Chris Ash - Loves Man Coverage?

stlnd01

stlnd01

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Dale said:
View attachment 3065591

This site/guy cfbquant attempts a points over expected for OCs based of EPA, recruiting talent and SOS. Unfortunately he doesn’t attempt to do it for DCs. Would be an interesting number to try to put in Ash. Probably not perfect - everyone in the Top 9 has a QB way over-performing - but interesting nonetheless
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Highest percentage of "blue-chip snaps," and of "returning snaps." (I guess that's what we get for whiffing on portal WRs!).
 
BeatSC

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SportsingHard said:
I appreciate effort in writing, thought, and research. Grades for perceived effort:
Writing A
Thought D
Research F

Why the F for research? You essentially made the argument "advanced stats are imperfect, and the fact that Navy's better offenses tend to be underrated is proof." The easy argument you should've made is "advanced stats are imperfect, and the fact that Navy's better offenses tend to be overrated is proof."

Some OFEI ranks for Navy's offenses:
SeasonRecordOFEINational rank
20078–4.912
201510–21.263
20168–51.343
20108–4.7913
201910–2.3613
20114–7.7614
20177–6.6725
20099–4.3126
20138–4.6828
20147–5.5829
20087–5.1930
202510–2.2231

Fremeau still hasn't updated FEI for this week, but BYU's offense is rated 12th, so you weren't far off, but you didn't exactly supply a correct number.

Why the D for effort of thought?
* Technologically, you responded to my post. Otherwise, you responded to an imaginary post. I asked only, "Why not at least wait and see if ND wins their first championship in four decades before firing everybody for shitty performance?" You just ignored that question and substituted your own, ending on "So that's why Ash is criticized." At no point have I been opposed to sensible criticism, and I never asked why Ash is criticized, so why are we having this conversation?

* You said the team is clearly not overachieving relative to its talent level, which is both false and, to smart people, irrelevant. Again, my post points to how the world of deep analysis points to ND as the #1 team in the country to date in terms of down-by-down performance. The most sensible way we can argue ND is not overachieving is if we claim ND is the most talented team in the country. Then you'd be getting into arguments about firing coaches because ND is #1 in both talent and performance. It's irrelevant because smart people want ND to recruit like a Top 5 team and play like a Top 5 team. If you ever get into arguments of "your elite performance matches your elite talent, so that's a coaching failure," you've utterly failed as a supporter.

While I get that you personally are more concerned with Ash than Denbrock, reasonable analysis would say the offense is indeed overachieving in light of the dearth of WR/TE talent and the defense is slightly underachieving relative to talent level, even if this ignores shit like the team missing some of that talent while suffering from the flu at altitude in a hostile environment against a team emptying the unseen playbook in the defense's worst performance, in a game against a worthy opponent which they would've won if officiated correctly, not just on the last play and last drive but also those plays where you saw the defense confused and gesticulating about who is supposed to cover the 12th man.

On a trivial-but-amusing note, I find it deeply odd that you don't see Louis Nix starting on this team.
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If the offense is overachieving I think most of us think they could overachieve more!
Bottom line first half D against Navy regardless of stats the eye test said we looked soft, slow, pensive and generally tackled poorly. Throw all the stats out the window. We got saved by multiple appropriate penalties but we often don’t get that break. We do not look like a top 10 team. James and Walton look very good. We still won’t know if Walton is the second coming until he gets 20 Carrie’s in a game like Miami. We do know the WRs and TEs have been poorly managed and coached so far and the RB rotation has room for improvement.
 
ulukinatme

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EvilleIrish said:
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Yeah, I don't know how you can look at the defense and think it's superior to 2024. We haven't faced a lot of super potent offenses, and yet we're not getting off the field often enough. We're giving up a lot of 3rd down conversions and 4th downs, and the data backs that up. The 2nd half of games is obviously better than the 1st half, but it feels like we've lost some physicality and we're not getting teams into difficult 3rd and long, we're letting them get into 3rd and manageable.
 
