For all the whining about our defense

[IrishLax]

So many hear crucified Diaco for his scheme and performance against Navy yet now it's just an anomaly. Per II, we gave up the most points in regulation to Navy in 88 years, 87 years of games isn't an anomaly. Also, I'm definitely not saying that Navy is the bar for how this defense will perform that's why I went back to UNC. Who is the closest thing to ASU that we've played and we did pretty poor. So, I think being a little cautious makes a tremendous amount of sense. I'm certainly not abandoning ship but 106points given up by the defense in 3 games isn't good. Do not care who you played.

That's not what anyone is saying.

I, and everyone else, should crucify BVG for that god awful scheme last night. It was absurdly bad, as I've said many times. And I could into detail about the numerous personnel and alignment and strategy gaffs... it'd take pages though.

What is being said is that sucking against Navy is irrelevant to how good/bad this team is playing or will play against "normal" teams like we see on eleven twelths of our schedule.

 

[tko]

What's the plan for running the offense when Golson gets hurt? Malik Zaire runs the offense...

What was the plan for when Schmidt gets hurt? Run one play...

That's what happened whether you want to acknowledge it or not. But I'm beyond dumb so I have no idea what I'm talking about.

Instead of dumb, I would just say you're "Greek."

 

[Rocket89]

Here's the quote from my article:

There's been one performance in the driving rain against the worst Stanford offense in half a decade but otherwise the Irish defense has looked pretty average over the last 15 quarters. The only exception in 4 out of the last 5 games was the first half against Florida State. Otherwise, the Irish are pretty much giving up about 6 yards per play recently and this isn't going to get it done for the remainder of the schedule. That's a huge predictor that another loss is on the horizon.

I don't know what's grossly misleading about that. Calling all of the games going back to Syracuse 'isolated incidents' doesn't make a whole lot of sense but okay.

For Cuse, UNC, second half of FSU, and against Navy the defense hasn't been all that good. The sky isn't falling but it's okay to admit the defense just hasn't been all that productive since late September.

 

[gkIrish]

1. It wasn't immature

2. Mods on sites should have a clue of what they are talking about.

3. Don't come over to 4HL on rivals. You obviously aren't tough enough to handle yourself on a message board. This is kid stuff compared to what we do there.

4. Bye.

You have yet to provide one comment with any substance as to why my comments are "dumb". Not a one. Bravo.

 

[Circa]

Somebody has to make the calls. But I do think having a true Freshman, with limited playing time, having to make the calls for a complex defense against an offense with multiple sets, is going to be able to be as effective as Schmidt? No I don't. Worse case scenerio is BVG has to limit his sets because Morgan's knowledge is not where Schmidt's was. This can lead to ASU taking advantage of some base sets. It should be a huge concern at this point. Not that the defense can't or won't overcome it. And I expect the Irish defense will rise to the occasion. But I also think Morgan's head is gonna hurt this week with all the knowledge they are going to be putting in there.

I'm almost positive there has been a form of headphone in all play caller's helmet's for a few year's.. am I alone in this thought? I was thinking It was pretty common knowledge at this point in the game>?

 

[irishfan]

1. It wasn't immature

2. Mods on sites should have a clue of what they are talking about.

3. Don't come over to 4HL on rivals. You obviously aren't tough enough to handle yourself on a message board. This is kid stuff compared to what we do there.

4. Bye.

Wait, I need some clarification before you go.

You think it's perfectly acceptable for one injury on D to force us to call the same play over and over defensively?

And you think that someone who is opposed to that has no idea what they are talking about?

 

[Crazy Balki]

Notre Dame should score easily on ASU. The best QB the Sun Devils faced thus far torched them for 355 yards passing. Even the Colorado QB got them for 300+.

If ND can force the tempo by controlling the lines - and I think they can and will - I fully expect the Irish to win by 10+. If the Sun Devils control the tempo of the game and it turns in to a shootout then all bets are off.

I think the Irish really need the run game to step it up and put EG in plus territory on 2nd and 3rd downs. If they can do that, the Irish walk away with the W and EG goes for some nice yardage in the air. Margin of victory is meaningless against a Top 10-15 ranked team playing at their place. Win and get out of town.

I agree with you, except for that last part. Honestly, a close win would do us good for the rankings, but a convincing/blowout win would do ND wonders in the polls.

 

[Luckylucci]

That's not what anyone is saying.

I, and everyone else, should crucify BVG for that god awful scheme last night. It was absurdly bad, as I've said many times. And I could into detail about the numerous personnel and alignment and strategy gaffs... it'd take pages though.

What is being said is that sucking against Navy is irrelevant to how good/bad this team is playing or will play against "normal" teams like we see on eleven twelths of our schedule.

