I still cannot believe we lost to them . Re-watching the game right now. Our run defense is embarrassing. We simply don't have the horses and we are slow as molasses.

Is is also scheme? We seemed so much better with a 3-4 and the backers we used to have.

Kent State must have been salivating buckets as they watched game film of our defense during their preparation.

Smokin Joe wrote: ↑

December 29th, 2019, 8:46 pm

Is is also scheme? We seemed so much better with a 3-4 and the backers we used to have.

It was most definitely a scheme issue too. Not hard to figure out that as soon as our 4 DL made their way upfield and our two DEs were pushed past the pocket that Crum just had to step up and he had 15-20 yards of empty green in front of him every down. They puposely sent a RB out in the flat and a TE out on a pass route which would pull our two LBs out of the center of the field. I would hate to see how many rushing yards a real dual threat QB would have had in that game.

The fact that Crum was a slow lumbering QB was just salt in the wound as we watched an even slower Aggie D try to chase and tackle him in the open field once he had a 10 yard head start.

The only time we had success stopping them was when we didn't send one of our DEs (usually Heninger) and instead had him slide over to the center of the line after the snap and spy the QB. Their 5 OL were left blocking our 3 DL and if we could cover long enough or if Crum took off and was flushed from the pocket our spy DE was waiting for him. The fact that we never made an adjustment to a simple QB run up the middle for an entire game is unreal. I'm sure the KSU coahes were like, "yeah, just run that play again. Drop back and act like you're going to pass and then take off -seems to be good for 15 yards every time."

So is Ena that bad? GA can coach defense. We know that. Why no adjustments? BTW, our linebackers, excepting Woody, sucked---everyone of them.

I think KM was solid. After that it was not good.

Well I also saw some terrible special team play like getting hit in the shin on a punt, a horrible center snap that went to high with the kicker looking down field instead of looking the ball into his hands, then the onside kick effort so poor that they almost return it for a score. There is plenty of blame to go around, beside the one coach you all want to jump on.

Some may want to blame it on scheme, what I saw was a Q.B. that we hardly ever tackled on first contact that is a toughness issue, if you can not tackle better than that then scheme is not all that important.


Go Aggies hit the weight room.

oleblu111 wrote: ↑

December 30th, 2019, 3:16 pm

There is plenty of blame to go around, beside the one coach you all want to jump on.

I am not interested in jumping on Ena. I save that activity for my wife.

ususports wrote: ↑

December 30th, 2019, 3:21 pm

oleblu111 wrote: ↑

December 30th, 2019, 3:16 pm

There is plenty of blame to go around, beside the one coach you all want to jump on.

I am not interested in jumping on Ena. I save that activity for my wife.

You the man. on

You guys are silly... my wife jumps on me

I might just be dumb but I really don’t know that we would be any better with a different defensive scheme. I find it hard to think that a bunch of fans would be able to coach better and see something that two people who have been coaching defense their whole lives not see.

When I saw our defense struggle is the fact that no one could make a tackle. It seemed we could get to people but we could never tackle them. That seems more like a player problem than a scheme problem.

Winning Team wrote: ↑

December 30th, 2019, 6:20 pm

I might just be dumb but I really don’t know that we would be any better with a different defensive scheme. I find it hard to think that a bunch of fans would be able to coach better and see something that two people who have been coaching defense their whole lives not see.

When I saw our defense struggle is the fact that no one could make a tackle. It seemed we could get to people but we could never tackle them. That seems more like a player problem than a scheme problem.

I made a similar comment in another thread about how it seemed like I saw more opposing qbs escape our pressure more than any other team. I don’t have stats to back that up but it just felt that way to me.

Maybe they focused too much on schemes and less on fundamentals in trying to get everything in place. It just seemed like we would take bad angles and almost whiff at peoples legs a lot. We didn’t wrap people up enough and tried to blow people up too much.

Winning Team wrote: ↑

December 30th, 2019, 6:20 pm

I might just be dumb but I really don’t know that we would be any better with a different defensive scheme. I find it hard to think that a bunch of fans would be able to coach better and see something that two people who have been coaching defense their whole lives not see.

When I saw our defense struggle is the fact that no one could make a tackle. It seemed we could get to people but we could never tackle them. That seems more like a player problem than a scheme problem.

Coaches are indeed humans and get tied to their beliefs. They don't always play the best players and don't always use the right scheme. They are typically alpha-male/dominant personalities who "always know best". The successful coaches are able to see the forest through the trees and make the correct adjustments in personnel and scheme. In the 2002 SB the entire Rams offense begged Mike Martz to call more running plays but Martz wanted to prove to the world that Bill Belicheck couldn't stop Martz's passing scheme. We know how that worked out. The sports world is littered with these situations.

