sammamisheag
Active member
Three years in a row where EWUs defense is pretty bad
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Time for a new Def Color?
- Thread starter sammamisheag
- Start date
eaglesfootball
Active member
bad, more like horrible!
dudeitsaid
Active member
Dozy said:
I hear those who are defending the D, and it's true that they made some great plays. Tevin McDonald is a outstanding, and he was a difference maker on D. I personally think the issue with the defense has more to do with the numerous injuries that have been sustained. When they read injury report on the pregame show, they were almost all on the defensive side of the ball.
Nobody's questioning the effort of the D, or the talent, and their ability to make big plays. My concern is more about their ability to end drives. MSU was able to convert far too many third downs. I do think Prukop is a heck of a player, and MSU is going to turn out to be the 2nd best team in the BSC. They were a solid offense. But that seems to be the BSC strength, and I have a feeling that our current performance on D, if it doesn't improve, is going to allow many of the games this year to be closer than we'd like.
There were several plays where it just appeared we were out of position, and our cover guys are still getting beat big-time. That's not about effort, it's about personnel and depth, IMO.
Truthfully, if our O can click, we only need a few stops from the D, and considering we put ourselves in some holes with turnovers again, I'm thankful for what they did to put us back into this game. Just would like to see a few more punting situations.
eaglesfootball
Active member
dudeitsaid said:
I think we win most of our Big Sky games this year, but I am concerned about how far we'll go in the playoffs if we manage to get there with this D. this is almost like 2011 all over again with all these injuries.
DefendtheRed
Active member
Our defensive ends and corners are not making enough plays, period. We are wildly inexperienced in both positions.
I've said it once and I'll say it again. Without depth and athleticism on the defensive line, our secondary can't do much. The injuries and graduation on our defensive line have left us pretty tattered. We still have athletes such as Zylstra and Somner there to lead, but the defensive line requires rotation. The secondary has a job to stall the receivers long enough to let the defensive line make contact with the quarterback. However, they can't cover receivers for over 6 seconds. It's just not realistic.
eaglesfootball
Active member
Rjones61 said:
can anyone do a rollup of all these injuries?
Here's the bottom line with our defense. While we have a few veteran players at various positions, the rest of the guys are pretty young. We've lost three CB's for the season already (Tucker, Cange, Webster)...and our secondary was already projected as being a weakness going into the season. On the defensive line we are missing Evan Day, Jordan Pulu, Ashton Boothroyd, and John Goldwire. This is another part of the defense that we wasn't projected to be very strong. We have 6 true Freshman playing on defense alone, and 4 of those are on the defensive line. We are very young.
Where does the D go from here? I don't know, but you'd think that if we got at least half of those veteran players back at some point it'd help while the younger guys get up to speed. It really is a baptism by fire for all those young players.
Also, bear in mind that losing Andru Pulu, our other DT (can't recall his name), and Anthony Larry off last season's D-Line was huge. Pulu was often double teamed, which made things easier for our LB's.
Where does the D go from here? I don't know, but you'd think that if we got at least half of those veteran players back at some point it'd help while the younger guys get up to speed. It really is a baptism by fire for all those young players.
Also, bear in mind that losing Andru Pulu, our other DT (can't recall his name), and Anthony Larry off last season's D-Line was huge. Pulu was often double teamed, which made things easier for our LB's.
The two biggest issues for me on the defense are tackling and angles players are taking toward the player with the ball. The tackling issue is obvious and has been all year. There were so many times today alone where EWU met the ball at or behind the line of scrimmage and MSU was able to shake the tackle and get positive yards. That's gotta stop. These guys gotta start wrapping up. Too many times too with a one on one they take horrible angles to the ball carrier. And instead of forcing him wide, they run straight at him and the guy takes the ball to the outside and around and turns what should have been 1 or 2 more yards into 10+. These mistakes are correctable but so far the defense has shown no indication that these things are even being worked on let alone something that's being improved upon. Until the defense starts making tackles and playing smarter, the offense is going to continue to have to score 40+ in order to secure wins. And even then it's not always going to be enough. JMO
dudeitsaid
Active member
clawman said:
LOL, I thought the same thing, but then just got sucked into the discussion. My guess - Def Coor (Coordinator).
dudeitsaid
Active member
JPN17 said:
Very good observations, and I completely agree. That was one of the most frustrating things about this game. I'd think we had them, and they would squirt out of all types of situations.
Awful defense. Simply awful. No way to sugarcoat it. They weren't good last year and have even devolved quite a bit since then. Every D-I opponent has posted more than 500 yards and 2 straight games giving up 50 points or more. Bad pursuit angles, lack of penetration, poor tackles.... I mean how many yards did Montana State get after first contact today ? 200 ? How many third and longs were converted ? There are a lot of good players on this D that don't look like good players on game day.
One thing that surprises me is that we don't D up at all, but we don't ever try to change things up. We showed a safety blitz a couple of times today, but we never really started sending backers. We get run over, but the LBs stay 5 yards behind the line. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I wish the D would try to find something, anything that might change their fortunes.
Honestly, I thought we were a bit lucky because they tried those two 4th downs when they really had no reason to do it.
One thing that surprises me is that we don't D up at all, but we don't ever try to change things up. We showed a safety blitz a couple of times today, but we never really started sending backers. We get run over, but the LBs stay 5 yards behind the line. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I wish the D would try to find something, anything that might change their fortunes.
Honestly, I thought we were a bit lucky because they tried those two 4th downs when they really had no reason to do it.
