Chris "Belt To" Ash - Defensive Coordinator

[Dale]

Does anyone know what zone(s) we went into (I'm not talking the prevent)... ?

Apparently all the folks who hated all the zone we played logged off before they could answer about all that zone they saw

Seemed like a variation of C2 or C4 on the first drive

 

[Rocketman84]

Does anyone know what zone(s) we went into (I'm not talking the prevent)... ?

Hybrid fronts with C3 and C4

 

[Free Manera]

Serious question is Ash going to be a bend but don't break guy? The cushion the corners were giving was shocking to me. How do you not get hands on Toney at the line once he starts burning you?

 

[FightingIrishLover7]

I remember a DC on Labor Day weekend in 2021 that got embarrassed in the state of Florida.

I remember another in 2022 that made some super questionable calls in the horse shoe

I'm fine with watching Ash with a critical eye, but it was 1 game against a really good team, on the road. Not to mention people need to realize that the secondary is a reactionary position, wrs know where they're going - DBs have to quickly respond and change on a dime

 

[Dale]

Serious question is Ash going to be a bend but don't break guy? The cushion the corners were giving was shocking to me. How do you not get hands on Toney at the line once he starts burning you?

- They didn’t give any more cushion than normal for last year. Gray always gives cushions at times, he’s the field corner. Moore was playing normal. Slot corners were playing normal. Miami was also in bunch a handful of times.

- Jamming a slot WR is difficult, he can just take the leverage either side.

- Miami outside WRs averaged 6.4 YPA. Without the Daniels one handed catch it was 5.3. They locked down the outside WRs as they normally do.

- Toney got loose on Hobbs twice.

I really didn’t see the secondary performance people are talking about. We predominantly played man. We predominantly played well. They burned a backup nickel/safety combo and made a one handed catch. He checked down or circled back to someone a bunch because he had all day to throw. You can’t defend forever especially on that surface.

Hat tip to Toney for beating us a few other times. Ash even tried Moore and Gray on him in the 2H. He toasted Gray once as well.

 

[PutuporShutup]

- They didn’t give any more cushion than normal for last year. Gray always gives cushions at times, he’s the field corner. Moore was playing normal. Slot corners were playing normal. Miami was also in bunch a handful of times.

- Jamming a slot WR is difficult, he can just take the leverage either side.

- Miami outside WRs averaged 6.4 YPA. Without the Daniels one handed catch it was 5.3. They locked down the outside WRs as they normally do.

- Toney got loose on Hobbs twice.

I really didn’t see the secondary performance people are talking about. We predominantly played man. We predominantly played well. They burned a backup nickel/safety combo and made a one handed catch. He checked down or circled back to someone a bunch because he had all day to throw. You can’t defend forever especially on that surface.

Hat tip to Toney for beating us a few other times. Ash even tried Moore and Gray on him in the 2H. He toasted Gray once as well.

My personal opinion is Gray should be our Boundary corner and Moore should be our field corner and/or following the other teams top WR. I just don't think Gray does good covering so much space. He doesn't have great change of direction or catch up speed. I do like his physicality and in my view it suits boundary better.

Gray got beat early deep vs Miami, and started giving a little more cushion. You could see Freeman/mickens tell him to start shortening the gap.

The one thing you are missing Dale is they converted some very easy third and what ND considers long. Most of them were against Gray/Hobbs.

The secondary didn't lose us the game, but they could have won us the game just like OSU 2 years ago at ND (secondary could have won that game). There were plays to be made by our secondary and they just didn't. Both TD passes our secondary had a shot to make and break up or pick.

 

[Dale]

We played backups more than we should have. The first TD was a combo of Hobbs and Talich. Freeman addressed this in the presser as a long term decision. Frankly I would guess moving forward, if Hobbs can’t play, he won’t play. Beck very veteran like also seemed to spot this immediately, Hobbs was targeted 4 times on 11 passes. It’s frustrating as they did this versus OSU as well in years past but the rotations we saw Sunday just won’t be what we see in the future necessarily. Would love to live in a world where Smith doesn’t need to play every snap, but we will see.

 

[Irish du Nord]

We played backups more than we should have. The first TD was a combo of Hobbs and Talich. Freeman addressed this in the presser as a long term decision. Frankly I would guess moving forward, if Hobbs can’t play, he won’t play. It’s frustrating as they did this versus OSU as well in years past but the rotations we saw Sunday just won’t be what we see in the future necessarily. Would love to live in a world where Smith doesn’t need to play every snap, but we will see.

In the preview podcast last Thursday Tim O’Malley mentioned that he asked Ash about the secondary rotation. I believe he even brought up to Ash the Mickey single coverage by Golden in ‘22. Obviously this wasn’t that bad, but one could see the similarities in the first TD

 

[NDFAN2008]

I think Hobbs is gonna be okay against non elite teams, but I'm fine working in guys here in there to get experience. Some of these freshman like Cree, Golden, Blair, Long, Zackary should all be getting snaps against lesser opponents.

