USC Post Game Thread

[Luckylucci]

The problem with arguing against Schmidt is that the pro-Schmidt position is impossible to disprove. A Joe supporter will counter Joe's statistics with "...yeah, but Jaylon and Sheldon and Terry's stats are only as good as they are because Joe is out there making the right calls." You can't quantify that, so there's no way to weigh the pros and cons.

Put simply, is it worth upgrading Joe if it means we'd downgrade the rest of the defensive front by some immeasurable amount?

-Agreed.

-This is why I find this so interesting, to answer or at least make a more informed opinion to this question. At this point, I'm 100% in the camp that it should at least be a conversation going on inside the Gug and hopefully even some practice/game reps trying to figure it out.

I think the lack of production is evident, even when compared to his production last year. The reason we don't know the rest is because we haven't tried and that I think is what most frustrating.

 

[Wild Bill]

Some early returns from the OFD research:

3 missed tackles for Schmidt. There are 2-3 more you could add if you're being really strict but then you could do that for everyone else too.

USC made a point early in the game to get out and block Schmidt with 1 and sometimes 2 linemen. Does he do great in these situations? No, but I think his struggles here are immensely overblown. The more important part for the defense as a whole was that by targeting Schmidt so much that allowed Jaylon, Day, and Rochelle to kill USC.

In general for the USC game, we didn't play very aggressively. Schmidt and Jaylon rarely blitzed, they dropped in coverage a ton as our line was able to handle the USC front, and we did a really good job flooding passing zones.

My two cents are that it's often difficult to put all the pieces together with how Schmidt and all the linebackers are working together as a unit. For example, there are times Schmidt does the dirty work, eats a block, and allows Jaylon to be Superman. We can point to a couple obvious missed tackles and then see Schmidt not dominate a pulling Damien Mama, but at the end of the day, our superstar linebacker gets 14 tackles.

The last couple games I think Schmidt has played pretty well. Earlier in the season maybe not so much. Pound for pound I still think there are 2 or 3 other positions/players not doing as good of a job, and with that in mind I think it's a really tough call to pull Schmidt off the field.

Every single running play has a blocking scheme that puts a hat on the mike (with rare exceptions like a draw or something). I don't think they made a point to get to Schmidt, the individual. Rather it was their offense simply blocking the mike no different than what they do against any other opponent. They had an easy time blocking him.

Of course nobody expects a mike to win in every situation but he should win most (he's guarded by linemen, and has space and the angle to make plays on either side of the field). He's not working well in space. He's a step slow and can't hit the right path to the back. When a blocker engages him, it's over. Worse yet, he's getting driven back five or ten yards, cutting off the path of other defenders who otherwise would be there to make the play. Just get on the ground and close your gap, or get your head to one side of the blocker or the other so you can cut off one gap and get the back moving towards your support. You just can't titty fight a fat linemen until the whistle blows. This is day 1 page 1 stuff.

To be fair, you're right, we don't know as casual fans how the linebackers are working as a unit or how the defense overall is working as a unit. But even that unknown doesn't explain why he can't make individual plays like shedding a blocker, beating a blocker to the point of attack, wrapping up and making tackles, etc. It's just lacking.

There are other positions that struggle (I assume you meant safety and DE), but the difference is the willingness of the staff to pull starters and give the backups a chance to play. The shake up seemed to work - Tranquill played well before his injury against Tech and Max looks a bit more comfortable at safety now. Why wouldn't you give someone else a shot, even if it's for a possession or two?

The staff knows best, generally speaking. But they're human and make mistakes or questionable decisions just like the rest of us do at work from time to time. Most coaches I know will tell you that personnel decisions are the toughest to make b/c of the emotional attachment to players. I'm not suggesting that they are playing Joe b/c they like him so damn much. But maybe they're more willing to look past his mistakes b/c he's earned a level of forgiveness given his sparkling record of being a student athlete. I don't know what it is but patience has to be wearing thin.

 

[Rocket89]

I have to push back on this a little bit because I re-watched some of the game last night and there were two specific scenarios where Jaylon and Schmidt both had there own blocks to defeat in the middle, Jaylon got off his for the stop or part of the stop and Schmidt didn't. So, though this might be part of it. I don't view this as Schmidt isn't getting tackles because he's taking on Jaylon's blockers. It's that Schmidt just isn't effective getting off his own blocks. Could it have something to do with it, yes but I don't think its the overriding factor.

But there are still other examples of Schmidt taking on blocks and it benefitting the rest of the team. Plus, the same was true last year (Schmidt not being amazing getting off blocks, not many college backers are) so it shouldn't be this big issue all of a sudden.

