The 3-4 defense needs to go, now.
- Thread starter mrhotdice
- Start date
Yeah, until the day we can recruit defensive lineman on par with what Alabama, Georgia or Notre Dame signs, it would likely be best to forget about the 3-4. It takes elite talent to make the 3-4 work. Our DL certainly isn't elite.
I don't think you can just up and change defensive philosophy during the season.
I agree about the suckage of the 3-4 however.
I agree about the suckage of the 3-4 however.
you mean we Matt Elam isn't Vince Wilfork? As the other smart people have said. We will never have the d-line talent to run the 3/4. Eliot is a freaking joke. Our problem right now is every coach is one spot higher than they should be and that's how we get them here. Stoops should be a DC, Eliot a LB coach, Gran, a RB coach, Hinshaw a QB coach. that's why rich brooks was so good and why joker fell so quickly. Rich Brooks' staff was Alabama quality that was a I'll beat you with ours and then trade you and beat you with yours kind of staff. Joker got rid of them all and hired better "recruiters" who couldn't coach worth a lick and promoted position coaches to coordinators when they shouldn't of been. Same thing is happening now.
Our front seven isnt good enough to play red rover with my son's kindergarten class
Love to agree. But I don't know what 4 lineman wed put out there. We're that thin. Our lb talent is light years better.
It's a problem with how it's schemed.
It's a problem with how it's schemed.
The 3-4 has never worked here and when I heard Stoops say they were going to it I thought oh no here we go again. These coaches haven't followed UK like we have the past 50 years and seen all the failures (particularly bad during the 3-4 D years). We know better. It won't work.
We couldn't stop the run with the wide tackle six and 12 in the box.
Sure you can, they use the 4-3 at times.
You put Ware and Bell at DE, backed by Daniel and T J Carter, then you go with Miggins and Middleton at DT, backed by Elam and Hyde, then you go with Love at MLB, with D Laster actually sharing time, and Allen and Jones (19 tackles vs USM) at OLB, backed by Eli Brown and K Walker. This would give you the best talent and backups actually in a scheme that may work.
Actually the 3-4 should've been the perfect D to stop their traps/counters. If Elam gets any penetration at all, the center gets pushed into the backfield and makes it impossible for any pulling lineman to make their blocks.
Never happened. Not once.
Never happened. Not once.
You shouldn't need horses to stop usm from running 2 plays over and over. Simple adjustment should've stopped that. It's mind blowing, because otherwise we pretty much stopped anything they tried to do. If not for 2 busted coverages, their great qb would've been completely shut down
Very, very true. Elam should have been able to hold two guys at the line. Instead he got outworked.
You could put this front seven on the field in any formation and they still would be pushovers. Same for changing coaches although it's more pc to talk about than evaluating the personnel.
This doesn't mean they aren't busting their butts out there it just means the SEC is not for most of them.
You know if you'd told me in year four that we'd been through three OC's under defensive guru Mark Stoops, but that we'd been much more successful offensively on the field and in recruiting than we had defensively, I'd have laughed you off of here.
It's bizarre. We can always get great skill players. Just never deliver in the trenches. Brooks was the only coach who did, and he succeeded.
Games are won and lost in the trenches.
Mark Stoops is trying to make orange juice with lemons. You have to kind of question his intellect. Yes the 3-4 may be something that appeals to him and a scheme that he may enjoy coaching but he should have enough common sense to realize he doesn't have the personnel at this point in time to implement it. He's not putting players in a position to win. You have to be honest about their abilities and what they are capable of performing.
If the basic idea is to gain a strategic defensive advantage by continually disrupting the offense line play by keeping the center in a guessing mode, because the center is covered with a nose guard who has generally 4 options: 1) play straight up 2) angle left gap 3) angle right gap 4) play a step back letting LB's shoot gaps, then it seems like a base front 5 coupled with multiple read and react coverages with some random blitz packages might be a more effective schematic approach.
From what my feeble football mind can deduce is that for the the 3-4 scheme to work well, you have to superior athletes, with sound tequniques, or on par athletes with great technique supported by stud LB's and an above average secondary. Not sure UK's personnel's athleticism and technique are a good match for the 3-4. Running a base 5 likely gives the D a better chance to clog the middle.
From what my feeble football mind can deduce is that for the the 3-4 scheme to work well, you have to superior athletes, with sound tequniques, or on par athletes with great technique supported by stud LB's and an above average secondary. Not sure UK's personnel's athleticism and technique are a good match for the 3-4. Running a base 5 likely gives the D a better chance to clog the middle.
Until Matt takes Jarmon's advice and learns to stay low it's going to be the same old same stuff.
