For all the whining about our defense

[IrishLax]

The last game they were on the field against a "normal" offense they held the defending champs to the lowest point total they've ever scored in the Jameis Winston era. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

 

[Irish YJ]

You're no fun Lax

 

[phork]

Rutgers held Navy to 171 yards rushing. Just sayin. Air Force 198.
I'm not ripping the defense, but I will never understand how anyone thinks its fine to let Navy drop 300 yards on you.

 

[irishff1014]

Rutgers held Navy to 171 yards rushing. Just sayin. Air Force 198.
I'm not ripping the defense, but I will never understand how anyone thinks its fine to let Navy drop 300 yards on you.

I will also add that the defense against the FSU wasn't good in the 2nd half.A lot of the reason we lost that game.

 

[koonja]

FWIW, our defense gave up 323 yards to FSU. IDK what's the norm for them, but that seems damn good.

I think we're better against traditional offenses. If the D stinks it up this week, I'll be skeptical. But I expect them to hold ASU to 30 or under. This isn't 1995. 30 points against a really good offense isn't outrageous IMO.

 

[IrishLax]

Rutgers held Navy to 171 yards rushing. Just sayin. Air Force 198.
I'm not ripping the defense, but I will never understand how anyone thinks its fine to let Navy drop 300 yards on you.

Whole point is that looking at a game against a unique team where the game plan was a cataclysmic failure on every level and trying to extrapolate that to how our defense will perform against any of the remaining teams on our schedule is so silly its almost beyond words.

It doesn't matter if we shut out Navy or they scored 50. It's completely irrelevant to the capability of the defense to succeed in the remaining games.

 

[Luckylucci]

The last game they were on the field against a "normal" offense they held the defending champs to the lowest point total they've ever scored in the Jameis Winston era. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

C'mon its not whining. There has been some serious underperformance over the last 3 games. Yes we did a good job against Jameis in the first half, so did Louisville. He then picked us, as well as them, a part in the second half. This isn't just one game. The OFD article made a tremendous amount of sense. This is 3 straight games of subpar play on D.

 

[MNIrishman]

Rutgers held Navy to 171 yards rushing. Just sayin. Air Force 198.
I'm not ripping the defense, but I will never understand how anyone thinks its fine to let Navy drop 300 yards on you.

You're not wrong, but to play devil's advocate:
1) Who gets excited about playing Rutgers?
2) Air Force practices against that offense all the time. It makes sense that they'd be talented at defending it.

 

[anarin]

People will always whine or find ways to bitch about stuff. Especially on this fucking board.

 

[Luckylucci]

Whole point is that looking at a game against a unique team where the game plan was a cataclysmic failure on every level and trying to extrapolate that to how our defense will perform against any of the remaining teams on our schedule is so silly its almost beyond words.

It doesn't matter if we shut out Navy or they scored 50. It's completely irrelevant to the capability of the defense to succeed in the remaining games.

I'm not sure how you could possibly say this? We just faced a UNC team that matches up on paper with what ASU wants to do (somewhat similar) and they had 519 yards of total offense and 36 offensive points. That is not good.

 

[dwshade]

Rutgers held Navy to 171 yards rushing. Just sayin. Air Force 198.
I'm not ripping the defense, but I will never understand how anyone thinks its fine to let Navy drop 300 yards on you.

Air Force gave up 251 yards and they have the advantage of practicing against that offense daily. Other than Rutgers and Air Force no one has done better than us against their rushing attack which is 2nd in the nation.

 

[DCIrish]

Golson's int and the play calling in the 2nd half made the Navy game more difficult than it should have been.

Defense played well enough.

Also would help if the best RB got more carries.

 

[dwshade]

FWIW, our defense gave up 323 yards to FSU. IDK what's the norm for them, but that seems damn good.

I think we're better against traditional offenses. If the D stinks it up this week, I'll be skeptical. But I expect them to hold ASU to 30 or under. This isn't 1995. 30 points against a really good offense isn't outrageous IMO.

FSU averages 460 yards per game. They put up 570 yards on Louisville's #1 ranked defense. We held them to 50 yards rushing. The defense was damn good in that game.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Several posters are arguing across each other here.

Lax is correct that our defense's performance against Navy's gimmicky offense is irrelevant to projections against future opponents.

Lucci (and OFD's Eric Murtaugh) are correct that the 6.0 yards/ play that we've allowed over the last three games is bad any way you slice it, and will surely result in another loss soon if BvG doesn't make some changes. Especially since we'll be facing another explosive up-tempo offense on Saturday, but without Schmidt orchestrating the defensive calls.

 

[IrishLax]

C'mon its not whining. There has been some serious underperformance over the last 3 games. Yes we did a good job against Jameis in the first half, so did Louisville. He then picked us, as well as them, a part in the second half. This isn't just one game. The OFD article made a tremendous amount of sense. This is 3 straight games of subpar play on D.

Ridiculous.

Against UNC we allowed 6.1 yards per play. They average 5.5 on the season. That's a moderately sub-par bad showing. It's not good, it's also not terrible.

