How would YOU fix this defense?

[Green with Envy]

You can’t fire Caponi. 
You can’t get new players. 

What would you do to salvage these last 3 games defensively?  

I didn’t play football and I don’t coach football.  But I did play baseball and coach softball.   You work all off-season with a system in place.  You can’t just flip back because it isn’t working.  I hate the 335, always have, but it’s what we got right now.  

Honest question for those that know a lot more than me.  What would you do for these last 3?

[southsideguy]

start by firing the current DC, I know you said we cannot do that.  change to a four man line again.  It makes Richards to much more effect.  He is one of the play makers on defense and in the three man line up he is double teamed.

Edited November 5, 2023 by southsideguy

[MrAlien]

The basic fundamentals of the game are lacking, particularly tackling.  I also noticed in today's game that there was a lot of ball watching.  You fix this with tackling drills, and it should have been done in the summer before the season.  I also noticed a lot of stopping and watching, as if they were at practice doing a soft run through on plays (on both sides of the ball), and it makes me wonder if practices are soft with minimal contact

How much is on the DC?  Opposing offenses are going right at us, knowing UNT players cant tackle, players are in position to make plays and fail to do so.  Even with the best DC in college football, if the players tackling fundamentals are poor, then the result will be the same. 

[Hunter Green]

Who is our strength and conditioning coach? It takes gang tackling to bring opponents RBs down, but it seems our guys go down pretty easily with arm and or hand tackles. Anyone else notice this? Maybe it's just that we're overmatched physically.

[NorthTexasWeLove]

8 minutes ago, MrAlien said:

The basic fundamentals of the game are lacking, particularly tackling.  I also noticed in today's game that there was a lot of ball watching.  You fix this with tackling drills, and it should have been done in the summer before the season.  I also noticed a lot of stopping and watching, as if they were at practice doing a soft run through on plays (on both sides of the ball), and it makes me wonder if practices are soft with minimal contact

How much is on the DC?  Opposing offenses are going right at us, knowing UNT players cant tackle, players are in position to make plays and fail to do so.  Even with the best DC in college football, if the players tackling fundamentals are poor, then the result will be the same. 

Players are not in position. That is not true. The edge of our defense is exposed all. the. time. We have zero leverage to the football. Our linebackers are guessing or having OL in their face instantly because of said front. The release in this front is too easy for opposing OL and that's a large reason why it's never successful vs the run. 

[Side.Show.Joe]

50 minutes ago, Green with Envy said:

You can’t fire Caponi. 
You can’t get new players. 

What would you do to salvage these last 3 games defensively?  

I didn’t play football and I don’t coach football.  But I did play baseball and coach softball.   You work all off-season with a system in place.  You can’t just flip back because it isn’t working.  I hate the 335, always have, but it’s what we got right now.  

Honest question for those that know a lot more than me.  What would you do for these last 3?

Of course you can change DC's during the season. Georgia Tech just did it in October. And, defenses modify their schemes during the season. We have run 4 man fronts this year. Against Navy, we ran a modified 50. It isn't like our players didn't play in other defenses growing up. So switching away from the 3-3-5 isn't impossible.

 

1st and most important... Caponi is reassigned to an analyst position with the intermural teams. I don't want that guy anywhere near my defense. 

2nd- Evaluate offensive linemen, TE's and RB's that are not on the depth chart. Maybe one or two can contribute in the new front 7. 

3rd- Teach our players how to tackle, instead of that chicken-winging crap they do on the field. These players need to learn how to wrap up. 

Edited November 5, 2023 by Side.Show.Joe

[DentonLurker]

You can’t fix this defense without new players. It doesn’t matter what scheme you run. We just don’t have the players we need to improve this defense. The cupboard is just that bare on the defensive side of the ball. Firing Caponi won’t do any good mid-season. It really just is what it is. We are just going to have to take our lumps and find players who can beef up the defense.

[cousin oliver]

1 minute ago, DentonLurker said:

You can’t fix this defense without new players. It doesn’t matter what scheme you run. We just don’t have the players we need to improve this defense. The cupboard is just that bare on the defensive side of the ball. Firing Caponi won’t do any good mid-season. It really just is what it is. We are just going to have to take our lumps and find players who can beef up the defense.

I tend to agree that Coach Eric is sort of stuck with the personnel he has at this point.

[Green with Envy]

24 minutes ago, Side.Show.Joe said:

Of course you can change DC's during the season. Georgia Tech just did it in October.

Sorry, I said that as a parameter to answers, not as a reality.  I certainly know they can be fired.   

[NT80]

53 minutes ago, DentonLurker said:

You can’t fix this defense without new players. It doesn’t matter what scheme you run. We just don’t have the players we need to improve this defense. The cupboard is just that bare on the defensive side of the ball. Firing Caponi won’t do any good mid-season. It really just is what it is. We are just going to have to take our lumps and find players who can beef up the defense.

