VTTW Board Index

http://football.calsci.com/DefensiveLine3.html

A couple things stood out for me:

The 3-4 defense was motivated by two factors: the difficulty in getting good defensive ends, and the need to stop very fast running backs. This is the strength of the 3-4. The DTs keep the offensive linemen off your linebackers, leaving them free to roam the field and bring down runners.

Unfortunately, the 3-4 has a weakness. Three DTs cannot reliably collapse the five offensive lineman pocket on the quarterback, so it becomes much harder to pressure the quarterback. Traditionally, the 3-4 has struggled against the pass.

The 3-4 defense can have trouble matching up against a very fast offense. It's important for the success of the 3-4 in these cases for the defense to play an extremely physical game, jamming the receivers hard at the line of scrimmage.

Of course, one should point out the obvious. If the 3-4 is designed to stop "fast running backs", then..... :confused: :doh:

I think I see why many of you were concerned about "LB depth" at the start of the season.

Also, here are the 40 times of the uga RBs:

Gurley    4.3  http://www.tigernet.com/view/recruit.do?id=1474
Marshall 4.4

Let's throw in Trey Burton as well

Burton 4.6

Trey is not as fast as I thought, but then again he had to break a tackle from a player in pretty good position

And while we are on the topic of Trey, I find his run extra humiliating.  I mean, he doesn't even look like a football player IMO.  More like the member of a boy band.  The one everyone suspects of being gay.  :biggrin:  Seriously, we let THAT GUY break a 70-yard TD run on us.   :mad:

For constrast, here are MSU RBs

Ladarius Perkins 4.4
Josh Robinson 4.7  http://walterfootball.com/draft2012underclassmen.php
Derrick Milton  4.5

If no source is listed, the 40 times are from Rivals.  The MSU backs are in order of total yardage in the season so far. 

Well apparently none of our db's or lb's run faster than a 4.6 (can't catch anyone) so does that mean we are still screwed against MSU?

That depends on what you mean by apparently.

I am sure some of at least the dbs are faster than that  but were they in the game and can they tackle

Obviously teague runs about a 4.8 if burton (uf) runs a 4.6.  Don't know about the rest of our guys. If they are fast enough then they are constantly waaaaaaaaaaaaay out of position.

The biggest issue I have seen so far is that our edges are not pushing the runner deeper and further to the sideline. It doesn't look like our lb's are doing well at finding the ball and pursueing as it seems they are always late. Of course both of those issues work in tandem. I tend to think our ends and our outside backers are losing the edge and I don't know why.

Ha, I know you're joking.  Teague was right on top of Burton, just couldn't tackle him.  Teague is small.  He's supposed to be one of the fastest guys on the team, so I hope he's faster than that.

Just checked...Rivals has Teague at 4.5, as well as Waggner and Marlon Walls, all listed as such in 2008.  Bohannon, recruited as a DE and starting at LB on Saturday, is listed as 4.7.

Of course, forty times are notoriously unreliable and sometimes players either gain or lose a step, but they give an idea.

Agree that setting the edge seems to be big part of the problem.  Maybe they are staying too close to the interior?

The numbers above are actually from 2009, and here are some others:

Mike Edwards 4.5
Darren Myles 4.5

Janzen Jackson 4.4   :banghead:

Not too many Lbs or Dbs in the 2010 class with 40 times listed, but Bray is clocked at a blazing 5.5  :dielaughing:

My memory does fail me often but what I saw (albeit) from the stands waaaay up, was a db who couldn't gain a step on a te.

We were both right. Teague didn't make the tackle and then couldn't gain on him. It's in this highlight vid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f81_fj6aVA&feature=relmfu (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f81_fj6aVA&feature=relmfu)

Is Burton listed at TE now?  I don't know if you recall, but he was the QB that was supposed to replace Tebow in the spread, and he would most likely be the starter if Meyer was still around.  He's an excellent runner and quite fast. 

FTR, a 0.1 second difference would amount to about a yard gained over 50 yards, and after Burton brushed him off Teague was 2 yards behind.   I think Teague should have finished the tackle to begin with.  I posted some negative comments about that after the game, but at least he was in position to make the stop.  No one else on the D was.  :frown:

I am glad you posted that, because it reminded me that unfortunately Randolph gets injured on the next highlight on that tape.   :frown:   That pass \put them up by 14 and pretty much sealed the game, and Randolph would have stopped it at about the 20 but he blew his knee out right there.  According to DD, Randolph was the anchor of the secondary and our best tackler back there.  In fact, he was the leading tackler on the team at the time of injury.

I think we would have done better against uga had he not been injured.   :frown:   

But I am not letting the staff off the hook.  If he was really that key, they should have spent more time prepping his replacement and the rest of the defensive secondary to compensate.  I am going to go out on a limb here and say they didn't    :rolleyes:

Regarding your last point I think that is where the lack of depth still comes into play and why I have said all year that we need two more full classes to get back ups who have been in the S&C and the systems for a couple years before they have to play. When you have to depend on true and redshirt freshmen for #2's you are not in good shape depth wise at least with quality.

I don't know that 2 years will do it either because when you have to go the juco route to plug as many holes as we did the lack of depth comes up quicker all over again. Its why Jackie Sherrill could never sustain anything at MSU, he relied too heavily on juco players IMHO. We have more depth we just dont have what all the best SEC teams have right now.