To look at a game where we held the 24-0 reigning champs to the lowest point total they've ever scored with Jameis as anything other than a success is insanity. Out performing LITERALLY EVERYONE IN THE COUNTRY over a two year stretch cannot -- on any level -- be characterized as bad. On per-drive, and per-play metrics the whole game... not just the first half... was far above "par."

And then you have Navy. Navy isn't relevant on any level to performance against normal teams. If we played 3 more option teams I'd be freaking out. We don't though.

So once you throw out Navy then really you can amend OFD's stance to "in the past two games, ND played a bad one, and a good one".... big effing deal. And then I could amend that further to "in seven games against normal teams, ND only allowed two teams to score over 17 points... one was the defending champ and they were held to their lowest point total in 2 years with Winston... and the other was a bad game."

The amount of illogical overreaction to our atrocious performance on defense against Navy is befuddling.

 

[IrishLax]

FSU averages 460 yards per game. They put up 570 yards on Louisville's #1 ranked defense. We held them to 50 yards rushing. The defense was damn good in that game.

Exactly. OFD is grossly misleading with their phrasing and use of stats to make this into a "trend." They're all isolated instances.

Defense was bad against UNC.

Defense was fantastic against FSU.

And it was bad again Navy, but that game can be completely thrown out because it's completely irrelevant to how this defense may perform against a future opponent.

 

[IrishSteelhead]

I feel like the tone of this thread verifies a legitimate need to be concerned about the defense.

 

[dwshade]

Several posters are arguing across each other here.

Lax is correct that our defense's performance against Navy's gimmicky offense is irrelevant to projections against future opponents.

Lucci (and OFD's Eric Murtaugh) are correct that the 6.0 yards/ play that we've allowed over the last three games is bad any way you slice it, and will surely result in another loss soon if BvG doesn't make some changes. Especially since we'll be facing another explosive up-tempo offense on Saturday, but without Schmidt orchestrating the defensive calls.

The 6.0 yards/play is skewed by the Navy game where it was 8.33. Against FSU it was 5.40 and FSU averages 6.60.

 

[dwshade]

Exactly. OFD is grossly misleading with their phrasing and use of stats to make this into a "trend." They're all isolated instances.

Defense was bad against UNC.

Defense was fantastic against FSU.

And it was bad again Navy, but that game can be completely thrown out because it's completely irrelevant to how this defense may perform against a future opponent.

Agreed. It wasn't a good defensive game against NC. It happens. If you look at the numbers we played damn well against FSU. They just happen to have a great, great QB who makes plays other QB's can't. I could care less about the Navy numbers. Do people realize at times in the 2nd half we had 5 true freshmen playing at once? Find me another top ten team playing with such a young defense. All of our starters return and I'm including Russell in place of Riggs. It's amazing how well the young guys have picked up a new scheme and played well. This defense has exceeded my expectations. Some people on this board need a shot of realism.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Exactly. OFD is grossly misleading with their phrasing and use of stats to make this into a "trend." They're all isolated instances.

That's fair. But I do think the past three games have given us plenty of reasons to worry about ASU.

1. BVG's defense was majorly exposed by UNC's tempo.
2. Graham employs an explosive up-tempo offense at ASU.
3. Schmidt is out, and Jones, Day and Onwualu may all be banged up as well.

 

[IrishLax]

That's fair. But I do think the past three games have given us plenty of reasons to worry about ASU.

1. BVG's defense was majorly exposed by UNC's tempo.
2. Graham employs an explosive up-tempo offense at ASU.
3. Schmidt is out, and Jones, Day and Onwualu may all be banged up as well.

Yeah, big disclaimer I've never thought our D was that "good," and without Schmidt it's possible we take a big step backwards. If Jones/Day aren't close to 100%, I KNOW we're going to take a huge step backward.

My feelings are more that it's insane to see people worried BECAUSE of Navy. That's not logical.

 

[Pops Freshenmeyer]

That's fair. But I do think the past three games have given us plenty of reasons to worry about ASU.

1. BVG's defense was majorly exposed by UNC's tempo.
2. Graham employs an explosive up-tempo offense at ASU.
3. Schmidt is out, and Jones, Day and Onwualu may all be banged up as well.

I'm not going to draw a ton of inferences about the performance against UNC. I think it's quite likely ND's staff gave an inordinate amount of concern to stopping FSU the week after and sacrificed focusing installation for UNC. By the same token, I believe they didn't spend the past two weeks worrying about Navy with the ASU game coming up.

Yeah, the players should focus on whoever is next because worrying about the week after does them no good. As for the staff, their time working with the players is so limited during the week that they would be foolish to spend equal time on the field prepping their defense for every opponent, regardless of quality.

I realize it's probably not a popular view to espouse but I do believe it's Kelly's philosophy and part of the reason the Irish turn up some head scratchers against inferior teams. It's a tough barometer (since Golson was out and Rees had to man the team) but ND survived BYU by the skin of their teeth in 2012 and came out with all kinds of new stuff against Oklahoma just seven days later.