Ena is obviously more comfortable with four down linemen which is why he took one the best pass rushers from the OLB position and stuck him in the ground 18 inches away from a 300 lb OT which completely negated his skillset; its also why he took a three star LB recruit and told him to gain sixty lbs so he could move to the DL.

For Ena's sake, it better work because he hasn't shown the ability to adjust.

FloridaAggie13 wrote: ↑

December 30th, 2019, 7:47 pm

Winning Team wrote: ↑

December 30th, 2019, 6:20 pm

I might just be dumb but I really don’t know that we would be any better with a different defensive scheme. I find it hard to think that a bunch of fans would be able to coach better and see something that two people who have been coaching defense their whole lives not see.

When I saw our defense struggle is the fact that no one could make a tackle. It seemed we could get to people but we could never tackle them. That seems more like a player problem than a scheme problem.

Coaches are indeed humans and get tied to their beliefs. They don't always play the best players and don't always use the right scheme. They are typically alpha-male/dominant personalities who "always know best". The successful coaches are able to see the forest through the trees and make the correct adjustments in personnel and scheme. In the 2002 SB the entire Rams offense begged Mike Martz to call more running plays but Martz wanted to prove to the world that Bill Belicheck couldn't stop Martz's passing scheme. We know how that worked out. The sports world is littered with these situations.

Ena is obviously more comfortable with four down linemen which is why he took one the best pass rushers from the OLB position and stuck him in the ground 18 inches away from a 300 lb OT which completely negated his skillset; its also why he took a three star LB recruit and told him to gain sixty lbs so he could move to the DL.

For Ena's sake, it better work because he hasn't shown the ability to adjust.

+1000. When the Aggies lost Woody this defense was going to struggle based on talent alone. But Ena could of and sort of did go back to a 3 man front at times although I was unimpressed with his 3 man rush strategy which dropped one of the best edge rushers in the country into the flat and relied on d lineman without any semblance of a pash rush move outsides of Henninger.

But he always stubbornly went back to his 4 man front sometimes even at the cost of reps to Tipa which is ridiculous. Tipa should have been out there disrupting somewhere out of a 3 man front every play because of the unique abilities. Henninger should have gotten double the reps he did too from the weak side end spot in a 3 man front with Tei moving back to LB.

It was just a complete mismanagement of his talent and the experienced 3 man front D line he had coming back. Would it have resulted in at least one more win. Hell yeah I think it would have. A well run 3-4 with a guy hitting the QB every play and Tei playing backer and Tipa the edge wouldn't never have given up enough points to lose to Kent State at least. I think the Zoob game may also have had a different feel to it although that was the one game that Love's and the offenses' mistakes probably would have sunk the Aggies anyway. The first reason is that its unless you have really good experienced true 4 man front ends its a lot harder to spy a qb without losing pass coverage in the 4 man front. The second reason is that Tei and Tipa could have spied that QB effectively from a 3 man front and even with the interior lineman loss we had plenty of depth to control the LOS with our 3 man front lineman against a very mediocre O line in Kent State.

Everyone talks about how bad the Aggies were at LB talent wise after losing Woody. To a large extent it was because their 2 best remaining LBs were stuck at positions they weren't equipped or comfortable playing and that completely negated their skill sets.

Aglicious wrote: ↑

December 29th, 2019, 11:07 pm

Smokin Joe wrote: ↑

December 29th, 2019, 8:46 pm

Is is also scheme? We seemed so much better with a 3-4 and the backers we used to have.

It was most definitely a scheme issue too. Not hard to figure out that as soon as our 4 DL made their way upfield and our two DEs were pushed past the pocket that Crum just had to step up and he had 15-20 yards of empty green in front of him every down. They puposely sent a RB out in the flat and a TE out on a pass route which would pull our two LBs out of the center of the field. I would hate to see how many rushing yards a real dual threat QB would have had in that game.

The fact that Crum was a slow lumbering QB was just salt in the wound as we watched an even slower Aggie D try to chase and tackle him in the open field once he had a 10 yard head start.

The only time we had success stopping them was when we didn't send one of our DEs (usually Heninger) and instead had him slide over to the center of the line after the snap and spy the QB. Their 5 OL were left blocking our 3 DL and if we could cover long enough or if Crum took off and was flushed from the pocket our spy DE was waiting for him. The fact that we never made an adjustment to a simple QB run up the middle for an entire game is unreal. I'm sure the KSU coaches were like, "yeah, just run that play again. Drop back and act like you're going to pass and then take off -seems to be good for 15 yards every time."

Brutal Aglicious, just brutal but you're spot on. The truth is tough to read, but accurate it is and your comments won't easily be brushed aside. We simply failed to make the obvious adjustment even after a spy was shown to work against Kent State Q B running opportunities.