Chris "Belt To" Ash - Defensive Coordinator

[CT7]

Denbrock at least has a reason to be conservative. I hated it but understood it. Ash 0%

 

[FWIrish4]

So is this just going to be risk adverse rush 4 maybe 5 soft shell d all yr?

I’m still in shock the defensive game plan was so passive when it is very clearly documented how poor Beck is when pressured. Barely even touched him tonight and he had 12 straight completions at one point. Just letting him see the easy throws

 

[MacIrish75]

Ash was better 2H.

Sort of one of those things. Dude had to come on board and figure it out against what I believe is actually a decent MIA team.

But, man. They just didn’t seem to have that juice. Idk what it is. But here’s hoping someone steps up in between the white lines and gets them gathered. Drayk. Don. Whoever. Let’s go.

 

[Jimmy3Putt]

Zero swag from the defense. I expected a fast and hard hitting machine. Does Ash have them thinking too much this early?

 

[pumpdog20]

Defense was a lot better in the 2nd half.

 

[CT7]

Me personally, it didn't seem complex it seemed passive. Keep everything in front of you. Sounds dumb but the third down when traore got a sack when we rushed 3 almost annoyed me more then it made me happy. Just reinforced bad behavior lol

 

[ulukinatme]

Beck had way too much time to throw 1st half, and of course didn't throw as much 2nd half but their OL just bullied us and controlled the clock for almost all the 3rd quarter. I think both Denbrock and Ash had poor game plans to start the game and made some revisions at halftime, but the two turnovers and the time of possession didn't favor us this time. We got beat in the trenches quite a bit, both sides. I thought Miami's OL would be pretty good, our pass rush really stunk at times. I expected our OL to similarly handle their DL, but that wasn't always the case.

Also, we tackled like shit, we just looked soft defensively.

 

[JamIrish]

To put in perspective...Miami got the ball right outside the redzone twice on turnovers and the D gave up 3 points. One touchdown was on a 3rd and long with a ridiculous catch. They gave up a little more than 300yds. The last drive the kick return and P.I. put Miami in great field position and the D stopped them and caused a long FG with enough time to tie the game. My only critique is they gave up 14 points on third and long. Gray also struggled again against a team with a good passing game.

 

[IrishLax]

So is this just going to be risk adverse rush 4 maybe 5 soft shell d all yr?

God I hope not. But this was certainly the most discouraging thing of the night to me... the defense didn't play that bad, but it was completely different from the style they were playing under Golden and what worked so well last year. I am shocked that they didn't blitz more knowing how good that OL is. They only created two negative plays the whole game.

I'm seriously questioning why Mike Mickens wasn't just outright promoted and given the reigns to keep doing what Golden did.

 

[GATTACA!]

To put in perspective...Miami got the ball right outside the redzone twice on turnovers and the D gave up 3 points. One touchdown was on a 3rd and long with a ridiculous catch. They gave up a little more than 300yds. The last drive the kick return and P.I. put Miami in great field position and the D stopped them and caused a long FG with enough time to tie the game. My only critique is they gave up 14 points on third and long. Gray also struggled again against a team with a good passing game.

This is where I’m at too. I don’t think the defense actually played all that bad. Gave up 27 but 7 was a 1% chance catch on a ball Adon took the worst possible route to. He manages to pick that off like he should and we don’t give them the ball on a short field off the turnover and it’s more like 17. That’s completely respectable. Sloppy rain also favors the offense. That might have played a role in our passive approach, specifically in the secondary. Idk that you want to be calling tight man with footing like that.

 

[Grahambo]

Lot of new faces and guys coming back from season ending injuries. A conservative gameplan made sense so I’m not entirely upset with last night. Biggest issue I had was Ash sticking with man when Miami kept running the in and out and run routes.

Other than that, they were on the field a ton and Adon Shuler has to make an aggressive play there.

All in all, defense will improve. Looking forward to seeing them rest of the season.