C

CANONIZEFATHERSORIN

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stlnd01 said:
Maybe the A&M loss was glossed over for me in retrospect b/c we went on to have a very good season, all things considered.
I'm not sure I'd put it in the top 10 most soul-crushing losses since 2014 (2018 Clemson CFP game, for instance, was way worse. That Louisville game in 2023 when we realized Hartman wasn't that good. The entire experience of 2016.) Let alone the 13 years of Davie/Willingham/Weis, when my soul was basically a pancake, occasionally rising up only to be flattened once again.
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Agreed that the 2023 Louisville game was absolutely devastating, completely with you. I honestly didn't really feel much of anything for any of our various Kelly playoff games, because we were giving 30 point spreads in literally all of them. You could tell from the first drive in any of those games it was going to be very bad. TAMU 2025 was just tough in the way that we lost (Buchner managing to damage the program one last time, defense just completely folding) and the fact that it basically foreclosed an entire season for what should have been a very competitive squad.
 
NDWarrior

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IF MF and ND part ways with Ash and decide to make a big splash for the next hire, they should go after Knowles AND Derek Owings, The Vols' Director of Football Sports Performance who I believe also managed a healthy 2025 NC Indiana team.

He's killing it at Tennessee and we are doing so so on the injury front.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

In the 2026 season, the Tennessee Volunteers stand out as the safest Power Four team, recording the lowest injury risk score (7.7 out of 100) on the RotoWire Injury Risk Index. [1]

A major catalyst for the team's exceptional physical durability and conditioning success is their prominent hire, Derek Owings, who serves as the Director of Football Sports Performance. Under his innovative 14-week training regimen leading into the 2026 season, the Volunteers achieved staggering physical transformations, which included gaining over 867 pounds of collective muscle mass while shedding more than 200 pounds of total fat. [1]

Owings' data-driven and modernized conditioning frameworks have paid immediate dividends in keeping Tennessee's roster robust and remarkably healthy compared to the rest of the Power Four landscape. [1, 2]
 
Irishokie

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BilboBaggins said:
Lou Holtz had a line about how a team is never as good as they look when they win, or as bad as they look when they lose.
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Is this from the movie, Blow? Sorry if there’s an obnoxious highlight. I did my best.
"Sometimes you're flush and sometimes you're bust, and when you're up, it's never as good as it seems, and when you're down, you never think you'll be up again, but life goes on. “
 
IrishLax

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MacIrish75 said:
Not one mention of that on Twitter, ironically.

Wonder why that is?

Mensah was in hell until Fletcher had his best play of the night and punched Moore in the eye.

Was his mom even there if the camera didn’t cut to her 36 times?
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They had no idea what to do until they could streamline the playbook to "isolate 24, throw it at him as much as possible."
 
A

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Similar to last year during Purdue, I would’ve loved to have been a fly on the wall for the defensive coaches meetings this past week.

Did Freeman have to chew Ash’s ass? Is Freeman more involved in game planning and play calling now? When Moore and Sanders were both in the game, Notre Dame had Miami boxed up. I thought the front 7 played outstanding.
 
H

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arrowryan said:
Similar to last year during Purdue, I would’ve loved to have been a fly on the wall for the defensive coaches meetings this past week.

Did Freeman have to chew Ash’s ass? Is Freeman more involved in game planning and play calling now? When Moore and Sanders were both in the game, Notre Dame had Miami boxed up. I thought the front 7 played outstanding.
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It looked a lot like the 2024 playoffs. Sneed is overlooked, but he had a very 2024 like performance as well.
 
Dale

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- I’ve not read everything but IMO this was the first game I think Freeman directly changed the play calling. From the broadcast, his consistent involvement with hand signals for play calls was unlike I’ve seen ever before. He usually is more or less an observer. Some players also looked to him it seemed to me. Will that be a “Big Game” Freeman or continue throughout the season. But I’ve laughed at people that think he was calling plays since Purdue last year, I don’t think he called the play but I do think his role changed last night.