I totally agree that we can't project that singular performance against future opponents but I never took that stance either. Where we differ is that I'm including that in the 3 game stretch and I feel less positive about that stretch than others. It's not a sky is falling scenario but if you told me 4 weeks ago that we'd give up that many points in 3 games I wouldn't have been very happy and I'm not now either.

 

[T Town Tommy]

I'm almost positive there has been a form of headphone in all play caller's helmet's for a few year's.. am I alone in this thought? I was thinking It was pretty common knowledge at this point in the game>?

Maybe soon... but as of now they aren't used in college.

 

[Irish#1]

So many hear crucified Diaco for his scheme and performance against Navy yet now it's just an anomaly. Per II, we gave up the most points in regulation to Navy in 88 years, 87 years of games isn't an anomaly. Also, I'm definitely not saying that Navy is the bar for how this defense will perform that's why I went back to UNC. Who is the closest thing to ASU that we've played and we did pretty poor. So, I think being a little cautious makes a tremendous amount of sense. I'm certainly not abandoning ship but 106points given up by the defense in 3 games isn't good. Do not care who you played.

I understand your concern, but I think NC and Navy are somewhat anomalies. Nobody runs the up tempo like NC. If you saw them in person you know what I'm talking about. Navy plays a type of offense we always struggle with because of their blocking style as do most other teams.

I think Morgan's speed can help against ASU. The key will be defensive play calls. Wouldn't be surprised to see Jaylon make them.

 

[IrishLax]

Here's the quote from my article:



I don't know what's grossly misleading about that. Calling all of the games going back to Syracuse 'isolated incidents' doesn't make a whole lot of sense but okay.

For Cuse, UNC, second half of FSU, and against Navy the defense hasn't been all that good. The sky isn't falling but it's okay to admit the defense just hasn't been all that productive since late September.

With all due respect -- and I mean that seriously because you're clearly well-informed, intelligent, and put a spectacular product out there on the internet -- that is, IMO, grossly misleading.

Let me preface this by saying that I do absolutely believe a loss is on the horizon. Odds say we've got maybe a 10-15% chance of winning out. And I have never thought our defense was very good, I've always found it thin and overachieving based on playing bad offenses.

But what is grossly misleading is how you use the performance against Navy as (partially) indicative that a loss is to come. The game is no relevant on any level to how our defense could be expected to perform against any of the remaining teams. ASU, Louisville, Northwestern, and USC all run offenses that don't remotely resemble Navy's... so it doesn't matter if we shut out the Midshipmen or gave up 50... the result and associated stats/metrics aren't applicable to whether a loss is or is not on the horizon.

If you said "ND's struggles against UNC suggest they may struggle with ASU's up tempo" I'd agree. If you said "without a healthy Jones/Day and missing the QB of the defense, it's likely we see regression" I'd agree. If you said "ND's over-achieving in the beginning of the year was on account of playing teams without explosive skill position players and ND is about to face a number of top NFL prospects" I'd agree.

But you lumped in YPP stats from Navy as if that matters while trivializing THE BEST PERFORMANCE ANYONE HAS EVER HAD against Winston led FSU and said this means a loss is coming. That premise doesn't support the conclusion. Sorry.

 

[IrishLax]

FWIW, if we had dominated Navy and people were saying "THIS DEFENSE IS AWESOME" I'd be having the polar opposite reaction for the same rationale.

 

[RallySonsOfND]

1. It wasn't immature

2. Mods on sites should have a clue of what they are talking about.

3. Don't come over to 4HL on rivals. You obviously aren't tough enough to handle yourself on a message board. This is kid stuff compared to what we do there.

4. Bye.

lol

 

[Cackalacky]

I have been hesitant to offer effusive praise for Bvg. His recent stints in CFB have not been very kind to him for a variety of reaaons. The obvious stuff aside like our aggressiveness and exotic looks, our defense was visually much improved the first half of the season. I was curious who the first team to get the best of him was gonna be and it appears that it was UNC. It seems BK knew UNC was gonna be a bad matchup for reasons discused previously and it appears he was right. IMO it was UNCs defensive line and thier QB and piss poor fundamental tackling issues that gave us so much problems. There was also a failure to make halftime adjustments.

FSU was a better matchup for us overall and it was a game we won in every category that matters bar the final score. Again though it was a failure to make 2nd half adjustments, regardless of how well we defended JW in totality.