Arkansas (2-6) fired their Offensive Coord/QB coach last week.   Won @ Florida (5-3) today, with the same players, ending a 6-game losing streak and winning in Gainesville for the first time in 6 tries.  Change can be good.   It can inspire and make unusual things happen.

[UNT 04]

Back up OL now DL. Old DL now DE. Old DE  now LB with current LB plus add hybrid LB/SS

[GMG_Dallas]

Blitz more. The strength of the 335 is supposed to be flexible DB usage. Yes, you want more DBs to crowd passing lanes but you also have an extra to launch at the QB when needed which is something we seem to barely be doing. Outside of pressure coming from up the middle from Rod Brown, Harris was very comfortable today. When he did have to escape the pressure, there was nobody there on the edges to finish the sack. I realize saying blitz more is really just saying we need a 4 man front to get more pressure but we have to do something and it would keep the protection/QB guessing a bit more.

[DeepGreen]

Hire Kinne from Texas State and let him do a makeover of the current FB staff.  What transpired on the field today must be fixed.  Now!

[golfingomez]

i would tell the offense to quit effing around... once again, an inefficient start to the game (where they went 2 yards backwards) and then the turnovers in the second half led to drives of 11 and 9 yards (still only allowing 10 points). 

Make no mistake, this defense sucks in the first half of games, but so does the offense... Here what UTSA did on offense in the second half

3 Plays, 7 yards - Punt

6 Plays, 8 yards - Punt

7 Plays, 11 Yards - FG (following UNT interception)

3 Plays, 1 Yard - Punt

3 Plays, -1 Yard - Punt

2 Plays, 9 Yards - Touchdown (following UNT interception)

11 Plays, 33 Yards - Game over

In other words, UNT gave up 68 yards in the second half on less than 2 yards per play and would have most likely pitched a shutout if not for the terrible field position they were put in.

[DentonLurker]

2 hours ago, NT80 said:

Arkansas (2-6) fired their Offensive Coord/QB coach last week.   Won @ Florida (5-3) today, with the same players, ending a 6-game losing streak and winning in Gainesville for the first time in 6 tries.  Change can be good.   It can inspire and make unusual things happen.

I’m not going to pretend I know enough about either of those programs to know if the interim OC at Arkansas had anything to do with that win today or what the talent level of the Arkansas players is.

[TIgreen01]

6 minutes ago, DentonLurker said:

I’m not going to pretend I know enough about either of those programs to know if the interim OC at Arkansas had anything to do with that win today or what the talent level of the Arkansas players is.

Arkansas got Rocket Sanders back at full strength today.  That was the difference.  With him on the field, their QB can legit run the RPO and be a dual threat.  Without him, defenses key on QB and they become one dimensional.

So it was players.  Mostly.

[Got5onIt]

This Read and react defense blows ass. LBers could be the worst unit in the FBS. The D line isn’t much better but they’re undersized for a 3 front. 
Switch to a 4-3 which better suits the roster and recruit juco LBs. DBs refuse to hit people, but they seem to always be the ones having to make a tackle. RBs always hit 2nd level with ease it seems…..

[Okiefan]

8 hours ago, Got5onIt said:

This Read and react defense blows ass. LBers could be the worst unit in the FBS. The D line isn’t much better but they’re undersized for a 3 front. 
Switch to a 4-3 which better suits the roster and recruit juco LBs. DBs refuse to hit people, but they seem to always be the ones having to make a tackle. RBs always hit 2nd level with ease it seems…..

Not sure most people understand that a 3-3-5 defense is NOT a read and react defense in most cases. It is a gap assignment defense where everyone in the front 6 owns a gap. Even when you see our DE lines up inside the tackle, someone has the outside edge set and running lane support. The NG is technically supposed to be a 2-gap defender and draw a double team or split it. The LB's own a gap and that is why you see them often shoot a specific inside gap or blitz off the edge on the snap regardless of the play direction. This is a "fill" and "spill" defense where the goal is to spill the play to allow pursuit to come downhill and rally to the ball. The safeties are very important as they must also be run support. Even in the 4-2-5, the Star safety actually has the run first mentality. A 4-man front is more read/react. If you over blitz with the 3-3-5 and someone misses an assignment, chuck plays happen. The big chuck runs we have given up in the first half recently have been mostly blitzes with blown "fill" assignments. Yesterday we were often caught with technically only 4 in the box (3 DL and the MLB )with the SLB and WLB backers flexed out in space. UTSA was spreading us out to create lanes and putting pressure on the backend for support. Their TE's were often flexed that created some additional gap issues. That is why a safety was the leading tackler.  Our performance is better when we DON'T blitz as often.

You can't successfully run a true 4-3 defense against spread teams as there will always be a mis-match in the passing game. The offenses have a lot of advantages. That is why a 4-2-5 is the most common defense. When a team goes empty, there are 5 receivers.

