Vito: Defense Not Living Up To The Hype For U N T

[MeanGreen61]

Brett Vito: Defense not living up to hype for UNT

08:51 AM CDT on Monday, September 10, 2007

Ever since Todd Dodge arrived at North Texas in December, offense has been the center of discussion when it comes to the Mean Green.

The reasons are obvious.

While throwing for a school-record 601 yards on Saturday night against SMU, UNT quarterback Daniel Meager looked nothing like the player who struggled earlier in his career.

Try convincing anyone in the college football world that Casey Fitzgerald was a former walk-on after he racked up 327 receiving yards against the Mustangs.

After what transpired in a 45-31 loss at SMU on Saturday, it might be time to turn the attention away from the Mean Green’s monster night offensively, though, and ask the obvious: What the heck happened to UNT’s defense?

No one was expecting this season’s UNT defense to resemble the one from a few years ago, when the Mean Green ranked among the national leaders in points allowed thanks to players like Brandon Kennedy, Adrian Awasom and Jonas Buckles.

UNT is supposed to be solid or even better than that after returning nine starters, including three who were preseason All-Sun Belt Conference selections. That crew has now given up 108 points in the first two weeks of the season, subtracting the interceptions OU and SMU returned for touchdowns and a safety posted by the Sooners

A slow start was expected against national power Oklahoma, but SMU hammered the Mean Green defensively. This is the same SMU team that scored just nine points against Texas Tech on Monday.

SMU had only a few days to prepare for the Mean Green and still picked UNT apart. Mustangs quarterback Justin Willis couldn’t get anything going against the Mean Green last season, and came back to pass for 353 yards against UNT the second time around.

With the game on the line in the fourth quarter, Willis threw a 13-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Zack Sledge that proved to be the game-winner.

The former Ryan standout is a solid player who has improved since last season. Willis was the Conference USA Freshman of the Year in 2006. The Mean Green caught Willis early last year before he got on track and began to roll toward a solid debut season.

Is the difference between the Willis who threw for 112 yards against UNT a year ago and Willis on Saturday really that great, though?

There is little doubt the Mean Green’s problems are based in its secondary and adapting to a new system. Former UNT head coach Darrell Dickey played zone almost exclusively and was a big believer in the bend-but-don’t-break philosophy.

UNT is loading up to stop opponents’ running games in the 4-3 this season and is leaving its defensive backs in more single-coverage situations.

One has to wonder after two weeks if the Mean Green has the personnel to play a pressure scheme. UNT has just one sack in two games and its corners have not performed much better in single coverage.

“Neon” Don McGee isn’t roaming on the edge of UNT’s defense these days. There is no punishing hitter if a player ventures over the middle like in the days of Craig “The Hit Man” Jones or Buckles.

Safety Aaron Weathers is the best defensive back UNT has on the field, but might be a little taxed. The senior is the Mean Green’s leading tackler and is also being asked to contribute in single coverage on wide receivers.

The players in UNT’s defensive backfield are staying in coverage far too long at times because the Mean Green hasn’t mounted much of a pass rush.

Senior defensive end Jeremiah Chapman and linebacker Brandon Monroe combined to post the Mean Green’s first sack of the season against SMU. Before facing the Mustangs, UNT had gone three straight games without a sack dating to last season.

So far this season, UNT has one sack on 70 passing attempts by its opponents.

Dodge said before the season that his defense would have to be the strength of his first team at UNT, especially early in the year. So far UNT’s defense hasn’t lived up to its billing.

Those shortcomings didn’t make a whole lot of difference in the first week of the season against a powerhouse Oklahoma team that blew the Mean Green away in every facet of the game.

That wasn’t the case in Week 2. UNT had a chance to post its second straight win over the Mustangs on a record-setting night for its offense.

It didn’t work out because of another off night for a defense that still hasn’t hit its stride.

BRETT VITO can be reached at 940-566-6870. His e-mail address is bvito@dentonrc.com .

[Travis]

i liked this article

[EagleD]

I liked the article too. I expected Dodge's offense to learn and grow, but I believed the defense was already there. Is the issue a change from 3-4 to 4-3? I don't know if we have the beef up front to play that yet. It's a better style of play imo, but you need the players to run it. Man, I miss DeLoach.

GO MEAN GREEN !!!!!!!!!!

[Keith7]

maybe we should consider running alittle more zone, I don't know how many times SMU was able to convert on 3rd down w/ a simple out route that could be stopped by running cover 2 or cover 3.. We run too much man and it gives the other team a chance to pick us apart... Also I thought our defensive line and linebackers were supposed to be the strength of the team? They can't stop the run w/ a 5 gallon bucket of Imodium Ad, what happened to these guys?? It would prolly help our pass defense if our DBs didn't have to worry about providing run support every play

[greenminer]

maybe we should consider running alittle more zone, I don't know how many times SMU was able to convert on 3rd down w/ a simple out route that could be stopped by running cover 2 or cover 3.. We run too much man and it gives the other team a chance to pick us apart... Also I thought our defensive line and linebackers were supposed to be the strength of the team? They can't stop the run w/ a 5 gallon bucket of Imodium Ad, what happened to these guys?? It would prolly help our pass defense if our DBs didn't have to worry about providing run support every play

read

[MeanMag]

I miss DeLoach.

That might be the understatement of the year.

Vito attributed the difference to Dickey playing almost exclusively zone. IMO we haven't had much luck in man, and I really think our defense has the smarts to play zone. I mean, they did it last year and it wasn't broke, so why screw with it?

[The Fake Lonnie Finch]

Brett spared the run defense in the article. For instance, weren't we led to believe that a switch to the 4-3 would improve the run defense? He failed to mnetion that OU piled up 265 rushing yards, and SMU had 181.

It's not just the secondary, it's the whole defense. There's more to it than just Evyn Roman not being the second coming of Lester Hayes. The D-line and linebackers are being pushed around up front. It wasn't surprising at OU. It's a little more surprising with SMU.

[Green Lantern]

Brett spared the run defense in the article. For instance, weren't we led to believe that a switch to the 4-3 would improve the run defense? He failed to mnetion that OU piled up 265 rushing yards, and SMU had 181.

It's not just the secondary, it's the whole defense. There's more to it than just Evyn Roman not being the second coming of Lester Hayes. The D-line and linebackers are being pushed around up front. It wasn't surprising at OU. It's a little more surprising with SMU.

True. My friends and I were commenting all game about how poor our run defense was, and how poor the tackling has been for two weeks in a row. Right now, the defense is performing miserably from top to bottom. People want an easy scapegoat and Roman has become that for many...but they are ignoring much more glaring weaknesses defensively. We also get no pressure on the quarterback on a consistent basis. Jeremiah Chapman was there a few times, but we were losing the battle on the line defensively all night long. It was the difference in the game.

[Vizza4QB]

The defense has looked very bad. I went to both the OU game and the SMU game. Looks like we have no corners that can cover anyone. I think the only reason the run defense has looked bad is cause OU threw little backwards swings passes that went for a billion yards. I didnt at any time feel the run defense was bad at OU. Against SMU looked to me that they had a big back that ran over some of our smaller players. The pass defense is where we need to look.

A side note - Looks like Dodge took a page out of the OU play book. Did anyone notice UNT throwing the swing pass about 5 times against SMU. He must have liked the way it worked against his defense the week before.

Edited September 10, 2007 by Vizza4QB

[KBJ]

For the last two years all I have read is the "defense is on the field to long. This is the only reason that they were unable to hold anyone down, they could stop any team if they were not on the field all the time"

Now it is time to see them play Harry............