VTTW Board Index

DL:  B  Played well, once again they shut the run down and forced the opponent to be one dimensional
Left too many gaps in pass rush, especially on the D right side.  When we weren’t blitzing (a LOT of the 3rd quarter) DT would rush up field and no one covered the resulting gap between where DT vacated and where the DT was rushing.  Ramsey exploited that over and over and over.  In the 4th quarter (didn’t observe it earlier) we were swapping OLBs based on formation (at least once in the 1st as I saw Crouch on the D right side).  We rotated often and the play was consistent across the players.  Had way too many offsides for interior linemen – why - brought down the grade one letter?

ILB:  B  Henry T was all over the field.  He is very good at filling gaps, had a couple plays similar to the 3rd down stop at KY.  Butili had some good blitzes but suffered a bit in underneath pass coverage.  Was not his best game.  When Butili got hurt JJP was in the game and looked lost IMO but Henry T picked right up in calling the defense, seamless.

OLB: B  Good pass rush, not so good in contain. 

CB: A  good tight coverage across the board.  I thought Shamburger’s best game.  Taylor had his best game IMO.  Thompson and George interchanged a lot, a step down from the other 2  Over all, very good, shut down their best receiver (think he had 1 catch).

Safeties:  B-  Had difficulty covering the TE.  Perhaps Warrior’s worst game since BYU.  He was beaten at least twice and I believe a 3rd time.  McCollough’s best game of the year IMO.  When we rotated him up vs Warrior (opposite our normal tactic) our defense improved IMO.  Jackson got a lot of PT in the 4th as part of the dime package and while not great was effective.

Coaching:  B  I felt we had an excellent game plan going in but did not react very well to their HT adjustments.  They came out emphasizing the TE and we had nothing for it.  Also, we got very passive in the 3rd.  Once we returned to being aggressive in the 4th the play improved greatly. 

Special Teams:  A  placekicking was excellent, kick-offs were very good.  Punting was “OK” with only one really bad punt that hurt us.  KO return when the opportunity was there Chandler excelled.  Punt returns, continued our passitivity but it didn’t hurt us badly.
The OSK kick was executed perfectly.  The staff definitely saw something on tape, practiced it and the team executed it.  Bavo Zulu!

Defensive grades are too high, imo, even tho we stymied them in the first half. DL had 4 offsides, 3 of them on 3rd down...not a lot of discipline there. We also lost contain on the QB wayyyy too often.

But, with that said, the D got the stops when we needed them most at the end.

Pruitt said in his after halftime interview that we had to contain the QB better..........It got worse. That and we had no answer for their TE were the two main issues. I like our defense and it's starting to look like a SEC defense. We have not seen that in a good while.

We stopped being aggressive in the 3rd quarter
They found a way to execute around our passive defense (every single escape, save 1 was through the SAME gap)
We put a spy on Ramsey as a "fix" left the TE open  (IMO the TE issues are at the hands of the ILBs and safeties judging by defensive alignments)
Finally we went back to being aggressive with our defensive play calling and all of a sudden the effectiveness of the first half defense returned - who would have thunk it?