05-06 Football Depth Chart

kdog27 · Post by **kdog27** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 1:04 pm

BelieveNBG wrote:
We held a bunch of nobodies under 20 points though.
Vs. Oklahoma, NIU, Marshall, UT, and Memphis we gave up 40, 34, 35, 49, and 35 respectively. We cannot keep the good teams from scoring 30+ and that is where all three losses took place.
Oklahoma...need I say more.

NIU...our offense was not stellar that day either (7 pts. in one half, 3 in 3rd quarter).

UT...our offense scored a bunch, yes, and then disappeared leaving the defense on a very short field for most of the 2nd half, including turnover and missed field goal at crucial point of game. Yes, the defense had miscues too. Don't forget, UT also scored alot on mostly everybody, including scoring more against NIU than our offense did.

Marshall...defense played well when it counted and got the stops when they needed to. Defense played a darn good 2nd half with 7 of those 15 pts. coming when game was already over.

Memphis has a high scoring offense that scored in bunches against many teams, but they only got 7 in 2nd half when game was over.

I'm not trying to be against what you say but we didn't hold one good offense under 34 points. Holding Temple and OU to 16 points is no accomplishment.

hammb · Post by **hammb** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 1:44 pm

BelieveNBG wrote: Overall, we still had a pretty good defense. They held several teams to less than 20 points which is no small feat.

If you actually believe this you either A) are incredibly ignorant about what makes a good defense, or more likely, B) Have Orange & Brown colored glasses on when watching Falcon football.

Last year's defense stunk. They stopped some crap teams from scoring, but we gave up a ton of points against quality teams. Worse than that when the offense wasn't scoring at will our defense was nowhere to be found when they needed a stop. In both the Marshall & UT games a major reason why we got the leads we had was fumbles on kickoffs, not the stellar play of our defense. I just don't see how people who watched that team could say our defense was "pretty good". I'd start with "pretty bad" and go from there.

1987alum · Post by **1987alum** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 2:04 pm

hammb:

I knew I could count on you to be the voice of reason here.

Gang, I love the Falcons. I had a ball last year. Our offense was everything I could have dreamed of. But saying our defense is pretty good is like saying Lou Brock was a good outfielder.

Whatever spin you want to put on it, here are a few facts to consider.

* Marshall scored 35 points against BG; the only time they scored more was against Buffalo.
* Toledo scored 49 points against BG; the only time they scored more was against Western Michigan and Ball State.
* Only looking at MAC games (for this and all stats to follow), BG was 9th in pass defense, 6th in run defense and eighth in overall defense. In a conference that featured a majority of the nation's Bottom 10 teams, those are not rankings to be proud of.
* BG led the conference in turnover margin, which shouldn't surprise anyone who's looked at Omar's stats. But the Falcons were only fourth in takeaways.
* Despite playing most of the season with a lead that forced the opponent to throw a lot, BG was seventh in the conference in sacks.
* Six teams did a better job at stopping opponents from converting on third down.
* Individually, BG had no one in the top 25 in tackles, and only three in the top 50.
* Individually, BG had only one player in the top 10 in sacks; he would have been a senior in '05, but ...
* Individually, BG had no players in the top 10 in tackles for loss, or fumbles forced, or fumbles recovered
* On the upside, Keon led the conference in interceptions and Jordan in passes defended

There is a lot more detail out there, not much of it positive.

factman · Post by **factman** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 2:28 pm

The thing that you are not considering is "how many posessions" the opposing team gets when they play against our offense. That is exactly why defensive coordinators, often favor the "grind it out" posession type of offense for their own team, to help the "D".
If you take a look at overall stats, the large majority of teams that have high powered offenses, do not have great defensive stats.
Can we improve our defense? Hell yes, but it is not as poor as some stats show. Do our DB's get beat sometimes.......yep.......and we could solve that by playing a soft zone and let them go down the field 6-10 yards at a time, with no big plays, but I don't like that either.
Wins and losses are how I judge a football team, and we seem to be headed in the right direction, in that category.

kdog27 · Post by **kdog27** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 2:34 pm

[quote="factman"]The thing that you are not considering is "how many posessions" the opposing team gets when they play against our offense. [quote]

Ok but is it really any different from an offense that stinks, goes three and out and punts the ball right back, or a mediocre offense who scores sometimes and punts others? I doubt the total number of possesions are much different.

Also if we are scoring so much we should be kicking off meaning the opposing team has to go almost the entire length of the field to score.

BelieveNBG · Post by **BelieveNBG** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 2:39 pm

Hammb,
I could take your stance and just call you totally ignorant or I could take the high road...hmmm.

High Road:
Anytime you have an explosive offense, the defense is going to be on the field for alot of series, quickly, without much rest in between drives. Even if you stop 2/3 or 3/4 of those drives, you will still give up 20 points.

It takes a good defense to be able to adjust at the half and stop Marshall from scoring in the 2nd half. Football is a game of adjustments. Marshall, against starters, had the ball 13 times and scored 4 (I didn't count last 3 minutes of the game.) 3 of those 4 were in the first half. That same "bad" defense had 3 interceptions that game. Let me remind you that Marshall is the same team that put 21 pts. on Ohio State.

For NIU, we had NO preparation for Wolf. That guy was a 3rd string running back and no one had a clue about his abilities or his name and that became apparent in the 2nd half. Even teams that had preparation for Wolf (good teams at that) could not stop his running game with a week of preparation.

Toledo was the only defensive melt down we had all year and don't forget...they did that to everybody in the MAC. In defense of our defense, there were also a few drives that started for UT on our side of the field. The odds of scoring against any defense on a short field is pretty darn good. Also, momentum shifts can be a killer on the road and the offense and defense did nothing to shift the momentum back in our favor. That game was a classic for a reason and anytime I have ever seen momentum shift in that manner, the team coming back has everything go the right way, I don't care how good the opponent is. Players get very uncharacteristic in those situations...ask the offense.