I think the staff made a calculated gamble. They survived Navy and won by double digits. Let's see if it pays off on the second part.

 

[GBdomer]

Won't get any better this weekend. Everybody was making threads about BVG and how much of a fucking gangster he was. Defense has been playing pretty shitty lately and I think everybody knows it. Back to back games giving up 40 points. Especially coming off a bye week giving up 40

 

[IrishSteelhead]

For all the whining about our defense

I'm not going to draw a ton of inferences about the performance against UNC. I think it's quite likely ND's staff gave an inordinate amount of concern to stopping FSU the week after and sacrificed focusing installation for UNC. By the same token, I believe they didn't spend the past two weeks worrying about Navy with the ASU game coming up.



Yeah, the players should focus on whoever is next because worrying about the week after does them no good. As for the staff, their time working with the players is so limited during the week that they would be foolish to spend equal time on the field prepping their defense for every opponent, regardless of quality.



I realize it's probably not a popular view to espouse but I do believe it's Kelly's philosophy and part of the reason the Irish turn up some head scratchers against inferior teams. It's a tough barometer (since Golson was out and Rees had to man the team) but ND survived BYU by the skin of their teeth in 2012 and came out with all kinds of new stuff against Oklahoma just seven days later.



I think the staff made a calculated gamble. They survived Navy and won by double digits. Let's see if it pays off on the second part.

Should just adopt the SEC model and have byes before FSU and ASU.

 

[Ndaccountant]

That's fair. But I do think the past three games have given us plenty of reasons to worry about ASU.

1. 
   [*]BVG's defense was majorly exposed by UNC's tempo.
2. Graham employs an explosive up-tempo offense at ASU.
3. Schmidt is out, and Jones, Day and Onwualu may all be banged up as well.

Just spit balling here, but that UNC game was BVG's first look at the up tempo spread while at ND and was his first since 2012's game against JFF (which, it is debatable whether or not the team was mentally there at that point in the year). Can we say maybe, just maybe, he made some bad game planning assumptions (situation substitutions being one) that he will learn from? After all, his experience against that style of offense is rather small at the collegiate level.

I have no visions of this ND defense being able to shut down a team like FSU for 4 quarters, but the defense played well enough to win that game. I fully expect to see a different defensive game plan that will produce better results than UNC this week. I also think ASU's offensive strengths match up a bit better to ND than what UNC's did.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Everybody was making threads about BVG and how much of a fucking gangster he was.

He's on a short-list to win the Broyles Award, and for good reason. Our defense was supposed to be a liability this year, but he's found ways to mask our deficiencies and has gotten incredible production from a lot of underclassmen. I don't think anyone needs to walk back their praise of BvG.

Defense has been playing pretty shitty lately and I think everybody knows it.

See Lax's posts above about our defensive performance against FSU. Taken in context, there's no way to argue that was anything but excellent.

Back to back games giving up 40 points.

FSU didn't get close to 40, and Navy didn't break 40 either.

Especially coming off a bye week giving up 40

See Pops' post above. We likely spent a lot of that time looking ahead to ASU. Perfectly logical.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Just spit balling here, but that UNC game was BVG's first look at the up tempo spread while at ND and was his first since 2012's game against JFF (which, it is debatable whether or not the team was mentally there at that point in the year). Can we say maybe, just maybe, he made some bad game planning assumptions (situation substitutions being one) that he will learn from? After all, his experience against that style of offense is rather small at the collegiate level.

I have no visions of this ND defense being able to shut down a team like FSU for 4 quarters, but the defense played well enough to win that game. I fully expect to see a different defensive game plan that will produce better results than UNC this week. I also think ASU's offensive strengths match up a bit better to ND than what UNC's did.

Agreed on all accounts. As I mentioned in the ASU thread, I still expect to win this game. But I'm not nearly as confident as I was a month ago.

 

[dwshade]

Won't get any better this weekend. Everybody was making threads about BVG and how much of a fucking gangster he was. Defense has been playing pretty shitty lately and I think everybody knows it. Back to back games giving up 40 points. Especially coming off a bye week giving up 40

"everybody knows it." Speak for yourself clueless one. Back to back 40 point games? Wrong. Coming off a bye week means nothing.

 

[IrishLax]

Won't get any better this weekend. Everybody was making threads about BVG and how much of a fucking gangster he was. Defense has been playing pretty shitty lately

Held FSU to lowest yards/point ever under Winston.

and I think everybody knows it.

Nope.

Back to back games giving up 40 points. Especially coming off a bye week giving up 40

This just isn't even factual.

Post less. Seriously.

 

[GBdomer]

My bad I was thinking FSU was before UNC. Ok so we gave up 39 points instead of 40 coming off a bye week. Sure we are banged up on defense and we just lost our leader while ASU has one of the most explosive offense in the country. Am I the only one whining about this defense? No, I think it has taken a step back 2 of the last 3 weeks.

I am not saying we can't have an elite defense or be able to shut some teams down but I just think with ASU coming up this weekend it will be a major challenge. I think it will be a shootout and our defense will be the key whether we win in Tempe or not.