Run 3-4 defense vs 3 & 4 receiver sets
- Thread starter suhnami
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That's the problem I had with his scheme most of the game. We had much more success when we went to more dbs.
You can't have slow plodding lbs like Newby trying to cover backs or a wr in space. Not sure 3 and #5 should even be out there in passing situations. Their lack of foot speed and mobility is a huge detriment.
Unfortunately Oregon will do more of the same and expose our slow slow backers.
You can't have slow plodding lbs like Newby trying to cover backs or a wr in space. Not sure 3 and #5 should even be out there in passing situations. Their lack of foot speed and mobility is a huge detriment.
Unfortunately Oregon will do more of the same and expose our slow slow backers.
I am making an assumption here but to me it seems Diaco thought our LB's were able to make it work for this game because he was going to change it up against Oregon and didn't want to tip his hand. Sometimes coaches can out coach themselves. This is all an assumption on my part.
Who did? Arkansas St ran the ball 8 times, (9 if you include the sack) in the 2nd half and gained 38 yards. Total rushing for them was 21 for 82 yards. So in that 2nd half they ran less times and for less yards than they did in the 1st half.
It makes no sense not to 'tip your hand' in anticipation of having an advantage in a later game only to lose an earlier one to a lesser opponent.
Also, your nickel defense, which many teams are the in the majority of time anyway, isn't like some well guarded secret. In fact, if you don't want the other team to known you have a nickel defense, I don't know what the payoff could be at all.
Sorry bomber, that is not meant to be directed at you especially. About 5-10 people have expressed that sentiment and I just don't see how it's a good explanatiom at all for Diaco's failure to adapt in the first half.
Your other idea might be right in that he thought the LBs were up to the task and waited until they proved they weren't. That to me is a better explanation, though I wish it wouldn't have taken him as long as it did to pull the plug in that case.
Also, your nickel defense, which many teams are the in the majority of time anyway, isn't like some well guarded secret. In fact, if you don't want the other team to known you have a nickel defense, I don't know what the payoff could be at all.
Sorry bomber, that is not meant to be directed at you especially. About 5-10 people have expressed that sentiment and I just don't see how it's a good explanatiom at all for Diaco's failure to adapt in the first half.
Your other idea might be right in that he thought the LBs were up to the task and waited until they proved they weren't. That to me is a better explanation, though I wish it wouldn't have taken him as long as it did to pull the plug in that case.
No offense taken at all. I agree with everything you said. I don't take offense when people call me out. In order to be offended I have to value their opinion.
I think the truth here is somewhere in between. I think the plan was to play base and be vanilla. When that didn't work, we adjusted and played more nickel and dime the second half and played much better, until things got weird at the end. We completely shut them down in the third quarter and had the ball up two scores, with a chance to blow the game open several times.
We also didn't do much blitzing or even stunting, with press coverage, even after the half. But you have to wonder if that was a result of the original vanilla game plan. Not sure how much of that they have installed, especially out of sub personnel, and how comfortable they are with it.
I agree that we should have run nickel dime from the start and we were way too slow to adjust. I think we win much more handily if we do, but I don't buy the idea of holding back for Oregon. I really just think we thought we could sit in a base and win this first game and were way too slow to move away from that plan.
I agree that we should have run nickel dime from the start and we were way too slow to adjust. I think we win much more handily if we do, but I don't buy the idea of holding back for Oregon. I really just think we thought we could sit in a base and win this first game and were way too slow to move away from that plan.
the vanilla argument in prep for Oregon is difficult to understand given that Taggert has seen the full compliment of Diaco's defense while they coached against each other at S Florida and UConn (credit to another poster who pointed this out)
Oregon is going to be much more run orientated - we will see if our ILBs will prove to be any more effective than our OLBs
Oregon is going to be much more run orientated - we will see if our ILBs will prove to be any more effective than our OLBs
I don't think it is about hiding things from Oregon as much as it is about giving our linebackers some valuable game experience because to win the big 10 we will have to beat Wisconsin and Iowa, and we won't be in the nickel much in those games.
I really don't buy it either. I think they did have a vanilla plan, because they thought they could play a base defense and be fine, but I don't buy the idea of hiding anything from Oregon. Honestly, my biggest issue was how long we took to adjust.
To answer the question, yes, we should have enough DB's to play nickel/dime. Kalu being at safety answers that question.
If the gist of the OP is OLB's in pass coverage, well, that looks like it is still a work in progress. If you want an OLB to be a DE/OLB/DB, one already needs to be on your roster or you'll have to develop one. With Davis and King it's the development route. There is only one coach on our staff that believes you can get all you need on the scout team. All the others believe you need game experience. I agree with the majority of our coaches, if you want to see this scheme work, we have to play it. We have to play the OLB's so they can get better.
I see quite a few people upset with the Ark St game, and I'm far from happy. But, a win is a win. We still have some time before our tougher conference games to work out/soften the kinks.
On our last possession, a 3 and out, imo we should have ate as much clock as possible up by 14.
If the gist of the OP is OLB's in pass coverage, well, that looks like it is still a work in progress. If you want an OLB to be a DE/OLB/DB, one already needs to be on your roster or you'll have to develop one. With Davis and King it's the development route. There is only one coach on our staff that believes you can get all you need on the scout team. All the others believe you need game experience. I agree with the majority of our coaches, if you want to see this scheme work, we have to play it. We have to play the OLB's so they can get better.
I see quite a few people upset with the Ark St game, and I'm far from happy. But, a win is a win. We still have some time before our tougher conference games to work out/soften the kinks.