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I remember when Mike archer announced he was bringing a 3/4 scheme with him .Our D was so bad that year he switched .Even that putz realized that can't work without talent .Like others said, I cringed when it was announced after year1 of stoops we were moving to 3/4 .I thought maybe Elam was the study that could make it work .Probably what Mark was thinking
I saw the replay and I don't understand how the staff hasn't improved his fundamentals with this very issue. He still wants to pop straight up and bump bellies with the OL. He is either too lazy to make the adjustment,or doesn't have the core strength to stay low, but he has been through 3 fall camps and 2 spring practices and plays like he did his first snap. But the real puzzling thing is why is the DL coach still sending him out there. Our DL coach, Tracy Rocker, is brutal with his coaching style, he doesn't let things slide and isn't shy about telling you what he thinks of the effort in terms not used with mixed company..
I love how everyone is posting about the defense. While I realize they had major issues stopping the run, I have a problem with the D getting the brunt of the blame. The offense ran 14 plays in the second half - FOURTEEN! 3 of which were turnovers. If they just hold on to the damn ball we win, if they get a couple more first downs, we win. ANY points scored, we win.
Being put in that position of being on the field that much, any defense would have trouble.
That being said, a Stoops led D should be better by now. I think they have misfired on some recruits and just don't have the talent on the line that they thought.
Being put in that position of being on the field that much, any defense would have trouble.
That being said, a Stoops led D should be better by now. I think they have misfired on some recruits and just don't have the talent on the line that they thought.
They ran power out of 10 and 11 personnel all night and we never stopped it. We are in trouble when SEC lineman are on that side of the ball. USM ran power what seemed like 20 times in the 2nd half.....we never did stop it.
Not only did we not stop it, we never adjusted. Ok, the base defense wasn't stopping their trap and counter. That's bad enough. But you have to walk people up, run blitz, do something. You can't just let them rip off 8 yards per carry using the same two plays.
You can't just let someone run the same one or two plays all half and dominate you. I don't care if it's an all out blitz, it just can't happen. Can't. Happen. Make then do something else at least. I'd say Dawson didn't even look at his play sheet the entire 4th quarter. Didn't have to.
There is definitely some truth here. Barker looked great in the first half but awful in the second half being responsible for all 3 TOs. Offense was just nonexistent in the second half.
I have not re-watched it yet but the biggest difference I saw was QB pressure. UK got 3 sacks and 3 INTs in the first half and USM had no sacks or picks. UK and Barker easily win the QB duel in the first half.
Second half was a complete reversal. USM gets 4 sacks and 3 TOs off Barker and KY gets no pressure on Mullens. UK defense could not stop a toilet in the second half.
Peace
True the offense didn't help the D at all in the 2nd half. But USM rushed for >300 yards and their longest run was only 14 yards. That tells me they were flat out whipping us up front and we did nothing to counter that. No run blitzes, no stunts, nothing. Just let them grind us up. You know, if the D had forced a punt or a TO in the 2nd half, maybe the offense gets a rhythm going again.
Hope you did not put much time into that one.
When your son is in college, I hope you do not have to read some grown man talking about him in the way you talk about other people's sons. Chances are your son won't be known by anyone on a message board, but if he is, I hope he is treated with a modicum of respect.
It wasn't a personal shot at one of out players.
We're not allowed to comment if they play badly?
I am not sure why I have to explain this. It is form, not function.
Have you ever had a family member play big time sports? A son? If I have to explain further, it probably is not worth the attempt. Explaining how to show respect is something that probably cannot be accomplished in a message board post for some one who does not understand.
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anon_013cn8yrfncx2
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Mark Stoops has never had to coach with average to less than average talent. Ergo, he has never had to coach and it's blatantly obvious he doesn't know how.
So are you saying the top tier talent he received at FSU made him look better than he is?
That's the problem…inexplicably, I think this is what he's been coach to do. It looks like all of our defensive lineman just want to stand up and hold ground instead of fire forward, I can only assume, that after this amount of time has passed, that "style" is what they're being told to do.
That's interesting, since we don't have the people to run an effective 4-3 either.
Will be more effective in a 4-3 than 3-4,even with "our" talent. With the "delicate" comment by Stoops ,makes you wonder what kind of threat or promises during recruiting,that has led to not being able to coach them hard,like they need to be. Maybe that's why they're better able to groove to the music than play defense or football on this level!
This is true. I sometimes ask the question 'What is the difference between one 50 yard run and ten 5 yard runs"? The answer of course is that a 50 yard run is a running play but ten 5 yards runs is a running game.
In his presser Stoops mentioned "not enough possessions because the defense was not getting off the field". The "offense helping defense" thing is really a bit of a circuitous argument; they both help each other and you need some of each. It is just the nature of the game.
Peace