By no stretch am I defending Schmidt too hard here. It's just you can't really get a full sense of his play by only looking at missed tackles. I mean, even look at the plays where he missed some tackles against USC and they didn't hurt the defense the way some other errors (and missed tackles) by other players did. That's why when you take 70 snaps Schmidt is probably grading out a lot better for the staff than the typical fan reaction, and that has nothing to do with him getting everyone lined up it's about his play.

 

[koonja]

If they're going to stick with Schmidt, I feel like he should just go low on the OL like a DT trying to shoot a gap at the goalline. This isn't ideal at all and it sounds stupid even to type, but him creating a pile at the point of contact between him and the OL and trying to redirect the RB is better than him getting pile driven into Max Redfield.

 

[Emcee77]

The problem with arguing against Schmidt is that the pro-Schmidt position is impossible to disprove. A Joe supporter will counter Joe's statistics with "...yeah, but Jaylon and Sheldon and Terry's stats are only as good as they are because Joe is out there making the right calls." You can't quantify that, so there's no way to weigh the pros and cons.

Put simply, is it worth upgrading Joe if it means we'd downgrade the rest of the defensive front by some immeasurable amount?

-Agreed.

-This is why I find this so interesting, to answer or at least make a more informed opinion to this question. At this point, I'm 100% in the camp that it should at least be a conversation going on inside the Gug and hopefully even some practice/game reps trying to figure it out.

I think the lack of production is evident, even when compared to his production last year. The reason we don't know the rest is because we haven't tried and that I think is what most frustrating.

Right, this is the crux of it. I don't think there is any question that the production isn't there right now from Schmidt. And it's not just us on this board; I've had multiple conversations with ND fans/alums over the last couple weeks about Schmidt's poor play. A lot of people seem to be noticing.

The only unknown is whether he is really as critical to getting the team lined up properly as he was last season. It's pretty tough to know that without an insider's understanding of how our defense functions.

Although I have to say, if he really is absolutely critical to getting our D lined up properly, doesn't that seem like a problem?

 

[koonja]

Emcee,

While I do think that Schmidt going down hurt our defense some, I think it's overblown with Day and Jones also going down. We weren't going to stop anyone last year with those two out even with Manti in the middle.

 

[Rocket89]

To be fair, you're right, we don't know as casual fans how the linebackers are working as a unit or how the defense overall is working as a unit. But even that unknown doesn't explain why he can't make individual plays like shedding a blocker, beating a blocker to the point of attack, wrapping up and making tackles, etc. It's just lacking.

There are other positions that struggle (I assume you meant safety and DE), but the difference is the willingness of the staff to pull starters and give the backups a chance to play. The shake up seemed to work - Tranquill played well before his injury against Tech and Max looks a bit more comfortable at safety now. Why wouldn't you give someone else a shot, even if it's for a possession or two

It is lacking but he can still make plays. Let's not act like he's helpless out there. Plus, he's still quite good in other areas too. For example, he was pretty darn good in pass coverage on Saturday.

And I don't think there's been much willingness to pull the other starters, except Max who frankly has never graded out all that well ever. And that position has really killed the defense in giving up big plays, whereas that's less true of Schmidt's play.

But yeah I think he's not 100% healthy and his hand is bothering him a lot on the missed tackles. I personally wouldn't mind seeing some snaps from someone else too, but I doubt it'll happen. Looking at the USC game I don't know how you'd sit him when they had no sustained running success. Plus I thought they were far less aggressive using him (possibly acknowledging his issues?) and even still he almost had 2 sacks if he could just wrap up. I don't know if you sit him cause he missed those 2 tackles when one aided a sack and the other caused a throwaway. It's a tough decision.

 

[Te'o4Heisman]

Every single running play has a blocking scheme that puts a hat on the mike (with rare exceptions like a draw or something). I don't think they made a point to get to Schmidt, the individual. Rather it was their offense simply blocking the mike no different than what they do against any other opponent. They had an easy time blocking him.

Of course nobody expects a mike to win in every situation but he should win most (he's guarded by linemen, and has space and the angle to make plays on either side of the field). He's not working well in space. He's a step slow and can't hit the right path to the back. When a blocker engages him, it's over. Worse yet, he's getting driven back five or ten yards, cutting off the path of other defenders who otherwise would be there to make the play. Just get on the ground and close your gap, or get your head to one side of the blocker or the other so you can cut off one gap and get the back moving towards your support. You just can't titty fight a fat linemen until the whistle blows. This is day 1 page 1 stuff.

To be fair, you're right, we don't know as casual fans how the linebackers are working as a unit or how the defense overall is working as a unit. But even that unknown doesn't explain why he can't make individual plays like shedding a blocker, beating a blocker to the point of attack, wrapping up and making tackles, etc. It's just lacking.

There are other positions that struggle (I assume you meant safety and DE), but the difference is the willingness of the staff to pull starters and give the backups a chance to play. The shake up seemed to work - Tranquill played well before his injury against Tech and Max looks a bit more comfortable at safety now. Why wouldn't you give someone else a shot, even if it's for a possession or two?