Is UTSA's defense terrible? They gave up more yards than UNT yesterday, The difference is we turned the ball over 3 times, with 2 in the red zone that resulted in 10 points for UTSA.  UNT only gave up 60 yards rushing in the second half. What was different? We were cleaner on gap assignments and blitzed less.

 

   

[NorthTexasWeLove]

15 minutes ago, Okiefan said:

Not sure most people understand that a 3-3-5 defense is NOT a read and react defense in most cases. It is a gap assignment defense where everyone in the front 6 owns a gap. Even when you see our DE lines up inside the tackle, someone has the outside edge set and running lane support. The NG is technically supposed to be a 2-gap defender and draw a double team or split it. The LB's own a gap and that is why you see them often shoot a specific inside gap or blitz off the edge on the snap regardless of the play direction. This is a "fill" and "spill" defense where the goal is to spill the play to allow pursuit to come downhill and rally to the ball. The safeties are very important as they must also be run support. Even in the 4-2-5, the Star safety actually has the run first mentality. A 4-man front is more read/react. If you over blitz with the 3-3-5 and someone misses an assignment, chuck plays happen. The big chuck runs we have given up in the first half recently have been mostly blitzes with blown "fill" assignments. Yesterday we were often caught with technically only 4 in the box (3 DL and the MLB )with the SLB and WLB backers flexed out in space. UTSA was spreading us out to create lanes and putting pressure on the backend for support. Their TE's were often flexed that created some additional gap issues. That is why a safety was the leading tackler.  Our performance is better when we DON'T blitz as often.

You can't successfully run a true 4-3 defense against spread teams as there will always be a mis-match in the passing game. The offenses have a lot of advantages. That is why a 4-2-5 is the most common defense. When a team goes empty, there are 5 receivers.

Is UTSA's defense terrible? They gave up more yards than UNT yesterday, The difference is we turned the ball over 3 times, with 2 in the red zone that resulted in 10 points for UTSA.  UNT only gave up 60 yards rushing in the second half. What was different? We were cleaner on gap assignments and blitzed less.

 

   

The edge is set in space by smaller players in comparison to a 4-3. You're putting poor tackling and undersized players in space to set the edge while LBs guess behind him or are on skates. 

[meaniegreenie]

On 11/4/2023 at 7:49 PM, MrAlien said:

The basic fundamentals of the game are lacking, particularly tackling.  I also noticed in today's game that there was a lot of ball watching.  You fix this with tackling drills, and it should have been done in the summer before the season.  I also noticed a lot of stopping and watching, as if they were at practice doing a soft run through on plays (on both sides of the ball), and it makes me wonder if practices are soft with minimal contact

How much is on the DC?  Opposing offenses are going right at us, knowing UNT players cant tackle, players are in position to make plays and fail to do so.  Even with the best DC in college football, if the players tackling fundamentals are poor, then the result will be the same. 

There was one really obvious play late in the game when they were running (maybe an out pass) to the left side and after a bit of a gain, he cut back to the middle.  Someone in the middle was simply standing there and made a quick reaction as the play began coming back toward him.  Sometimes things aren't what they seem, but it sure looked like he had given up on the play since it was further away and had to react when it started coming back his way instead of pursuing all along.

[keith]

On 11/4/2023 at 8:16 PM, Green with Envy said:

What would you do to salvage these last 3 games defensively?  

I could tell you, but I need $475,000 first.  Hahaha.

Seriously, while I don't think this season was supposed to be a "rebuild," it is now.  At this point, I think you have to find out what you may have to work with next year (assuming they don't hit the portal).  We're young in spots, but need to get even younger these next three games.  Live game experience will help next year and the staff needs to find out if we have any gamers or playmakers on the defensive side of the ball that have not have seen significant playing time so far this season.  

[aztecskin]

On 11/4/2023 at 10:15 PM, golfingomez said:

i would tell the offense to quit effing around... once again, an inefficient start to the game (where they went 2 yards backwards) and then the turnovers in the second half led to drives of 11 and 9 yards (still only allowing 10 points). 

Make no mistake, this defense sucks in the first half of games, but so does the offense... Here what UTSA did on offense in the second half

3 Plays, 7 yards - Punt

6 Plays, 8 yards - Punt

7 Plays, 11 Yards - FG (following UNT interception)

3 Plays, 1 Yard - Punt

3 Plays, -1 Yard - Punt

2 Plays, 9 Yards - Touchdown (following UNT interception)

11 Plays, 33 Yards - Game over

In other words, UNT gave up 68 yards in the second half on less than 2 yards per play and would have most likely pitched a shutout if not for the terrible field position they were put in.

Yep. we mentioned this on the podcast and in the recap. I am not as ant-defense as some other because of three games against good (ish, if you include utsa) competition and some nice defensive stops. There were some big ones in must-have situations as well. The defense still needs some game-changers, and some development in the weight room and in the film room. I think this system is interesting for what we are trying to get out of it.