More troubling is our inability to stop Navy routinely. Its not an exotic offense. Its not something ND or BK have not seen before over the last 80+ years. I will give a slight pass for BVG not having to prepare a plan to defend the option in a few years but after a bye week that pass is soft. I notice he primarily went with 3-4 look and not the more normal formation used in prior games. I dont know if I understand the reasoning for this as the FB dive off the NT killed us routinely and our CBs in man coverage lost the edge routinely. And again any 2nd half adjustments appeared to have no effect.

ImO there are a few things that stand out:
Opposing coaches now have mutiple games worth of film on our defense and tendencies and groupings are starting to show.

Routine ineffective 2nd half adjustments. Or even in game adjustments for thst matter.

Not that it is thier fault but we have soooo many underclassmen playing at a good level but still making mistakes, which is to be expected.

Overall I am very pleased with the style and and production of the defense. Asu presents unique challenges but ones which I think will be better matchups over all for us. I look at them like a less physical UNC with an inability to score in the redzone. Contain will be key and I look to see out base defense against them with maybe even more dime packages since Schmidt is out. Jaylon may have to step up and take the reigns this week as I dont know if Morgan can play center field like we may need the MLb to.

Apologies if this is rambly, as I am exhausted but wanted to add a little to the dscussion.

 

[Rocket89]

With all due respect -- and I mean that seriously because you're clearly well-informed, intelligent, and put a spectacular product out there on the internet -- that is, IMO, grossly misleading.

Let me preface this by saying that I do absolutely believe a loss is on the horizon. Odds say we've got maybe a 10-15% chance of winning out. And I have never thought our defense was very good, I've always found it thin and overachieving based on playing bad offenses.

But what is grossly misleading is how you use the performance against Navy as (partially) indicative that a loss is to come. The game is no relevant on any level to how our defense could be expected to perform against any of the remaining teams. ASU, Louisville, Northwestern, and USC all run offenses that don't remotely resemble Navy's... so it doesn't matter if we shut out the Midshipmen or gave up 50... the result and associated stats/metrics aren't applicable to whether a loss is or is not on the horizon.

If you said "ND's struggles against UNC suggest they may struggle with ASU's up tempo" I'd agree. If you said "without a healthy Jones/Day and missing the QB of the defense, it's likely we see regression" I'd agree. If you said "ND's over-achieving in the beginning of the year was on account of playing teams without explosive skill position players and ND is about to face a number of top NFL prospects" I'd agree.

But you lumped in YPP stats from Navy as if that matters while trivializing THE BEST PERFORMANCE ANYONE HAS EVER HAD against Winston led FSU and said this means a loss is coming. That premise doesn't support the conclusion. Sorry.

You're taking the point above and running way, way, way too far with it. I never fixated solely on the Navy game, in fact, the exact opposite.

Also didn't trivialize the FSU game. We played awesome in the first half. But once they made some adjustments at halftime while missing their O-line coach they averaged 6.8 YPP the rest of the game.

As I said in the article, the Cuse, UNC, 2nd half of FSU, and Navy we've looked average on defense. Lots of football to look at it. Not just Navy.

 

[ickythump1225]

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.

For this reason alone ASU is the only game that gives me any pause for the rest of the year. Not that Louisville on their best day can't knock us off or that USC isn't capable of beating us in LA but I feel like we match up so much better with those teams than ASU. We're more talented than ASU and better coached but they're a good team and their tempo will be tough for us.

I think we can win in the trenches so this would be a game where I wouldn't mind going to some SEC style "man-ball" and just running it down ASU's throats with Folston to keep the ball out of ASU's hands.

 

[FDNYIrish1]

Something that's really been bothering me about the whole "we could only run one defense" thing that everyone seems to be focused on, is exactly how many looks were we actually giving a triple option team?
I'll admit to being as frustrated as everyone else Saturday night and against UNC, but I really think the looks have been more vanilla like someone said previously against certain teams. I'll take 7-1 with a brand new defense and the amount of first year players out there. I look forward to Saturday, and seeing what BVG dials up.

 

[IrishFaninTX]

Somebody has to make the calls. But I do think having a true Freshman, with limited playing time, having to make the calls for a complex defense against an offense with multiple sets, is going to be able to be as effective as Schmidt? No I don't. Worse case scenerio is BVG has to limit his sets because Morgan's knowledge is not where Schmidt's was. This can lead to ASU taking advantage of some base sets. It should be a huge concern at this point. Not that the defense can't or won't overcome it. And I expect the Irish defense will rise to the occasion. But I also think Morgan's head is gonna hurt this week with all the knowledge they are going to be putting in there.

Typically the MIKE is the one making calls but I think Jaylon will have to do it from here on out. Morgan won't be up to speed and if he has too much to think about it could take away from his athleticism and play making abilities.

