Defensive Backs

DuffHouse12

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2 games in and the guy I thought would cost us the most is turning out to be the best of the unit - Blanton.

I think the secondary is the Dayne Crist of Defense - plenty of athletic talent with guys like Gray, Motta and Harrison Smith... and i know two of them had picks last night, but they don't do little things right. poor play recognition, not strong on the ball with a receiver. when do we think we'll see more of Lo and Slaughter? Will we?

the goal of this thread is to spark discussion and compare view points with each other.
 
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koonja

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Harrison and Zeke are too slow. Gary needs to not only see his man but also the QB.

It's funny because a number of posters on here argued with me in the Tuitt thread saying Harrison has sub 4.4 speed. What a joke.
 

DuffHouse12

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Gary Gray is awful. Two weeks in a row with pass interference. twice they beat him on the fade. kids pulling down passes in double coverage.

not to mention how badly gray blew the coverage on that big play. unbelieveable
 

PJWhitfield

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The sad part is that Denard is not a good passer. He overthrew and underthrew a lot and got away with it. An accurate QB would've done a lot more damage to us.
 

tko

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cousins will have an awesome time toying with gray. if i'm gary gray, i'm in kelly's office asking to sit. how can a senior not have a clue how to turn his head and look for the ball. he acts like he's never played the postion before. let's give someone else a shot whether they're young or not. it can be worse.
 

NDIrishlover3

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2 in and the guy I thought would cost us the most is turning out to be the best of the unit - Blanton.

I think the secondary is the Dayne Crist of Defense - plenty of athletic talent with guys like Gray, Motta and Harrison Smith... and i know two of them had picks last night, but they don't do little things right. poor play recognition, not strong on the ball with a receiver. when do we think we'll see more of Lo and Slaughter? Will we?

the goal of this thread is to spark discussion and compare view points with each other.

I agree that Blanton has been doing good but I'm pretty sure on that wheel route with 30 second left that went for like 60 yards was all his fault cuz he didn't even see the guy running the wheel when he was in cover 4 which means it was right in his zone
 

BeatSC

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Agree with all comments

Agree with all comments

I think putting Bennet couldn't be any worse than what we have now. Gray is a good tackler but he is a CB not a Safety. HE misses so many opportunities for pass breakups and interceptions by looking the WR in the face and not keeping his head on a swivel. Does he not have the baility to rotate his head. Stiif neck?
 

Riddickulous

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I think putting Bennet couldn't be any worse than what we have now. Gray is a good tackler but he is a CB not a Safety. HE misses so many opportunities for pass breakups and interceptions by looking the WR in the face and not keeping his head on a swivel. Does he not have the baility to rotate his head. Stiif neck?

I don't know what happened. He was pretty good at locating the football last year.
 

pkt77242

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Well the problem is obvious with Gray he is a zone cover corner. He excels when we are in Cover 2 zone where he can bump the receivers and cover the flat. He gets to watch the qb to see what is happening. In man to man he doesn't know how to get his head around properly in coverage. He is not a man coverage corner. I think he will do better next week when we don't have to spy the qb so we can do more zone coverage.
 

enrico514

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What has happened to Gray ? He did almost single handily cost us the game.

- Coverage on the TDs was awful.
- Should have taken the guy out on the game winner. That is probably also on the coaches.
- Blew the coverage on the 64 yrd pass play that set up the winning touchdown.
 
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koonja

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Well the problem is obvious with Gray he is a zone cover corner. He excels when we are in Cover 2 zone where he can bump the receivers and cover the flat. He gets to watch the qb to see what is happening. In man to man he doesn't know how to get his head around properly in coverage. He is not a man coverage corner. I think he will do better next week when we don't have to spy the qb so we can do more zone coverage.

I totally agree with this.
 

NDFANnSouthWest

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The corner postion is the most diffuclut position in football. It is an art to get your head around when the ball is in the air beacuse you dont know the ball is in the air. I thought Gray was the best corners we had LAST year- however, this year seems to have zero confidence.
 

phillyirish

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It's funny because a number of posters on here argued with me in the Tuitt thread saying Harrison has sub 4.4 speed. What a joke.

Coming out of high school the recruiting sites had Harrison listed at a 4.38 40 yard dash. However, thats probably highly innacurate or maybe he is just one of them players who's speed just doesnt translate at the college level.
 

BeauBenken

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So Gary played a bad game. Now nobody has confidence in him. God I hope you guys never coach.
 

irishff1014

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So Gary played a bad game. Now nobody has confidence in him. God I hope you guys never coach.

He has never been anything but maybe average. His Int was lucky just being in the right place when the ball was tipped.
 

BeauBenken

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He has never been anything but maybe average. His Int was lucky just being in the right place when the ball was tipped.

You don't know how to do anything but pout, do you?

Gray was a bit more than average last year when he jumped the hitch route in the Pitt game to seal it for us.
 

irishff1014

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You don't know how to do anything but pout, do you?

Gray was a bit more than average last year when he jumped the hitch route in the Pitt game to seal it for us.

There is a differnce between pouting and criticzing.
 

GreatGolson

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hopefully Tee was watching that game and realizes that he will be the best DB on the team next year.
 

GreatGolson

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You guys are nuts, Gary did fine.

They were all underthrown balls.

Gary was in the right spot.

true, however the DB coach (not sure who that is) shouldve recognized that and helped Gary make the adjustment, once or twice i get. but every big pass on him was underthrown, he has to learn to adapt
 

meowmix

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Harrison has obviously been wildly overrated. If not for Jacory thinking he was a Miami receiver, he wouldn't have been nearly as hyped this offseason. I think probably the most disgusting part of last night's game was when Zeke and Harrison had double coverage on a shorter receiver and let him catch a horribly thrown ball. There are guys playing interhall football at ND that could have intercepted that pass with their eyes closed. As far as Gary Gray goes, I totally agree with the post saying he 's a much better zone corner than man. He had perfect coverage on every receiver in the end zone but didn't turn his head in the end zone. WRs don't have much room to move when they're running long routes into the end zone, so why wouldn't he turn and look for the ball once they're in the end zone? Blanton does a much better job with this.
 

rtrn2glory

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i've never been so disappointed in a player as i am in Gray...i really thought he would have a breakout, possibly all american season, instead teams are obviously going after him, which shows how good he really is. minimal to no ball skills and average agility. maybe it's time the staff starts to re-think what a prototypical cover 2 corner is...how about we put guys on the edge that have some athletic ability and know how to go after the ball instead of putting guys who are too small to play OLB on the edge.

i agree blanton played well, and to be honest right now i know this isn't related to the thread, but manti was completely invisible after the first series last night.
 

DuffHouse12

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i agree with almost everything said about Gray.

but he wasn't alone - Harrison Smith has now had 2 terrible games in a row, and Zeke didn't look all that hot either.

these 3 guys remind me a lot of Crist. all the tools, and sure they get a pick once in a while, but more often than not they d**k it up. I know it sounds like treason because smith had those picks v. Southern Cal, but I've been sick of him for a long time.

they threw at blanton once and he picked it off. good for him.

Manti was eliminated by the michigan game plan.

i also disagree that next week we'll have a better go - Cousins is substantially better at throwing than the first two QBs we've seen. This is going to get much worse before it gets better.
 

DuffHouse12

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i thought slaughter was satisfactory. I really hope we see Lo sometime soon. he needs experience unless Kelly plans on starting Shepard and Darby next season.
 

rtrn2glory

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we may not have darby and shepherd next year if this pace keeps up...really impressed with RJ...may have to start putting best on best and play the match up game like they do in high school.
 
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