- I am surprised they did the Cover 1 plan but it worked for the most part extremely well till injuries. You’re downside is basically scrambles, penalties, man beaters. Surprised they didn’t try more screens early tbh. Miami hit all of the mentioned but not enough negatives to outweighs the positives. They also proactively had Talich on Lofton (until the injuries? - don’t follow the logic) which I really didn’t understand why that wasn’t the case back to UNC. The DL getting pressure played a viral role in this as well.

Injuries obviously made it untenable to finish the game doing this. They mixed in some zone which was warranted to just keep the lead. They also sim dropped someone into the slant window a lot in the 4Q but I don’t think it helped. Zackery is unplayable.
 
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rtrn2glory

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Kirby is able to manage the game and be directly involved in the defense on the field. Marcus was an on field coordinator. I think he needs to just flat out say I'm going to do that. Otherwise we aren't using him to the optimal level
 
NDdomer2

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Dale said:
- I’ve not read everything but IMO this was the first game I think Freeman directly changed the play calling. From the broadcast, his consistent involvement with hand signals for play calls was unlike I’ve seen ever before. He usually is more or less an observer. Some players also looked to him it seemed to me. Will that be a “Big Game” Freeman or continue throughout the season. But I’ve laughed at people that think he was calling plays since Purdue last year, I don’t think he called the play but I do think his role changed last night.

- I am surprised they did the Cover 1 plan but it worked for the most part extremely well till injuries. You’re downside is basically scrambles, penalties, man beaters. Surprised they didn’t try more screens early tbh. Miami hit all of the mentioned but not enough negatives to outweighs the positives. They also proactively had Talich on Lofton which I really didn’t understand why that wasn’t the case back to UNC. The DL getting pressure played a viral role in this as well.

Injuries obviously made it untenable to finish the game doing this. They mixed in some zone which was warranted to just keep the lead. They also sim dropped someone into the slant window a lot in the 4Q but I don’t think it helped. Zackery is unplayable.
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They had Joey on lofton quite a bit too
 
Rockin’Irish

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Dale said:
- I’ve not read everything but IMO this was the first game I think Freeman directly changed the play calling. From the broadcast, his consistent involvement with hand signals for play calls was unlike I’ve seen ever before. He usually is more or less an observer. Some players also looked to him it seemed to me. Will that be a “Big Game” Freeman or continue throughout the season. But I’ve laughed at people that think he was calling plays since Purdue last year, I don’t think he called the play but I do think his role changed last night.

- I am surprised they did the Cover 1 plan but it worked for the most part extremely well till injuries. You’re downside is basically scrambles, penalties, man beaters. Surprised they didn’t try more screens early tbh. Miami hit all of the mentioned but not enough negatives to outweighs the positives. They also proactively had Talich on Lofton which I really didn’t understand why that wasn’t the case back to UNC. The DL getting pressure played a viral role in this as well.

Injuries obviously made it untenable to finish the game doing this. They mixed in some zone which was warranted to just keep the lead. They also sim dropped someone into the slant window a lot in the 4Q but I don’t think it helped. Zackery is unplayable.
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I wonder who else could come in for Zackery though…….putting him on an island against a very good receiver is certainly a tough spot. Those slants are almost to stop in that quick passing game. I agree his lack of taking away inside leverage on those plays is frustrating, especially when it happens over and over. The play in the end zone where the ball essentially hits him in the back is also frustrating. I know the CBs are taught to play the man and not the ball…..you really wish they would take a peak especially when it is in the end zone. I also realize he was playing catch up on that play. He’s likely be a bit more effective in zone with more help from the safeties but on an island against very good receivers did not look good.
 
IrishLax

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On Zachary -- feel like they need to spend the week figuring out if they've got something with the freshmen or looking into something like JOB or Golden playing slot with Gray outside in an emergency. Literally the only reason that game got dicey is that he does not have the juice to do what they were asking him to do. Idk if Sanders is that good or Zachary is that bad but the drop off was absurd.
 
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