How Will Lovett's Defense Look?

Rollo83 · Post by **Rollo83** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 9:46 pm

I think the difference between having a good season and a great season will be determined by our defense. I wondered how you see the defense taking shape this year under Coach Lovett?

Everything I have read from Lovett and his players indicates he is installing a more discipline, fundamental approach…stay in your lanes, don’t try to do too much, make sure you tackle properly, do you job and rely on your teammates to do the same. He also says that he will play a more straightforward scheme without all the gimmicks, movement and blitzes we have seen in prior years.

This is will help the players because they won’t be thinking as much. But against the better teams on our schedule, like Wisconsin, we have to blitz and shake things up. We don’t have the athletes or depth to play it straight up and pound with them all game.

I like some of the changes Lovett has made already. It is good to see some fresh faces in the lineup this year. Can they really do any worse than some of the guys we saw last year? Plus, he has moved some people to other positions to take advantage of their particular skills.

Lets hope we are pleasantly surprised on Saturday!

Bleeding Orange · Post by **Bleeding Orange** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 10:07 pm

Rollo83 wrote: Plus, he has moved some people to other positions to take advantage of their particular skills.

Lets hope we are pleasantly surprised on Saturday!

Bingo. As hesitant as we all are to give our defense much credit based on past performance, I think we are all going to be pleasantly suprised at just how much changing positions for a couple of guys is going to make a difference in how our defense performs.

And while we're at it, I'll say this (because I think it fits here): I think peolpe made way, WAY too many excuses for Beckman during his tenure here. Yes, alot of our defenders, especially in the secondary, are much smaller than players at a lot of "bigger" schools. But, that is not a bad thing at all - we have for the past few years recruited speed over size on defense. I have believed for the past couple of years that Beckman had no clue how to utilize that speed. His solution was to constantly run LB or CB blitzes, which really makes no sense against most teams, and which is exactly why we got smoke in the second half against a TU team that got rid of the ball quickly (it WASN'T Jelani's fault!).

I don't mean to say that Beckman was incompetant by saying this, because he wasn't. BUT, I think we are going to see a much different defense this year, even though Lovett wasn't here during spring practices. Much different - and much better.

BGDrew · Post by **BGDrew** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 10:51 pm

We still running a 4-3/3-4, or we switching it up?

Bleeding Orange · Post by **Bleeding Orange** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 11:20 pm

BGDrew wrote:We still running a 4-3/3-4, or we switching it up?

From what I've read from coach Lovett, we'll still be running a 4-3 defense, but the stunts will be different. We probably won't mindlessly blitz as much as we have in the past, which in my opinion is a very, very good thing.

Falconfreak90 · Post by **Falconfreak90** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 11:21 pm

BGDrew wrote:We still running a 4-3/3-4, or we switching it up?

I think we'll see various 4-3. 3-4 and 4-2-5 schemes. Tim Beckman was a good DC but as Bleeding said, we did the wrong things against the wrong teams. Coach Lovett brings in 26 years experience and our D is gonna crank it up a couple notches. You know they've heard how "bad" they were last yr...which wasn't bad at all. We had breakdowns against NIU and UT and that cost us the title. With the tweaking Lovett does and some new ideas....

I think the D will be simplified yet effective. Just do your job...along with the other 10 guys doing theirs. If they do that, they'll be a very good D.

GO FALCONS!!!

hammb · Post by **hammb** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 11:24 pm

Bleeding Orange wrote:
BGDrew wrote:We still running a 4-3/3-4, or we switching it up?
From what I've read from coach Lovett, we'll still be running a 4-3 defense, but the stunts will be different. We probably won't mindlessly blitz as much as we have in the past, which in my opinion is a very, very good thing.

Considering our blitzes very rarely resulted in actually getting any pressure I'll be thrilled to not see so many of them. It seemed like we blitzed just to blitz at times. We left our secondary to fend for themselves a LOT.

Falconfreak90 · Post by **Falconfreak90** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 11:26 pm

hammb wrote:
Bleeding Orange wrote:
BGDrew wrote:We still running a 4-3/3-4, or we switching it up?
From what I've read from coach Lovett, we'll still be running a 4-3 defense, but the stunts will be different. We probably won't mindlessly blitz as much as we have in the past, which in my opinion is a very, very good thing.
Considering our blitzes very rarely resulted in actually getting any pressure I'll be thrilled to not see so many of them. It seemed like we blitzed just to blitz at times. We left our secondary to fend for themselves a LOT.

Good point, hammb. And we saw the results of that too.

1987alum · Post by **1987alum** » Wed Aug 31, 2005 9:08 am

As we've discussed before, our meltdowns (NIU, UT) seemed to result from lack of discipline. Hammb, I think you explained it well in another thread, our linemen and linebackers didn't seem to stick to their assignments.

And I agree about the blitzing. I remember watching the UT game (until ESPN switched to a meaningless early season college basketball game -

) and thinking - why are we blitzing so much and putting our DBs into single coverage when we have a decent lead?

If our defense improves 10%, we'll be very difficult to stop.

Falconboy · Post by **Falconboy** » Wed Aug 31, 2005 10:01 am

Right on target. We've been a undisciplined defense for so long. We needed alot of changes to put player where they can do damage. Lovett seems very much like the DC that we've needed for a long time.

I'm weary though of Wisky's huge fullback they've got. Going to be very tough trying to stop the running game a massive fullback.

DevilGrad · Post by **DevilGrad** » Wed Aug 31, 2005 10:28 am

How will Lovett's defense look?

I'm going to guess somewhat undersized . . . and with really tall hair.

JoeFalcon · Post by **JoeFalcon** » Wed Aug 31, 2005 11:13 am

Wholesale changes needed to be made. The D performed superbly against the lower level MAC teams but wilted against NIU's rushing and UT's passing. UT, in particular, seemed to have Beckman's schemes figured out and made enough halftime adjustments to score 42 points in a half. The WR's and TE's were wide open, WIDE OPEN, and the tackling against McDougal left a lot to be desired. Gradkowski also squirmed out of pressure too often. Memphis was more of the same, with TE's running untouched down the middle of the field, but thankfully they got the job done in the second half.

Lovett has the best resume of any DC in the conference (with Tim Rose coming in second) and I'm confident he'll make the necessary adjustments to spice up the pass rush, tighten up the coverage and generally improve the performance of the unit.

Falcon30 · Post by **Falcon30** » Wed Aug 31, 2005 1:04 pm

DevilGrad wrote:How will Lovett's defense look?

I'm going to guess somewhat undersized . . . and with really tall hair.

Brilliant.

How Will Lovett's Defense Look?

How Will Lovett's Defense Look?

Re: How Will Lovett's Defense Look?

All points above.......