Defense?

[CarolinaDog]

Went to the game today and saw a great effort by the young men. However, we are bleeding on defense. It felt at times Samford was averaging 8yds a play and it’s not due to poor tackling or lack of effort. Granted we needed more pressure on the QB. This defense has me worried and I believe will be our Achilles heel down the stretch if we don’t make some changes.

[19TERRIER19]

All that to be said, we outgained them and out possessed them. More first downs, more TOP. Defense wasnt the issue. We made them completely 1 dimensional. All we needed to do was clean up the penalties, bad snaps and turnovers and we win this game going away. Samford lives with slinging it all over the field, we held them to 24 points which is WELL below their averages. And we were just 6 points shy of our normal scoring average. And that jumped snap really hurt what was a very promising drive with placement on the field and the burned timeout. We would have been knocking at the door again.

[CarolinaDog]

Defense wasn’t the issue? 400+ yds in the air isn’t an issue?

[19TERRIER19]

Yards are fine and all. Samford came in averaging 31 points per game. And that includes the game against Georgia. 34.4 points against FCS opponents.

So today’s 24 points for Samford was a season low against FCS opposition.
10 points less than their season average.

We can talk about how bad the defense is because they gave up yards. But they got off the field plenty today. Plenty enough to win the game. They let Samford complete only 4 of 11 3rd down conversions.

Plenty to look at beyond the surface of all the yards. Seeing Wofford actually outgained Samford.

[CarolinaDog]

19 - great points. But this is about our standard. Wofford standard. Being a part of the 07’ an 10’ championship teams, we didn’t give up these games consistently. Defense was a compliment to our great offense and our secondary was a lot more sound. I believe we need to take a hard look in the mirror and make some adjustments heading into the final leg of regular season play.

Go Dogs

[19TERRIER19]

Fair enough, and believe me, I TOTALLY UNDERSTAND your points. I just do not think they were at fault today, IMO. They only gave up 24 points today. Against a HIGH VOLTAGE offense, and thats including the fluke of all fluke calls when we strip sack Hodges and land on the ball in the RED ZONE with only 5 minutes left in the game, only to be told that we are being assessed a penalty for obtaining the fumble without a helmet.

That call goes the other way and we are celebrating again, or when they huddled up they realized HOW HIS HELMET CAME OFF IN THE FIRST PLACE, and should have awarded the player that the grievance was actually against instead of penalizing him.

[19TERRIER19]

AND...that is with Samford coming off a BYE......Like ETSU this week......

[boulder3m]

The helmet rule has been re-considered year after year and, while seeming unfair, it is the rule. It seems to me that if you don't want your players to lose a helmet you do whatever it takes to keep it on-like extra snaps, velcro, etc. Tyler did exactly right when it came off, it was just that no one could ignore the ball coming to his feet!
It was pretty much a penalty free game. It is just that two freakish plays went against us. We had a big break when Goodson fumbled at the goal line and it went OB before crossing the line.

[Oak Grove]

How can anyone question the defense on a day when the offense fumbled SEVEN times???

[youngterrier]

I’m chuckling to myself when I read people saying our 07/10 didn’t have defensive back issues. In retrospect, I don’t think we did but it was definitely talked about as nauseam at the time. Every team puts up with this with air raid offenses. They dink and dunk on everybody.

Before this fam, having played the hardest stretch in the Socon schedule of everyone we were the #1 passing defense in the conference. Even with this performance we are top three. It may not look like it from a raw yardage perspective but we definitely played better than last year. Hodges has 4 incompletions last year. He had probably 5 in the first half.

The problem with this game was offensive mismanagement. Samford is an offense that can light up the scoreboard but if you zoom out on the stats they only score about 30% of the time they have the ball. Our defense stopped them for no points for the first 4 or 5 possessions. If our offense isn’t fumbling on every possession (a trend normally attributed to randomness but I attribute to the coaches: see my comment in the other threat), we are forcing them to play catch up.

Samford had the ball for 12 possessions and scored on 4 of them. They were in negative yardage rushing the ball until late in the fourth. We forced them to beat us in the air and they did.

[WocoSix]

37-54, 427 YDS, 3 TD, 1 INT.....
What part of they going to throw the ball did we not see. The nickel package was a good move. But why play 3 safties! Samford was NOT running 3 TE sets. The position is called slot CORNER or Nickel CORNER for a reason. Put your CB's in the game vs small quick WR's. Our safties were lit up for majority of the game. The 30 second scoring drive before half was just indicative of what we were going to see the 2nd half. We could have put the LB's back in once Samford figured what we were doing. Also Samford is built to beat zone coverages. We ran the same zone coverages the entire game. Rivera should be a SS and some how Jo Jo Tillery (who lead the team in tackles last season before being benched) is not even in the eqaution and should be in at FS. Cover 0 with press man or man under principles doesn't seem to be in the playbook. Also is it normal to have the DC not in the press box?

[youngterrier]

I think so

[mudrat43]

Know why ships sink? They get too much water in them! Know how to fix it? Stop all the leaks! See where this is going? "We forced them to beat us with the pass, and they did"? We didn't "force" them to do any such thing! They beat us with the pass because that's their strength! We should have forced them to beat us with the run...they couldn't. Again, WOF doesn't play very good pass defense....against anyone. You simply can't get consistent pressure on a good QB by rushing only 3 or sometimes 4 DL. WOF must bring the "house" from time to time. If it fails, so what, they'll complete a pass....duh!

[lawdog]

And all this time I have thought we had a plan to blitz, stunt, etc. Samford, of all teams. Still, without the glitches on offense, we win ; we stopped ourselves. Period. That said, we have every reason to be optimistic about the rest of the season; we did some great things, and could still get the big cheese. Focus ... one play and one game at a time.

[mudrat43]

Yeah, the glitches hurt WOF's offense, but its the BIG overall scheme that got them. Everyone on the planet knew Sammy was gonna throw all day. Yet WOF chose not to go after the QB but a few times. Even with 7 or 8 pass defenders, WOF couldn't stop Sammy. Should have sent at least 7 after the QB on every down.....could the outcome been worse? I don't think so. WOF needed to make sure the QB threw with his back on the ground every time!