On our last possession, a 3 and out, imo we should have ate as much clock as possible up by 14.
We sent 3 after the QB the majority of the time, and that wasn't even really sending them. They were still playing 2-gap most of the time. And our OLBs were positioned very wide. I don't know what Diaco was doing, but I've never seen a 3-4 defense aligned with the LBs that wide. Ever. I think he was screwing around the entire first half.
I agree with you. I think they were getting the lb's experience which is great. However they took a huge risk staying in base personnel for 80/89 plays. They had to have enough on film in the 1st half to switch to nickel and give the players a better matchup in the 2nd half. I dont know all the details but they did something different in the 3rd that shut ASU down. What happened in the 4th?
I guess I don't understand the logic of getting your OLBs game experience against a personnel grouping that they wouldn't normally be asked to face and hopefully won't be asked to again. Shouldn't your nickel and dime packages be getting experience facing sets they are going to be asked to defend? Maybe Diaco wanted to see how his base defense could hold up against 3 or 4 WR sets.
You are the one that said they went more to the RB in the second half based on where the OLBs were playing. Which is it? They went more to the RB or they were behind most of the 2nd half?
But on the RPO if the QB sees a DB and not a LB you think he might not hand of to the back and still gain an advantage? So basically you may gain speed and good coverage against the slot receiver but not physicality against the run The biggest issue was the quick and decisive decisions by the QB. More guys like Parsons will give us the ability to play this without having to shuffle personal in and out all day. Quickness decisiveness and Physicality Range and footspeed is a must in a OLB. What do you think wii happen if you put a DB in at OLB against Royce Freeman not many DBs will come up and meet him in the hole before he gets a head of steam tuff assignment for any DB. Diaco will try a lot of different things to give us An advantage over the coarse of the year. I believe he is playing chess here trying to find out his players strengths and weaknesses under live fire. And instead of talking to the peanut gallery he's assessing his players rolls in the Defense.and gameplaning for Oregon. GBR
If they play nickel against Oregon, I would assume it would be a 4-2-5, with Newby coming out and Gifford moving down. This allows the flexibility to stand Gifford up and run a 3-3-5 without subbing. I think Kalu moves to the nickel against Oregon. Just my opinion
Edit - point being that I don't think you take out the two ILBs who will be counted on to fit in the run stops up front.
Edit - point being that I don't think you take out the two ILBs who will be counted on to fit in the run stops up front.
The alignments your describing here are what I hoped for in the 2nd half against ASU. I think we will see more of this vs Oregon.
As compared to the typical 3-4 alignment, Diaco was as conservative as conservative can be. Rarely did he bring pressure, and started with 5 in the box the majority of the time. And our DEs looked like they were staying in their lanes without getting up the field too far, keeping contain.
We just played a ton of zone coverage and dropped 6 or more a lot of the time. Little more than a prevent defense in my mind.
When you see more 6 and 7 in the box next weekend and see us bringing more pressure, people will realize what Diaco was doing. He wasn't showing anything this week, and it allowed A-State to move the ball pretty easily a lot of the time. I think we should have brought pressure more often, but Diaco was sticking to his plan of showing very little.
Why not do a little live action work this week on what he wants to do next week? Wouldn't a few reps be useful for the boys before it is Oregon's offense on the field?
That's exactly my thinking on it is why not run a real defense, and if you need to make adjustments from there, you know what you need to fix. Trying to hide our defense from Oregon is probably going to surprise us more than it will them.
Diaco isn't going to hide his defense from Oregon. Taggert (S Florida) coached against Diaco (UConn). Taggert has seen 1st hand in game prep on multiple occasions Diaco's full defensive package. He will know how he wants to attack it. Likewise Diaco should be familiar with Taggerts offense.
You can hide some offensive schemes and maybe some disguised blitz packages, but defending the flats properly isn't going to give away much. Makes no sense why we didn't try to stop ASU quick passes to sides.
Well, since they had a very good throwing QB and better receivers than RBs, we probably played it how we needed to...but just more conservatively than we could have, IMO.
Hold back on showing his defense is exactly what he did. He played a conservative scheme nearly the entire day. If you don't believe it, go watch some videos of the Steelers, Packers, or Ravens 3-4 scheme. They will look nothing like we played for most of the day Saturday.
I get he played vanilla. But why? Taggert has seen Diaco's full defense on multiple occasions when they coached against each other as late as last year in the Big East. I get the defense will look different this Saturday but it won't be anything Taggert hasn't already seen. Not sure was there was anything to be gained by not showing his defense. Oregon knows what defense Diaco plays including most of the wrinkles despite what they may or may not have shown. Likewise Diaco knows 1st hand what Taggerts offense does
It was said earlier but it isn't always scheme that is game planned for. Sometimes, a lot of time really, personnel is what is game planned. The scheme may not have a weakness but a player might. Or the scheme may have a weakness but the player at that weakness can mitigate that weakness. By not showing what his players can do, or not do, it doesn't allow Oregon to see either and plan for it
That is fair - my point was related to scheme not personnel - for whatever it's worth I think our inside LBs are going to be severely tested this week much in the same way our OLBs were tested last week.
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You realize Riley was also a defensive coach in his previous life. Diaco's defense could change pretty dramatically based on what Riley wants to do. Or what he wanted to show early in the season.
Our defense is going to look dramatically different next week. We may not win, but it's not going to be because our schemes are flawed. It will be because their talent is better, and because Royce Freeman doesn't get injured in the 2nd series of the game.
