Let's not rush to judgment on the defense

[Creek Walker]

I've seen a lot of belly-aching about the defense, and I know a lot of fans were making snide remarks about Bob Shoop during the game. IMO, the defense played well overall. Sure, there were some gaping holes at times that were inexplicable. It was hard watching this vaunted DL get pushed around by Appy State's OL from time to time. But Appy State finished with 292 yards of total offense. Any time you can hold your opponent to fewer than 300 yards of offense, you've accomplished something. After the second touchdown early in the second quarter (which came on a terrible play by ), Appalachian State didn't sniff the end zone again. The defense really bailed out the team after the long punt return late in the fourth quarter, too. It was somewhat concerning that the D nearly let AppySt drive from its own 15 with 2 minutes left to win the game, but even then the defense came up with a couple of big plays to prevent them from getting into FG range.

This is a pretty dynamic AppySt offense, and the D held them to two scores, one of which came on a short field after a turnover. And did it despite playing 3 quarters without arguably the best player on the field on that side of the ball.

I'm not concerned about the defense. (The offense, of course, is a totally different story.  )

[PirateVOL]

I've seen a lot of belly-aching about the defense, and I know a lot of fans were making snide remarks about Bob Shoop during the game. IMO, the defense played well overall. Sure, there were some gaping holes at times that were inexplicable. It was hard watching this vaunted DL get pushed around by Appy State's OL from time to time. But Appy State finished with 292 yards of total offense. Any time you can hold your opponent to fewer than 300 yards of offense, you've accomplished something. After the second touchdown early in the second quarter (which came on a terrible play by ), Appalachian State didn't sniff the end zone again. The defense really bailed out the team after the long punt return late in the fourth quarter, too. It was somewhat concerning that the D nearly let AppySt drive from its own 15 with 2 minutes left to win the game, but even then the defense came up with a couple of big plays to prevent them from getting into FG range.

This is a pretty dynamic AppySt offense, and the D held them to two scores, one of which came on a short field after a turnover. And did it despite playing 3 quarters without arguably the best player on the field on that side of the ball.

I'm not concerned about the defense. (The offense, of course, is a totally different story.   )

i have to disagree
The front 6 was out of position most of the night.
The 3rd LB was a waste and IMO hurt us more than it helped and the constant late rotation was questionable and cost us our 2nd TO in the first half
The DEs and the LB had extremely poor discipline (coach able).  When your free safety is your leading tackler in the 1st half there is a serious issue.  Many, Many missed tackles.  Barnett played ok for his talent level.  Vereen played well on play side, not so much when on the backside.  Lewis had his moments but like Vereen.
The DTs got better as the game went on, especially Vickers.  KMack was in ineffective for the most part..
Bottom line:  Zero sacks (never really came close, #9 had his usuall borderline late hit on the QB; a lot of missed tackles; poor discipline.
Our Mike was a non factor most of the night
The blessing is that I think we have a backup to R-M as CMack progressively got better as the night wore on.
The secondary played well.  The nickel was less effective in run support but was a far, far better option than the 3rd backer.
The safeties played very well.  TK had a solid night and Abernathy was my star of the game.
Coaching:  where was the vaunted depth and rotation.  For the most part we rotated 3 DEs and 3 DTs.  Kongo got some snaps but they were split between DT (ineffectiveness) and DE (coach able).
I don't think we rotated a safety all night.
The nickel and corner opposit Cam were the only two positions we rotated regularly.
Interestingly, we rotated Barnett to the right side, a lot.
Shoop got more aggressive as the game went on.  Martinez was very active on the sideline, was on the field almost as much as Butch at times.
Are we as bad as we looked most of the night?  Probably not but we were nowhere near the preseason hype level of play we need to be at.  We did shut them out the last 2+ quarters.

[Creek Walker]

There's plenty to critique. But when push came to shove, the defense rose to the occasion almost every time. Appy State was just 3 of 13 on 3rd down. Take away Cam Sutton's muff and Corey Vereen getting caught in a pass coverage situation and we very well could've shut those jokers out...not an easy offense to do that to, either.

Yes, the guys up front looking like they were lost pre-snap on several occasions was frustrating, but again I say: I'm not worried about our defense.

[PirateVOL]

There's plenty to critique. But when push came to shove, the defense rose to the occasion almost every time. Appy State was just 3 of 13 on 3rd down. Take away Cam Sutton's muff and Corey Vereen getting caught in a pass coverage situation and we very well could've shut those jokers out...not an easy offense to do that to, either.

Yes, the guys up front looking like they were lost pre-snap on several occasions was frustrating, but again I say: I'm not worried about our defense.

wasn't that bad of coverage and they were well down the field

[BanditVol]

I'm with Creek on this one.  Defense played really well overall and got better as the night proceeded.  What hurts the perception is that we gave up some long runs that were bad optics throughout the game.  They kept getting to the edge on us almost throughout the game.  But in fairness, early on they burned us up the middle a couple times but that stopped.

Other than the drive aided by the TO, which was truly awful D, and the first series that JRM was out (their long TD), they didn't do much.   Even on the missed FG (their only scoring op of the second half), we tackled the RB for a 5-yard loss on third down or we might all be crying in our beer today.  That five yard stop may just have been the difference.

How anyone can criticize a D that only allowed one long TD is beyond me.  The bottom line is keeping them from scoring, right? No style points allowed!

Having said that, Pirate if you are saying we could have done better, I actually like hearing that.     Because....look out. 

[Tnphil]

K-Mac is a huge disappointment so far. 5 star playing like a low 3.

[tshadow]

The issues on Defense were mental. The same might be said of the offense also. The one thing I was looking for that I did not see was an improvement on the passing game. My reasoning on the perception of defense inadequacy is that they scored first and so early in the game. It FELT way too early for us to be playing from behind and given the fact that it took us til overtime to actually gain the lead... the team didn't expect to be in that position either.

[murfvol]

I agree with most of the above. I'm not horribly worried about the D because they did o.k. minus JRM and Tuttle, and Shoop has a fine track record.

The OL, and to a much lesser extent, QB, are problems.

[BanditVol]

I will modify my stance a bit because we gave up 182 yards rushing. That is not good.  OTOH all they could do was run which likely padded it a bit, but that's unacceptable. I'll still take 13 points any day though.