Perspective on the Defense

[Pony41]

Last night the camera angles from the end zone gave me a chance to see what's going on with the defense. Here's my observations:

D-Line - we already know undersized and not exceptionally quick. We were unable to hold our position on the line, most run plays they were pushed 2-4 yards off the line of scrimmage. This makes it very difficult for our three linebackers to read a cut-off block and step up in the hole when they have to go around our tackles. On predictable passing downs simply not the strength and speed to force any pressure on the QB up the middle - this includes any stunts or twists to try and confuse Tulane's O-Line.

What does this mean? On run plays Tulane's O-line got the RB's at least 3-4 yards before our LB's had a chance to make a tackle. On passing plays teams will probably pay more attention to Yenga as the only threat.

Linebackers - again undersized and slower than we would like. On run plays I saw many times they would read a drive block and take the wrong gap and the RB would run right on by for a big gain. Sometimes it might have been hard to get a good read on keying the guards for example because Tulane's guards were already pushing our tackles 5yrds off the line of scrimmage. We also had real problems getting off of blocks to make a tackle - didn't happen much. Unfortunately, LB's should be our best tacklers on the field and they had a lot of missed tackles both from lack of strength and wrapping up and also lack of quickness to even touch the RB.

Secondary - When you are giving up as much running yards as we are and you can't get any pressure on the QB in passing downs that puts a lot of pressure on corner backs to play man to man and be able to come up and support the run and hold containment. I think our corners are our best two defensive players so far, but they will continue to give up plays just because of the lack of plays being made on the rest of the field. Our safeties are not reading their keys very well and still seem confused on coverages. Every game we've seen a couple of blown coverages deep for big plays. Our safeties are also not tackling well on run support or after the catch - especially open field tackling - have seen a lot opposing players put jock strap moves on our safeties.

How do you fix it this season? We are not going to get faster or stronger this year, more experience in the new system will help put players more consistently in the right places. Improving on fundamental tackling would lower teams runs and runs after catch yards some. Coaching can continue to mix up stunts, blitzes and coverages to try and create confusion for the opponents not us hopefully. Aside from the physical tools of playing defense, the best defenses have the right mental approach. It's not about how long can we keep the opponent from scoring, or can we not screw up our coverage. It's about having the confidence to believe you will stop the opponent and get the ball back for your offense. Maybe we saw a small glimpse of that in the second half but our defense is going to need a whole LOT more of that kind of intangible this year to improve during the season. Play smart and play with heart because that's all we are going to have in 2008 - but do those two things and we will see a lot more stops.

Go Ponies.