 

[notredomer23]

I think some of you need to re-adjust your expectations. This was never going to be a top 5 or 10 defense with or without Al Golden at DC. It’s both too young at too many spots and too light on the interior. Xavier Watts ain’t walking through that door. Ultimately holding what will be a top 10 offense nationally to 27 points with 2 very short fields is doing enough to win the game, and because of how young they are, they are going to improve every week. Let me ask you- were there any calls specifically that were head scratchers or were some of the big plays personnel let downs?

Ultimately, the jury is still out. There’s not much to takeaway after one game against a top 10 team on the road. I realistically want to see a top 25 defense this year- there’s a very good chance they return every key cog next year and will be elite then.

 

[IrishTusker]

God I hope not. But this was certainly the most discouraging thing of the night to me... the defense didn't play that bad, but it was completely different from the style they were playing under Golden and what worked so well last year. I am shocked that they didn't blitz more knowing how good that OL is. They only created two negative plays the whole game.

I'm seriously questioning why Mike Mickens wasn't just outright promoted and given the reigns to keep doing what Golden did.

This.

 

[NDFAN2008]

I’m gonna give Ash the benefit of the doubt because Miami probally has the best OL in college football and size wise are probally the biggest OL. Not much Ash can do with two undersized DT one being Hinish who has no business seeing the field against big boy DL’s. The reason why it worked last year is because Golden schemed tons of blitz against Georgia. KVA should be starting but I also was disappointed in the play of some guys. Shuler shoulda been all over that ball. Young I didn’t hear his name at all, Burnham was non existent.

 

[irishandy]

Beck had too much time and our pass coverage was weak. I felt like our defense got better throughout the game, it's only game #1, but long term I hope Freeman/ND do all they can to keep Mickens on the staff.

 

[rtrn2glory]

Weren't we supposedly going to create more turnovers with Ash or did I just make that up?

 

[NDFAN2008]

Weren't we supposedly going to create more turnovers with Ash or did I just make that up?

That’s what I heard you’re only gonna do that by making the QB uncomfortable granted Beck is the best QB we will face all year you can’t let teams have 4 seconds to throw and leave guys wide open 8 yards out

 

[CoachB]

Yeah, zone isnt going to work against a QB like Beck. Bringing the heat and playing tight man is the simple recipe for beating him and forcing turnovers. The reason everyone doesn't do that is you need elite corners to do that. We have the personnel to do so.

 

[Irish#1]

I hope Ash doesn’t call as conservative game the rest of the year. Two solid corners and he has them playing soft and too much zone. Rarely created pressure to make Beck uncomfortable.

 

[Dale]

We blitzed, they just didn’t get pressure from it. But we blitzed.

PFF has us blitzing on 13/32 passes. Generated 2 pressures. 0 sacks.

Also did a decent amount of sim pressures.

Would y’all of wanted to blitz more knowing it wasn’t really helping?

Their OL was better, it was that simple most of the night

 

[Jimmy3Putt]

I wonder how much the weather played into the db cushions?
I hope we don't see this again the rest of the year.

 

[BabyIrish]

We blitzed, they just didn’t get pressure from it. But we blitzed.

PFF has us blitzing on 13/32 passes. Generated 2 pressures.

Also did a decent amount of sim pressures.

Would y’all of wanted to blitz more knowing it wasn’t really helping?

Their OL was better, it was that simple most of the night

This. We blitzed a majority of the first half, which is when people are saying we played poorly. We played more soft in the second half where it worked and where everyone is saying the defense played better.

 

[Dale]

People are missing a defense that doesn’t exist. In that I mean people are missing when our defense would lock down shitty pass attacks. Against Louisville we gave up 264 and 3 TDs. Against USC, 360 and 3 TDs. OSU 230 and 2 TDs. Yeah “Ash” didn’t lock down Miami like Golden did against Texas A&M or Penn State. Well that wasn’t Conner Wiegman on the other side of the field. It wasn’t PSUs WRs. Frankly I said this once or twice in the off-season that hey, people poking holes in the idea our secondary isn’t like the 2013 Seahawks may have some points.