The staff knows best, generally speaking. But they're human and make mistakes or questionable decisions just like the rest of us do at work from time to time. Most coaches I know will tell you that personnel decisions are the toughest to make b/c of the emotional attachment to players. I'm not suggesting that they are playing Joe b/c they like him so damn much. But maybe they're more willing to look past his mistakes b/c he's earned a level of forgiveness given his sparkling record of being a student athlete. I don't know what it is but patience has to be wearing thin.

Amen! The bolded happens FAR too much, and is exactly what is going on in that clip posted of Jaylon blowing up a hole.

 

[Te'o4Heisman]

It is lacking but he can still make plays. Let's not act like he's helpless out there. Plus, he's still quite good in other areas too. For example, he was pretty darn good in pass coverage on Saturday.

And I don't think there's been much willingness to pull the other starters, except Max who frankly has never graded out all that well ever. And that position has really killed the defense in giving up big plays, whereas that's less true of Schmidt's play.

But yeah I think he's not 100% healthy and his hand is bothering him a lot on the missed tackles. I personally wouldn't mind seeing some snaps from someone else too, but I doubt it'll happen. Looking at the USC game I don't know how you'd sit him when they had no sustained running success. Plus I thought they were far less aggressive using him (possibly acknowledging his issues?) and even still he almost had 2 sacks if he could just wrap up. I don't know if you sit him cause he missed those 2 tackles when one aided a sack and the other caused a throwaway. It's a tough decision.

Have you watched any of the games this year?

 

[Wild Bill]

It is lacking but he can still make plays. Let's not act like he's helpless out there. Plus, he's still quite good in other areas too. For example, he was pretty darn good in pass coverage on Saturday.

And I don't think there's been much willingness to pull the other starters, except Max who frankly has never graded out all that well ever. And that position has really killed the defense in giving up big plays, whereas that's less true of Schmidt's play.

But yeah I think he's not 100% healthy and his hand is bothering him a lot on the missed tackles. I personally wouldn't mind seeing some snaps from someone else too, but I doubt it'll happen. Looking at the USC game I don't know how you'd sit him when they had no sustained running success. Plus I thought they were far less aggressive using him (possibly acknowledging his issues?) and even still he almost had 2 sacks if he could just wrap up. I don't know if you sit him cause he missed those 2 tackles when one aided a sack and the other caused a throwaway. It's a tough decision.

I agree, it is a tough decision. Especially given the way he performed last year and the caliber of teammate and student athlete Joe has been at ND. IMO, he did give up some big plays against USC, and that may be the difference in the staff's evaluation. I can't recall all of them but I listed a few below:

-The first TD he bit hard on the PA and let Kessler walk into the end zone. If he read his keys, he would have had a much better angle and given himself a chance to make the play before he crosses the goal line (not a big play in terms of yardage but it was a TD.
-He missed a tackle on the second series on 3rd and 2 that kept their drive going and the YAC b/c of the missed tackle put them in FG range.
-This one is nitpicky and he wasn't the only one, but on that double bubble, why the hell didn't he continue his path to the ball carrier/passer? He peeled back, as if he was going to make the play 20 yards behind him, and gave the back more time and space to set his feet and make an accurate throw. He wouldn't have made the tackle had he continued up the field but he would have put more pressure on him and may have forced a bad throw by an inexperienced passer. Again, that's really nitpicky but it showed poor instincts, even if it's only for a play.
-The screen to Adore was all on Joe. He's lined up in a perfect position to make the play pre-snap. He gets caught looking in the backfield and takes a false step towards the play fake. The tackle gets to him, engages and just eats him alive (and takes shumate out of the play in the process). Just a brutal all around play both mentally and physically.
-The Ronald Jones run was tough to judge. I don't know what the hell was going on. Looked like a busted defensive play but Joe did not look good trying to scrape over to make the play.

Tough evaluation and decision for the staff to make in the middle of a playoff run. That's why they make the big bucks, though.

 

[stlnd01]

I guess what I don't quite understand is why Schmidt has to play every meaningful snap. Can we not at least work Morgan in some? Give Joe a blow if he's playing hurt. Get Nyles prepped for next year. And put a better athlete on the field at times we think that'd be helpful?

 

[Irish Insanity]

Can we just start a Joe Schmidt revisited thread. He becomes the topic in way to many.

 

[zelezo vlk]

I guess what I don't quite understand is why Schmidt has to play every meaningful snap. Can we not at least work Morgan in some? Give Joe a blow if he's playing hurt. Get Nyles prepped for next year. And put a better athlete on the field at times we think that'd be helpful?

Whoa whoa whoa, we're not Louisville, let's calm down here.

 

[kmoose]

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