 

[Some Irish Bloke]

Apparently all the folks who hated all the zone we played logged off before they could answer about all that zone they saw

Seemed like a variation of C2 or C4 on the first drive

Appreciate the correction on man v. zone. To answer your question, on I believe the post-game thread (and @BilboBaggins as well) it seemed like we were giving the WRs more cushion on several drives than I recall last year and Beck was hitting a lot of underneath stuff (not just the crossers to Toney that cooked us) to move the chains. The lack of a pass rush certainly will leave CBs on an island and that's probably what happened.

It wasn't a very inspired effort until late 3Q/4Q by the D and we certainly need to play better. Hobbs & Shuler were on the wrong end of most of their big plays.

Maybe Miami is legit, but I stand by the rest of my knee jerk reaction post yesterday that there's too much damn talent and depth on that side of the ball to give up 27, so of course Ash will be the one shouldering most of the blame for that. Maybe Miami's OL is the real deal and their WR core. Hard to tell after week 1.

Hopefully they ball out and make aTm's life miserable in two weeks, otherwise the noise will get louder.

 

[greyhammer90]

- They didn’t give any more cushion than normal for last year. Gray always gives cushions at times, he’s the field corner. Moore was playing normal. Slot corners were playing normal. Miami was also in bunch a handful of times.

- Jamming a slot WR is difficult, he can just take the leverage either side.

- Miami outside WRs averaged 6.4 YPA. Without the Daniels one handed catch it was 5.3. They locked down the outside WRs as they normally do.

- Toney got loose on Hobbs twice.

I really didn’t see the secondary performance people are talking about. We predominantly played man. We predominantly played well. They burned a backup nickel/safety combo and made a one handed catch. He checked down or circled back to someone a bunch because he had all day to throw. You can’t defend forever especially on that surface.

Hat tip to Toney for beating us a few other times. Ash even tried Moore and Gray on him in the 2H. He toasted Gray once as well.

There are times it's warranted but when I hear a crowd yelling about a defense not being aggressive enough, not blitzing enough, or giving too much cushion to WRs, 99 times out of 100 what the fan is actually saying is "I'm upset that we're not stopping the other team's offense immediately" but trying to sound intelligent while doing it.

I think "stop playing zone" is going to be a new refrain of the masses for this team because Golden played man, and Golden defense=Good, so zone = Bad. Even Golden played a significant percentage of his defense in zone coverage, we just did less than most by a difference of 10% or so. That's statiscally significant but it's not like we were only playing man under Golden.

 

[slick7410]

The first TD was the perfect combo of patience against the rush to move in the pocket (Beck feels KVA on his stunt without looking down), perfect leading touch on a great flattening of the route. I don't know if that play gets stopped by anyone. It was quite impressive.

 

[Dale]

The other thing about the Toney TD is Gray was out for that snap. Zackery’s first career snap. If you watch the replay the first thought is what the fuck dude on Talich. He’s literally guarding nobody and so deep, which is bad regardless. But would bet he was told to eye helping Zackery first. He opens his hips that way. Beck scrambles left though so he was never gonna throw that way. Talich slow to flip and depth was still bad.

I don’t like giving up TDs knowing 3 backups were on the field. But it also means an alarm bell or referendum on Ash isn’t needed.

 

[NDFAN2008]

Last year we had a 5 man rotation at DT granted not 5 were available or healthy all year but we had (Cross, Mills, Onye, Rubio, and Hinish) this year we have 4 guys (Rubio, Hinish, Onye, Dawson) What worries me is it's a long season what happens if or when 1-2 of these guys get hurt and miss time?

 

[InKellyWeTrust]

SIAP, but does his face bother anyone else? He looks, I don't know...constipated?

 

[SportsingHard]

Last year we had a 5 man rotation at DT granted not 5 were available or healthy all year but we had (Cross, Mills, Onye, Rubio, and Hinish) this year we have 4 guys (Rubio, Hinish, Onye, Dawson) What worries me is it's a long season what happens if or when 1-2 of these guys get hurt and miss time?

Personally, I'm looking forward to seeing Guy #5: Sean Sevillano.

 

[FU BK]

SIAP, but does his face bother anyone else? He looks, I don't know...constipated?

He most definitely has resting shitface

 

[RDU Irish]

Last year we had a 5 man rotation at DT granted not 5 were available or healthy all year but we had (Cross, Mills, Onye, Rubio, and Hinish) this year we have 4 guys (Rubio, Hinish, Onye, Dawson) What worries me is it's a long season what happens if or when 1-2 of these guys get hurt and miss time?

Four man rotation is still damn good, IMO. Maybe I'm traumatized over our leaner years where KLM, Tuitt, Nix (RIP) types had to play the entire game and frequently hurt b/c the drop off to the #2 was so incredible.

