but I do think they will do what is necessary to put us in position to win games.

Also, I thought Wadood had some tremendous plays, and showed incredible speed when he saved that TD run (not that they didn't score anyways.)
 
Rjones61 said:
I'm sorry, but who are we to say our defense didn't play with effort? Let's not turn into that kind of fan base. I'm sure there are many players who scan this forum. Those boys played their damn hearts out. They were beat, so what? Who are we to expect more than their best effort?

Be supportive. It's the best way to encourage improvement.
Click to expand...
Right on RJ! :clap:
 
Dozy said:
Rjones61 said:
I'm sorry, but who are we to say our defense didn't play with effort? Let's not turn into that kind of fan base. I'm sure there are many players who scan this forum. Those boys played their damn hearts out. They were beat, so what? Who are we to expect more than their best effort?

Be supportive. It's the best way to encourage improvement.
Click to expand...
Right on RJ! :clap:
Click to expand...

I hope Defendthered meant the defensive scheme was lacking and not actually questioning the "effort" of the players. What I saw was a huge "balls to the walls" effort.
 
FWIW, I think there is a difference between effort and effective effort. I have no doubt the kids played their asses off and gave it their all. Unfortunately, there were a lot of mistakes and problems with fundamentals.

That said, both UW lines were packed with absolute monsters. And John Ross is likely the best playmaker we'll see all year. Given time to recoup and retool, it's not unreasonable to think there will be dramatic improvement of performance against Montana State and UC Davis.

Those two games will tell us a lot about this team. We're obviously good, but we're coming off a hard fought emotional loss. Getting back on the horse and playing with effective aggression will be the key.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top