Memphis was shut down in the 2nd half. Yes, you can say it was because the RB was hurt, but keep in mind, there were 11 experianced Div. 1 players on that field for Memphis in the second half also.

BelieveNBG · Post by **BelieveNBG** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 2:45 pm

factman wrote:The thing that you are not considering is "how many posessions" the opposing team gets when they play against our offense. That is exactly why defensive coordinators, often favor the "grind it out" posession type of offense for their own team, to help the "D".
If you take a look at overall stats, the large majority of teams that have high powered offenses, do not have great defensive stats.
Can we improve our defense? Hell yes, but it is not as poor as some stats show. Do our DB's get beat sometimes.......yep.......and we could solve that by playing a soft zone and let them go down the field 6-10 yards at a time, with no big plays, but I don't like that either.
Wins and losses are how I judge a football team, and we seem to be headed in the right direction, in that category.

Actually, it was the soft zone that hurt us. In a zone, it is very important that the safeties get in position over top because the corners are not in man, pressing the reciever. This is when the receivers were able to run through the zone with the corners underneath and no safety picking up over top, which led to the big touchdown.

kdog27 · Post by **kdog27** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 2:46 pm

BelieveNBG wrote:
Memphis was shut down in the 2nd half. Yes, you can say it was because the RB was hurt, but keep in mind, there were 11 experianced Div. 1 players on that field for Memphis in the second half also.

Their RB was their star player. Take away our star player, Jacobs and how much do we score with the backup/s?

1987alum · Post by **1987alum** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 2:59 pm

Interesting ... So was BG's defense on the field a lot more because the offense scored so quickly or because they kept giving up first downs?

Anyway, here are few more stats to consider ...

Combination of running attempts and passing attempts faced by MAC defenses:

EMU: 655
BG: 631
CMU: 620
NIU: 605
Toledo: 590
Akron: 577
WMU: 575
Buff: 573

----

Combination of running attempts and passing attempts by MAC offenses:

EMU: 639
Toledo: 630
BG: 598
CMU: 597
KSU: 595
BSU: 594
Marsh: 588

In defense of our defense (to steal a phrase), the BG defense held opposing QBs to the lowest efficiency rating in the MAC - 104.7; Northern and Ball State were next at 119.5 and 119.7, respectively. The Falcons gave up the fewest TD passes, had the second-most interceptions and allowed the lowest completion percentage in the MAC.

Flip the coin again, though, and consider that only two teams - Western Michigan and Eastern Michigan - surrendered more first downs. Only four MAC teams gave up more rushing touchdowns, Directional Michigan and Ball State.

BelieveNBG · Post by **BelieveNBG** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 3:05 pm

Their RB was their star player. Take away our star player, Jacobs and how much do we score with the backup/s?

Losing the QB vs. RB is not a true comparison. How much do we score without Sharon? How much do we score without Pope and Lane? Take away any teams starting QB and star or no star...it can spell trouble. Depends on the backup. Take away Omar with Anthony Turner steppin in...hmmm...that would be interesting.

Dayons_Den · Post by **Dayons_Den** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 3:09 pm

Although the stats, and numbers, and evidence clearly show our defense was not that good.... lets look at it from a fun, humanist view.....

Ask yourself this, the other team has the ball, its 3rd and 3 how comfortable are you we get the stop? ? ?

Lets just say I feel the only reason our D looks impressive is because our Offense sets them up by getting a big lead. By getting a quick lead it makes the other team's offense pretty darn predictable. . .

Just my two cents- our D last year made me nervous, most of the time.

BelieveNBG · Post by **BelieveNBG** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 3:12 pm

So...how is our offense getting the ball back to get a big lead? If we are not stopping the other offense, wouldn't the score be tied???

Hmmm...

kdog27 · Post by **kdog27** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 3:45 pm

BelieveNBG wrote:
Their RB was their star player. Take away our star player, Jacobs and how much do we score with the backup/s?
Losing the QB vs. RB is not a true comparison. How much do we score without Sharon? How much do we score without Pope and Lane? Take away any teams starting QB and star or no star...it can spell trouble. Depends on the backup. Take away Omar with Anthony Turner steppin in...hmmm...that would be interesting.

Hey you knew I would respond BelieveN

Williams was the focal point of their offense. Neither Pope or Sharon are focal points to our offense. They step up but it seems like one will have a big game, than the other. They are key players no doubt, but the offense does not revolve around them.

Warthog · Post by **Warthog** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 3:51 pm

BelieveNBG wrote:So...how is our offense getting the ball back to get a big lead? If we are not stopping the other offense, wouldn't the score be tied???

Hmmm...

Hmmm, our defense only did that against the dreges of the MAC and Temple. Against the quality offenses (Oklahoma, NIU, Toledo, Memphis with Williams), our defense NEVER got the stop we needed in the second half to give us a chance to win.

I also think there is a chicken and the egg argument going here. Were the defensive stats so bad because our offense was so good and the defense was able to relax more and play a little loose on coverages? If our offense wasn't as potent as it was, do you think the defense would have been able to win games for us? Me thinks not.

UK Peregrine · Post by **UK Peregrine** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 3:57 pm

BelieveNBG wrote:So...how is our offense getting the ball back to get a big lead? If we are not stopping the other offense, wouldn't the score be tied???

Hmmm...

Well, it's not because we made teams punt, the defense was good at getting turnovers this past season (3rd in the nation at 1.36 per game). If that's the mark of a good defense, then so be it. I tend to think good defenses can force teams into punting instead of relying on turnovers.