Every player in the secondary played like ass. Why?

[BigHorn'13 3387]

Bottom line, they scored on 3 of their first 4 possessions and it would've been a perfect 4 had they had a decent kicker. 

Compare that to us, who scored once out of those 4 and the three drives that weren't scores (iirc) were all 3 and outs. 

We played catchup after that with a mix of fuckery added in. Throw in Gundy going conservative in the second half and peppering in absolutely brilliant calls in critical situations (we fucked up but that last ZR play was a great call) and we fucked this one away. 

[BigHorn'13 3387]

10 hours ago, Richter said:

To be fair, it didn’t seem like Devante a Davis did anything in this game, good or bad.

Anthony Cook actually played the same that first quarter. You just wouldn't have believed it with how the other side of the field was doing. 

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301]

1 minute ago, BigHorn'13 said:

Bottom line, they scored on 3 of their first 4 possessions and it would've been a perfect 4 had they had a decent kicker. 

Compare that to us, who scored once out of those 4 and the three drives that weren't scores (iirc) were all 3 and outs. 

We played catchup after that with a mix of fuckery added in. Throw in Gundy going conservative in the second half and peppering in absolutely brilliant calls in critical situations (we fucked up but that last ZR play was a great call) and we fucked this one away. 

But our secondary unit looked like they could have been drugged before the game. Why?

i have to think we have zero player leadership in that unit and we need it badly. When your 2 senior leaders can’t bother to show up for multiple team meetings on time, I think that’s a symptom of a pretty big illness.

[CTC2 2803]

Seemed like the whole defense was high last night.

[bluto 4944]

Gary played decent, otherwise it was a total unit failure. 

[BigHorn'13 3387]

1 minute ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

But our secondary unit looked like they could have been drugged before the game. Why?

i have to think we have zero player leadership in that unit and we need it badly. When your 2 senior leaders can’t bother to show up for multiple team meetings on time, I think that’s a symptom of a pretty big illness.

You answered your own question. In that first quarter, our secondary was:

BC: True freshman Cook

FS: True freshman Sterns 

Joker: True freshman Foster

SS: 2nd year starter(no excuse for him imo) Jones 

NB: JAG Locke (the main culprit every week)

FC: RS Freshman Boyce (who's basically a higher rated donovan duvernay)

 

Your leadership for the first quarter is a second year starter who is playing his worst game this season and a nickle that is the weak link of the chain every week, which is saying a lot. I wish they would've kept Thompson in there when Locke went down. He was actually playing decently. 

[BigHorn'13 3387]

8 minutes ago, bluto said:

Gary played decent, otherwise it was a total unit failure. 

Yeah, about that... I love me some GJ but I think teams are starting to realize running right at him behind a pulling guard/ or other traffic washes him out of the play. We already know Wheeler isn't exactly slippery when blocked but GJ's lack of size gets exposed when playing straight up in the box. 

Edited October 28, 2018 by BigHorn'13

[MonkeyDoughnut 10372]

This game was clearly lost on the bye week preparation. We show up ready to play in the first quarter we beat this team.

Lack of focus, lack of energy, lack of discipline. All this showed up before the first snap. 

I have a feeling we will hear rumblings this week of a players only meeting where some of the other more vocal senior leaders take some guys to task.

[MrPhlegm 3413]

 People are hating on boyd and Davis, but that first quarter without them is why we lost. 

And that first quarter without out them is bullshit. Fuck that suspending for part of a game for violating team rules bullshit. That crap is on herman. Gotta be another way to discipline that doesnt hurt the rest of the team for rules violations. Say spankings. Instead of susupensions, spank them when they are naughty.

They must tie them down on a bed and spank them, spank them well.

Spank all of them.

[brojangles2 786]

1 hour ago, KeysPhoneWallet said:

Boyd is one of the best players on the team, but damn he really had a bad night and it started with not being focused in the week leading up.

No sir. He is not....He’s literally been dropping INT’s all season. Started with Maryland. He spun outside to the sideline and chased a receiver running a fucking post route last night, instead of an inside drop and pursuit. What the fuck???? 

[taybo20 2887]

11 minutes ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

I have a feeling we will hear rumblings this week of a players only meeting where some of the other more vocal senior leaders take some guys to task.

The vocal leaders if they were worth anything would have kept this team focused during the bye week. That's probably the most frustrating part of this loss. Especially with being able to watch Ohio State get fucking pantsed. I think at the Monday presser Herman was asked if he could use the Ohio St game as a teaching lesson to be ready and focused. Herman responded with the team will be ready blah blah blah. They weren't. I hope this game is used, and this lack of preparation is used to teach these guys what it takes week in and week out. Even though it's a bye week, it isn't an off week. 

[BigHorn'13 3387]

1 hour ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

I have a feeling we will hear rumblings this week of a players only meeting where some of the other more vocal senior leaders take some guys to task.

