The Curious Case of Isaac Gifford and the 3-3-5 defense
- Thread starter st3f0
- Start date
We heard you the first time
I could easily be wrong, but I think he's too slow to play safety and not big enough to play LB.
Yep. Great Group of 5 player, not a good player for the Power 4.
But, like Butler said, Gifford is one of the best players in the country.
OR, as DH said, some coaches fall in love with players....
He was good last year, why is he not this year? Common denominator here…
He was not that good. He is not a BIG10 Player.
It’s beyond obvious at this point that White and Butler are not on the same page whatsoever. TW has the front 6 doing one thing and the back 5 are doing another. I get Butler is far more experienced than White, but let Tony run the defense he wants.
Yeah. I don’t know exactly what it is but our secondary isn’t that good this year… and we had a new guy come in.
1000% certain we need to clean up the coaching staff. Butler ain’t it, IMO, at least from what I have seen. I mean, he left the Bills and no one hired him… that should say something
Gifford tackled air as the receiver who caught the long pass on the Wisconsin's first drive ran by him. That catch setup Wisconsin's first TD. Then on Wisconsin's last TD, Gifford was not even in the picture of the receiver catching the long ball.
He was in the picture but then inexplicably moved forward as the wr ran right by him.
He’s absolutely terrible.
Why would a Safety be running forward on that play? I am with the TV analyst who called him out. Wisconsin needed points and need a lot of them as quickly as possible. Gifford should have been 30 yards behind the LOS.
He seems to be one of those players that Holgorsen was talking about - a favorite of the coaches, but shouldn't be playing.
Last edited:
i sorta want a new DC. I like Tony but after watching several games yesterday, we aren’t nearly as good as we should be. IMO we should make some changes with defensive coaches, basically the scheme and the DBs
Didn't Princewill have multiple TFL's or short gain tackles yesterday? Saw him on multiple plays.
I think they are students. Which made it even more impressive how well they were put together.
Quinton Newsome was a really good player that was a tackling machine. That may have helped Gifford last year when he seemed a potential all Big 10 DB. This year Gifford just seems a step slower than last year when he was intercepting passes and playing better. He has to make the tackles but isn't and isn't fast enough to be effective in coverage.
Didn't we just see what a major impact coaching can have, with the most recent example the complete turnaround of our offense against Wisconsin? Dana put our guys in a position to succeed, and what do you know, they actually did have success... When our offense seemed completely hopeless earlier in the year.
For whatever reason, the coaching just does not seem to be on the same page on the defensive side of the ball this year. And I think some players are playing below their potential as a result. Yes, Gifford is one of those. I'm not going to pick on any one play though, especially when we don't know the play that was called. There are several types of coverages where a safety would come down to defend a crossing route instead of staying deep. I don't know if anyone here actually knows what his responsibility was supposed to be. I have seen a lot of busted coverages this year from various players, so the problem was never just Gifford in the first place, but the common denominator always seems to point back to coaching.
It’s not a 3-3-5 problem. It’s a Gifford problem. He would have the same issues if he were a LB in a 4-3.
The DBs have taken a step back and I’ve gotta put that on Butler not being quite as good as Cooper. Anyone ever hear why he “resigned”?
The DBs have taken a step back and I’ve gotta put that on Butler not being quite as good as Cooper. Anyone ever hear why he “resigned”?