 

[pkt77242]

1. It wasn't immature

2. Mods on sites should have a clue of what they are talking about.

3. Don't come over to 4HL on rivals. You obviously aren't tough enough to handle yourself on a message board. This is kid stuff compared to what we do there.

4. Bye.

Masturbating to Roadhouse because you think you are a tough guy like Swayze?

Obviously you fail to understand other people's posts and because you have nothing intelligent to add you choose to criticize the individual. Bravo.

 

[stlnd01]

For all its vaunted tempo and passing game, Arizona State needed overtime to score 19 on Utah. Utah's not better than we are. They've only topped 30 points once in their last five games (38 vs. USC, including that Hail Mary at the end). I just don't think they're going to beat us with their defense.
They're a good team. But if we come out and play well, we really ought to win this one.

 

[ickythump1225]

For all its vaunted tempo and passing game, Arizona State needed overtime to score 19 on Utah. Utah's not better than we are. They've only topped 30 points once in their last five games (38 vs. USC, including that Hail Mary at the end). I just don't think they're going to beat us with their defense.
They're a good team. But if we come out and play well, we really ought to win this one.

Well I don't know that any other program, other than maybe Oregon, runs tempo quite like UNC. ASU doesn't run that many more plays than we do. Now ASU may go with tempo a bit more to try and exploit us like UNC did but it's hard to replicate what UNC did if you don't do it all the time. That kind of insane pace has to be a lifestyle, not something you dabble in for a week.

 

[NorthDakota]

For all its vaunted tempo and passing game, Arizona State needed overtime to score 19 on Utah. Utah's not better than we are. They've only topped 30 points once in their last five games (38 vs. USC, including that Hail Mary at the end). I just don't think they're going to beat us with their defense.
They're a good team. But if we come out and play well, we really ought to win this one.

This. If the Irish come to play the rest of the year they will be 11-1. Whether or not that means playoffs is a whole different story.

This team has kept me on my toes... Been a fun season and expect that to continue.

 

[Irish#1]

For all its vaunted tempo and passing game, Arizona State needed overtime to score 19 on Utah. Utah's not better than we are. They've only topped 30 points once in their last five games (38 vs. USC, including that Hail Mary at the end). I just don't think they're going to beat us with their defense.
They're a good team. But if we come out and play well, we really ought to win this one.

Does ASU really run the up tempo as fast as NC? NC would literally rush back to the LOS and snap the ball. No line up quickly, then call a play or look over the D.

While we should beat them, I don't know if you can use Utah as an example. This game is going to be tough. They will be amp'd for this game as this will be ASU's big game of the year with ND in town.

As previously pointed out, we need to crank up the running game and pound them. Keep their O off the field and our D fresh.

 

[stlnd01]

Does ASU really run the up tempo as fast as NC? NC would literally rush back to the LOS and snap the ball. No line up quickly, then call a play or look over the D.

While we should beat them, I don't know if you can use Utah as an example. This game is going to be tough. They will be amp'd for this game as this will be ASU's big game of the year with ND in town.

As previously pointed out, we need to crank up the running game and pound them. Keep their O off the field and our D fresh.

They may be "amp'd" (though it's a day game which may help a bit in that regard). But they're also coming off back-to-back-to-back against Stanford, Washington and Utah. That's a tough stretch, and I suspect we're not the only ones banged up.
I don't know that they're a particularly up-tempo team like UNC, but some here seem worried about that, which is why I mentioned. I also know that ASU has a rep as a big-scoring offense, but their results this year don't really bear that out.
I also remember all the doom and gloomers who had us losing by multiple scores last year. That turned out OK.
I agree it'll be a tough game. They're probably the second best team we play this year. But we're better than they are. And if we play well, we should win. That's all.

 

[Irish#1]

They may be "amp'd" (though it's a day game which may help a bit in that regard). But they're also coming off back-to-back-to-back against Stanford, Washington and Utah. That's a tough stretch, and I suspect we're not the only ones banged up.
I don't know that they're a particularly up-tempo team like UNC, but some here seem worried about that, which is why I mentioned. I also know that ASU has a rep as a big-scoring offense, but their results this year don't really bear that out.
I also remember all the doom and gloomers who had us losing by multiple scores last year. That turned out OK.
I agree it'll be a tough game. They're probably the second best team we play this year. But we're better than they are. And if we play well, we should win. That's all.

I know there are some that are concerned about the tempo, but anyone that was at the NC game knows what I'm talking about. Even NBC wasn't prepared for it. Maybe ASU does run the same pace as NC, but I didn't see it last year.

I have to believe we negotiated the start time in the contract so we wouldn't be playing later than normal? Regular start time for us. Maybe their fans will still be in bed or still hung over from any Friday night parties? lol