Dawson looking like an A+ pickup in the portal btw to avert a potentially season devastating shortfall on the DL.

 

[Domina Nostra]

The other thing about the Toney TD is Gray was out for that snap. Zackery’s first career snap. If you watch the replay the first thought is what the fuck dude on Talich. He’s literally guarding nobody and so deep, which is bad regardless. But would bet he was told to eye helping Zackery first. He opens his hips that way. Beck scrambles left though so he was never gonna throw that way. Talich slow to flip and depth was still bad.

I don’t like giving up TDs knowing 3 backups were on the field. But it also means an alarm bell or referendum on Ash isn’t needed.

I was thinking the same thing with Tallich.

It was liking he was listening to the voice of his Pee-Wee coach yelling to never let a man get behind them.

 

[irishnd31]

SIAP, but does his face bother anyone else? He looks, I don't know...constipated?

I think he looks like every middle aged man who just saw Chris Hansen walk from behind the curtain and asks him to take a seat.

 

[Dale]

The drives I do believe we played a decent amount of zone was the first and right before half. This looks like they are showing Cover 1 Man and rotate into Cover 2 zone. The issue? Way too much focus on Malachi Toney. THREE guys are bailing so much here because Toney runs them off when they have Shuler back there as well. Make Beck hit a corner hole shot one time before you are completely bailing the flats if you’re Moore IMO. Man Toney really had them in a blender. Smith and Moore then miss a tackle

 

[Irish du Nord]

The drives I do believe we played a decent amount of zone was the first and right before half. This looks like they are showing Cover 1 Man and rotate into Cover 2 zone. The issue? Way too much focus on Malachi Toney. THREE guys are bailing so much here because Toney runs them off when they have Shuler back there as well. Make Beck hit a corner hole shot one time before you are completely bailing the flats if you’re Moore IMO. Man Toney really had them in a blender. Smith and Moore then miss a tackle

Was Kyngstonn's assignment deep middle on this? I'm just confused on who the linebackers were covering and why at the time of the pass we had 7 guys past the sticks

 

[Dale]

Was Kyngstonn's assignment deep middle on this? I'm just confused on who the linebackers were covering and why at the time of the pass we had 7 guys past the sticks

I would guess so. Middle of the 3 hook routes usually would make sense. Moore is really the one that is most out of place here IMO

 

[mrmcgrail]

Yeah if it's cover 2 Moore should have curl to flat and he just gets so damn deep it's like he's playing cover 4

 

[PutuporShutup]

The drives I do believe we played a decent amount of zone was the first and right before half. This looks like they are showing Cover 1 Man and rotate into Cover 2 zone. The issue? Way too much focus on Malachi Toney. THREE guys are bailing so much here because Toney runs them off when they have Shuler back there as well. Make Beck hit a corner hole shot one time before you are completely bailing the flats if you’re Moore IMO. Man Toney really had them in a blender. Smith and Moore then miss a tackle

The focus obviously is on how poorly we played zone coverage on this play (rightfully so). Way too deep for cover 2 allowing for easy 10 yards.

Instead, focus on the dline with Hinish and Burnham next to each other. That's MAC level. I know everyone is piling on Hinish, but burnham is just NOT explosive with all the added weight. Hinish can't force a double so the LG is just waiting for Traore to come over. Burnham is 1-1 and does absolutely nothing.

I assume our ends have looked better in the coaches eyes going against wagner and especially knapp vs true top Tackles.

Bryce wasn't great, but traore and Bryce need to play 70% of the snaps against good teams until botelho is truly ready. Junior and Burnham provide no size/power or speed. They're just assignment sound.

 

[PutuporShutup]

I would guess so. Middle of the 3 hook routes usually would make sense. Moore is really the one that is most out of place here IMO

Yes moore was the worst but so was smith far too deep. That would have been just as easy pitch and catch. It's like we were in prevent defense trying to not let them score a quick TD, when instead they marched down way too easy and scored a TD.

It's like they don't understand you still cover a person in zone.

 

[FDNYIrish1]

Man that clip wasn’t great. Safety showed too early, easy ID for Beck. Like you guys said Moore supposed to sit flats but bailed and opened way up. Toney was beating us up a bit, but mostly on change of direction. This is an easy fix

 

[The Backer]

Unpopular take -- ND held Miami to 4.7 yards/play. This was a full yard better than any other team did in 2024 (best was 5.8 from FSU). Their only worse output in 2023 was against NC State who picked up Tyler Van Dyke 3 times.

 

[arndtjc]

Ash's defense got bASHED, take him out with the trASH

Can't wait for next weeks thread after holding A&M to 10 points: CHRIS ASH IS A MOTHERF&^*ING GANGSTER

 

[BeauBenken]

Ash's defense got bASHED, take him out with the trASH

Can't wait for next weeks thread after holding A&M to 10 points: CHRIS ASH IS A MOTHERF&^*ING GANGSTER

Before Lion can say it...