Why is our defense so terrible in the first quarter?

[Assman 1830]

I know the easy answer is coaching and bad preparation, but what within the Xs and Os is leading to our suckage?  Without going back and looking closely at every opening drive, it just seems like we're more likely to bring 3 and drop 8 early in games, which allows the QB all day to find an open WR.  It doesn't seem like our QB pressure gets going until later in the game, whether it's with our normal rush, or with Orlando bringing extra guys.  Once again, this is all just going off of memory, but it seems Orlando just likes playing conservative early and it always leads to an opening score for the other team.  Or maybe I'm just full of shit and a few too many beers deep.

[NameWithHeld 101]

Just trying to get’m over confident.  

[Blanton 170]

Tired and hungover.

[satyanash 14636]

We don't seem to have a great gauge of the opposing offense's gameplan coming into the game. We have to adjust better to what we're seeing on the field.

[texaslong 678]

Its not just the defense. Offense seems to always have false starts and a delay of game in the first qtr also. 

[David Dennison 18951]

Sometimes I feel like the players don't really understand that their opponent wants to beat Texas more than any other team on their schedule.

[Michael Knight 12995]

We were missing our 2 best corners so we gave up a shit ton of yards

[Vic Mackey 47161]

Just now, Michael Knight said:

We were missing our 2 best corners so we gave up a shit ton of yards

Explain the rest of the games prior to this one. It has been going on this whole season. Too many times teams easily score on us to open the game. With no resistance. 

[UTEX_ME 4766]

5 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Sometimes I feel like the players don't really understand that their opponent wants to beat Texas more than any other team on their schedule.

coaches know this too bc if they can snag a Texas win, extension baby! 

[Jkwellborn 6748]

Texas has allowed points on nearly every opening drive this season. Missing Boyd and Davis didnt have an effect on that. Continuing to sit them after that did

[maninblack 7974]

I'm used to the hysterics from a loss but this is a legitimate concern. I was hoping the staff would figure it out but at this point I expect WVU to score on their first drive and for us to respond with a delay of game/3&out.

[Treefidy 1469]

Even Mrs Fidy commented "why do they make it look so easy and we make it look so hard?"  And she knows jack shit about football.  In spite of me trying to explain things, I can tell by her look she's moved on to thinking about shoes.  

[Nivek 16992]

Even Mrs Fidy commented "why do they make it look so easy and we make it look so hard?"  And she knows jack shit about football.  In spite of me trying to explain things, I can tell by her look she's moved on to thinking about shoes.  

Lucky her

[Rockethorn1978 6108]

Why do we keep deferring if we are gonna come out like pussies? Let the offense come out fired up and set the fucking tone and quit letting our lazy defense come out and give up 6 in 4/5 plays of no pressure, missed tackles and shitty coverage.

[HSFC 5]

6 hours ago, Michael Knight said:

We were missing our 2 best corners so we gave up a shit ton of yards

If you think it was the starters, you haven’t watched since last season.  Tech did the same thing last year.  The only reason this game got close was Sam is still not throwing interceptions.

 

Orlando cost himself millions by staying last year.  Now he is stuck with a defense that will be outside the top 50.

[ClubWhatever 12158]

OP essentially answered his own question.  The way I would put it is we "catch blocks" from the opposing offense until Orlando adjusts the chess pieces.  The front 7 isn't good enough to just physically whip their man without some sort of schematic advantage.  Until Orlando figures out a scheme tailored to what's working for the other team, it's pitch and catch for the QB (while making a sandwich) and simple hat on hat for the blockers in the run game.

[Dbeasy 15094]

Our front 7 can’t win any 1:1 battles. They aren’t very good.

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301]

Also worth pointing out, Anthony Wheeler’s effort last night was atrocious. It’s almost as if the seniors threw the game. They were that bad/uninterested.

[Hamttx 421]

Pregame preparation is flawed. Herman allows his teams far too much emotion, and far too little time being cerebral about executing ones responsibilities. That Rah Rah shit has its place.

It works out when things go their way off the bat. If not, one can literally see the air come out of them. Then it takes time to regroup and play as a disciplined unit. 

