Ok I’ll play here……

As I understand it, we play a soft zone Tampa 2 defense that is dependent on the front 4 generating a pass rush. In years past this hasn’t been an issue with the likes of Marcus Howard, Charles Johnson/Quentin Moses, David Pollack, Charles Grant, etc. It seems now that with no clear pass rush on the ends we are giving average QB’s time to pick us apart. What we are going to have to do is man up on the corners and bring pressure from the LB’s and Safeties or go to a 3-4 look and expose ourselves to being gashed up front on run plays between the tackles. I think that getting Rod Battle back will be big if he can get some pressure from the opposite end of Lomax. What happened to Dobbs and Wynn? I haven’t seen or heard anything from them since the CMU game.

Thanks for articulating what’s been bothering me all year. I was concerned about this starting with the GSU game, and the Alabama game confirmed our worst fears.
Rocketdawg is right on the money: it’s all fine and dandy when your pass-rush barely even allows short routes to develop. That’s precisely why we dominated Hawaii. We ate them alive at the line. They were forced to hit 0-2 yard routes (with commensurate punishment to their receivers) or try in vain for longer routes that never had a chance to develop.
Alabama beat us on the line, which meant that they could run the ball or hit those intermediate routes at their leisure. I’m not sure that our Frankenstein line could have stopped their ground game to force the issue, but at least we could have taken JPW out of his comfort zone. Any QB who’s made it to this level can make the throws he did — see, for example, Chris Smelley looking like a Heisman candidate against us.
We simply do not have the personnel to make Willie’s scheme work right now. To paraphrase a much more erudite blogger who reluctantly paraphrased Donald Rumsfeld: you have to go to war with the D you have, not the D you want.

It’s my understanding our Cover 2 is different from the Tampa Cover 2, but I can’t offer any other insight. This might be a mistake. That out of the way:

I do understand that we rely on pressure from the front 4, and the DEs haven’t been as good as we hoped. I would point out, however, that we seem particularly focused on the CB play but perhaps not focused enough on the safety play. This isn’t my thought originally, but I would agree the safety play hasn’t been very noteworthy thus far. Has it been bad? I can’t say. It seems like Bama’s play actions were working against us; isn’t part of the reason to do that to draw the safety help from down field?

First off, I’ll admit that I’m not terribly pleased with the results we’ve been getting. However, in no way does that make me think it’s a scheme problem.

With so many teams spreading the field, the idea of “press” coverage is unrealistic. Everyone’s beloved Asher Allen (more on him later) can’t even cover one man (or his zone) when there are three or sometimes even two receivers on his side of the field. Without the ability to draw up a chalkboard here, just picture in your head Allen lined up directly in front of the widest receiver. Surely no one is advocating playing every DB at the LOS, so the receiver in the slot has 5-10 yards to work with in front of him. Ok, you say, let’s put a ‘backer there to cover that intermediate zone. Problem? Immediately following the snap, slot receiver catches a quick screen, and runs upfield toward the sideline where Asher is getting blocked before he knows what’s coming. Do we want our LBs chasing guys like Percy Harvin or Kenny McKinley (I know, he didn’t play, just for effect here) with even that minimal 2 yards of space? I sure don’t.

So, ok, let’s play press on the slot, give the cushion on the outside. This is the better strategy, but not without its flaws. If you are going to still play zone, that wide out is on an island with the corner, because the safety can’t float over and help for fear that the slot guy beats the jam and then he’s got acres of space behind the linebackers. In man coverage, well, same problem, and combination routes will let those two receivers rub defenders off and catch and run. These problems are exacerbated when teams use trips, as more receivers make it more likely that there’ll be an uncovered guy at the line who can be used to block or catch in a Zook-esque bubble screen extravaganza.

If you DO want to press everyone, our run D suffers, as corners have much more trouble getting off blocks that come instantly rather than stepping up when they have a chance to read the play. Playing 3 DBs against a trips set leave us far too vulnerable on the back side as well.

Now sure, teams do all of those things with some success, but it relies on a strong pass rush just as much as our scheme. I like the way we do things, because it is a safe enough game plan to allow the safeties to work down in run support, and protect the middle of the field. We don’t get beat down the middle, and I like that. The reason we run into trouble, especially lately, is that we are doing a terrible job of putting teams in a position where they have to take a 5- or 7-step drop and pick up a 3rd and 6+. Tackling has been subpar on the perimeter, and we need to address that. Our corners aren’t closing fast enough, yes, even Asher. If those 3 yard throws are just that, then ok, but we are letting 3 yard completions turn into 6, 7, even 12-yard gains. THAT’S the problem.

As for Allen, he’s not the cover man he’s made out to be. People like to point to the PI penalty as a sign of how he’s a “smart” player because he was beat. That’s the issue…when we’ve given him the chance to lock a guy down, he gets beat. Is there a better corner on the roster? Maybe. Bryan Evans has better raw skills but also isn’t good enough yet to be a shut down guy. We don’t have a player like that, as talented as our guys are and as good as they are all around.

The solution? I think it’s stay the course, for the most part, and hope to get better safety play. I can’t help but think that part of the reason are guys are a little slower on the outside is that they have more concerns about what Byrd and Jones are going to do. Those guys are too talented not to start making some plays for the pass D. We need our corners to play like Ronde Barbers, flying to the ball as soon as it’s out. As it is, they are playing like Dre Blys, wanting to grab a guy’s legs before he runs past.