Jesus I hope not. Can you remember the last time a players only meeting resulted in anything positive because I can't. With any team. 

[1leggedduck 443]

To what extent are the issues attributable to coaching? I honestly have no idea. I never played a minute of DB. I know Akina produced the best D backfields in college football but offenses were simpler at the time. I also feel like there's a lot of misplaced attitude infecting the unit.

[Huckleberry 33163]

On 10/28/2018 at 10:22 AM, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

But our secondary unit looked like they could have been drugged before the game. Why?

i have to think we have zero player leadership in that unit and we need it badly. When your 2 senior leaders can’t bother to show up for multiple team meetings on time, I think that’s a symptom of a pretty big illness.

I get frustrated every week watching our strategy of lining our corners 8-10 yards off the receiver and giving the offense a free release on every route. I'm not asking to play press coverage across the board on every snap, but we have got to start mixing it up more. Our strategy makes playcalling absurdly easy because we do the same thing so frequently. By playing 8-10 yards off and then backpedaling at the snap we are routinely giving away uncontested 5-7 yards pass completions. We are much more competitive in our coverages when we play closer to the line of scrimmage.

It's not just us, for the record. For some reason defensive coordinators across the country have reacted to spread attacks by playing soft coverage because they're so afraid of getting beat deep. The rub of it, though, is that by giving away that free release you are allowing talented receivers to make their break at full speed so you're not even defending the deep ball as well as you could by occasionally pressing the WR at the LOS. You're also taking away your DBs' aggressiveness by making them play like that 95% of the time.

The other thing is that Naivar needs to take Brandon Jones aside and have him play 200 balls in the air every practice until he figures it out. The guy has absolutely no ability to keep track of where he is on the field and where the ball is in the air at the same time. It shows up when trying to defend passes and it showed up on that terrible punt return.

[USNALonghorn 5078]

I don't agree with the punishment enforced on Boyd and Davis. As an unintended consequence, you end up throwing two true freshmen into a hostile road environment against a pass heavy team. It didn't help that the rest of the defense was playing poorly to start the game, but it absolutely let the debacle snowball much quicker. In the end, Herman ended up punishing the whole team for the idiocy of two players. 

Also, sitting out the entire first quarter didn't help keep Boyd and Davis mentally engaged in game. I'm not making excuses for the cancerous attitudes they may or may not expose the team to, and I am absolutely against any coddling. But as a head coach you have to work with what you have and minimize the damage it presents to the rest of the team. Given their lack of maturity, the punishment probably led them to mentally check out of the defensive game plan even further. The defensive breakdown we saw in the better part of the first half could have been a result of the entire unit cohesion being degraded by the shakeup Herman decided to introduce.

I'm not saying what they did should have gone unpunished; however, there are numerous other, less damaging avenues of dealing with the disciplinary issues that could have been implemented during the week. A head coach shouldn't punish the whole team like that.

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301]

The entire point of the punishment is to punish everyone. That’s what accountability looks like.

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301]

21 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

I get frustrated every week watching our strategy of lining our corners 8-10 yards off the receiver and giving the offense a free release on every route. I'm not asking to play press coverage across the board on every snap, but we have got to start mixing it up more. Our strategy makes playcalling absurdly easy because we do the same thing so frequently. By playing 8-10 yards off and then backpedaling at the snap we are routinely giving away uncontested 5-7 yards pass completions. We are much more competitive in our coverages when we play closer to the line of scrimmage.

It's not just us, for the record. For some reason defensive coordinators across the country have reacted to spread attacks by playing soft coverage because they're so afraid of getting beat deep. The rub of it, though, is that by giving away that free release you are allowing talented receivers to make their break at full speed so you're not even defending the deep ball as well as you could by occasionally pressing the WR at the LOS. You're also taking away your DBs' aggressiveness by making them play like that 95% of the time.

The other thing is that Naivar needs to take Brandon Jones aside and have him play 200 balls in the air every practice until he figures it out. The guy has absolutely no ability to keep track of where he is on the field and where the ball is in the air at the same time. It shows up when trying to defend passes and it showed up on that terrible punt return.

What about the drug tests? I’d like to know what substances were in their bodies if I was a coach.

[USNALonghorn 5078]

2 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

The entire point of the punishment is to punish everyone. That’s what accountability looks like.

Group punishments never work.

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301]

4 minutes ago, USNALonghorn said:

Group punishments never work.

good talk.

[Jkwellborn 6782]

The punishment truly fucked the team. I agree that it got everyone out of whack. You wind up with guys worried about having to make a big play every chance they get or making every stop. Assignments get blown, guys don’t trust each other to hold up, people start to gamble. Coaches included.

They should have ran the shit out of those 3 for two weeks. Start on offense and make them sit a series to get your “point” across.