It was a NFL QB with a NFL OL and a few nice weapons.

If they are still generating zero pressures and giving up easy yards against weaker passing attacks, then it’s time to worry.

 

[FDNYIrish1]

We have an undersized speed based DL. I think the field conditions hurt that a bit. He also accounted for Toney in the second half which was hurting us. Hard to prepare for a true freshman like that with no film. I didn’t think he called as poor a game as many. If the blitzes aren’t getting home he’s going to have to get creative.

 

[NDFAN2008]

People tend to forget that Golden was in year 3 with the defense last year his first couple years he had some questionable games. I’m not ready to say Ash is awful it was his first game arguably against one of the toughest teams in college this year. They will be a top 3 team for their DL and OL play in the nation. I think they are better than the 2022 Ohio State team Golden played in his first game. Miami is legit. We only gave up 27 points, 7 came from a lucky ass catch, we gave them 3 because of the turnover and then a really great kick. So keeping Miami under 30 points I think is an accomplishment. I expect them to come out in two weeks and make the proper adjustments you saw them rushing more and doing some different blitzes in the last quarter let’s see more of that.

 

[NDFAN2008]

People are missing a defense that doesn’t exist. In that I mean people are missing when our defense would lock down shitty pass attacks. Against Louisville we gave up 264 and 3 TDs. Against USC, 360 and 3 TDs. OSU 230 and 2 TDs. Yeah “Ash” didn’t lock down Miami like Golden did against Texas A&M or Penn State. Well that wasn’t Conner Wiegman on the other side of the field. It wasn’t PSUs WRs. Frankly I said this once or twice in the off-season that hey, people poking holes in the idea our secondary isn’t like the 2013 Seahawks may have some points.

It was a NFL QB with a NFL OL and a few nice weapons.

If they are still generating zero pressures and giving up easy yards against weaker passing attacks, then it’s time to worry.

This is where I’m at what team did Golden face in his 3 years here where you could say yeah they are better than this Miami team? Only legit one I could say is Ohio State last year besides that no one.

 

[stpeteirish]

We blitzed, they just didn’t get pressure from it. But we blitzed.

PFF has us blitzing on 13/32 passes. Generated 2 pressures. 0 sacks.

Also did a decent amount of sim pressures.

Would y’all of wanted to blitz more knowing it wasn’t really helping?

Their OL was better, it was that simple most of the night

Thanks for the reality check. At least from my point of view we got outplayed more than out coached. It’s telling when the critics say we called the wrong plays but disagree totally on what would have worked better. Play less man to man? Bad ldea vs the team we saw last night.

 

[FWIrish4]

People are missing a defense that doesn’t exist. In that I mean people are missing when our defense would lock down shitty pass attacks. Against Louisville we gave up 264 and 3 TDs. Against USC, 360 and 3 TDs. OSU 230 and 2 TDs. Yeah “Ash” didn’t lock down Miami like Golden did against Texas A&M or Penn State. Well that wasn’t Conner Wiegman on the other side of the field. It wasn’t PSUs WRs. Frankly I said this once or twice in the off-season that hey, people poking holes in the idea our secondary isn’t like the 2013 Seahawks may have some points.

It was a NFL QB with a NFL OL and a few nice weapons.

If they are still generating zero pressures and giving up easy yards against weaker passing attacks, then it’s time to worry.

Great perspective. Looking back through it, I think the lack of movement of DL and trying to defend pass and rush straight up killed us. Need stunts, especially with how undersized Hinish is. Him moving is his strength.

 

[Free Manera]

With these DTs I don’t really know what Ash can even do. Live look at Hinish and Onye defending the run

 

[MacIrish75]

With these DTs I don’t really know what Ash can even do. Live look at Hinish and Onye defending the run

View attachment 3059952

Gotta try and run some stunts when you’re getting whipped Big-on-Big up front.