Emotion can be both good and bad thing. But playing off of it to start a game is a crap shoot.

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301]

2 minutes ago, Hamttx said:

Pregame preparation is flawed. Herman allows his teams far too much emotion, and far too little time being cerebral about executing ones responsibilities. That Rah Rah shit has its place.

It works out when things go their way off the bat. If not, one can literally see the air come out of them. Then it takes time to regroup and play as a disciplined unit. 

Emotion can be both good and bad thing. But playing off of it to start a game is a crap shoot.

You saw a team with too much emotion? They looked like zombies for most of the game.

[phdhorn 6224]

Apparently most of 'em show up late for shit.

[Judge Roybeanbag 11821]

1 hour ago, Rockethorn1978 said:

Why do we keep deferring if we are gonna come out like pussies? Let the offense come out fired up and set the fucking tone and quit letting our lazy defense come out and give up 6 in 4/5 plays of no pressure, missed tackles and shitty coverage.

This pissed me off last night. Deferring with Boyd and Davis out, on the road given our problems in the first quarter seems dumb. 

[hookem2010 2625]

This is obviously a problem this year, but I swear going back to the Colt years, we started slow then too. I don't get how we can suck so hard on 1st drives for over a decade, but we do.

[TexArcher 38076]

Just now, Judge Roybeanbag said:

This pissed me off last night. Deferring with Boyd and Davis out, on the road given our problems in the first quarter seems dumb. 

Yep.  We should've taken the ball and tried to put up a 7 or 8 minute drive.  We could have at least tried to make sure Okie St only had the ball once against our backup corners.

[Liquor and Poker 3659]

4 minutes ago, TexArcher said:

Yep.  We should've taken the ball and tried to put up a 7 or 8 minute drive.  We could have at least tried to make sure Okie St only had the ball once against our backup corners.

This exactly. Not adapting the general, basic plan to take into account things you know going in.

And I think it’s the same thing as the defense not being ready in Q1.  It’s like we set up the same no matter what, see how they attack that, and adjust. 

[campcrunk 2512]

26 minutes ago, Judge Roybeanbag said:

This pissed me off last night. Deferring with Boyd and Davis out, on the road given our problems in the first quarter seems dumb. 

I thought deferring last night was a dumb thing to do as well. Aside from Boyd and Davis being out, we just aren't very good on D on the first drive. Period. You're also playing on the road at night on Halloween weekend against a fired up team - with a lot of players who feel disrespected because we didn't recruit them (since Texas can offer EVERYONE, apparently) - so why not try to take the piss out of them right off the bat by putting up points?

Edited October 28, 2018 by campcrunk

[phdhorn 6224]

oops... ha ha wrong thread.. Hitler had nothing to do with our shitty defense... I think...

 

Edited October 28, 2018 by phdhorn

[HornsOverIthaca 2335]

Hager is apparently the leader on defense.

[NowThis 931]

Orlando plays a soft prevent D to see what the O is giving, then tries to make adjustments. Sometimes the damn adjustments take 3 or 4 series, hence the massive output of the opposition.

Also, the Pokes let up on their D as well, but only after a big lead. That's why Texas offensive production improved. 

[XYZ 2154]

1 hour ago, ClubWhatever said:

OP essentially answered his own question.  The way I would put it is we "catch blocks" from the opposing offense until Orlando adjusts the chess pieces.  The front 7 isn't good enough to just physically whip their man without some sort of schematic advantage.  Until Orlando figures out a scheme tailored to what's working for the other team, it's pitch and catch for the QB (while making a sandwich) and simple hat on hat for the blockers in the run game.

This. It looks like we start off playing vanilla defense and our d-line just gets manhandled.

[BigHorn'13 3387]

Since everything else I wanted to say has already been covered, I'll just mention this is the first time since UMD we weren't able to stop the run. Hill is a really good RB but their interior lineman had their way with the defense the majority of the time.

Everything TO wants to do on defense is predicated on stopping the run and we couldn't do that last night. 

[EuroHorn 3271]

Is not like the defense has played outstanding in the 4th quarter. They’ve  let teams back into the game all season. Last night they couldn’t get critical stops that would have given us a chance to win.