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I’ll admit that I am by no means a football guru, but I know some of you follow defensive schemes pretty closely. For you that do, can you please answer the following questions for me:

1. On Central’s last touchdown, they lined up three wide receivers on the wide side of the field with the inside receiver being their top receiver in Senior Brian Anderson with 3,300 career yards and 23 TD’s. They only lined up one wide receiver on the short side of the field. Yet before the play, on the replay you could see some conversation taking place between our linebackers and our defensive backs. Yet we left two DB’s on the short side to cover the one receiver (and maybe a tight end) and two on the wide side leaving Anderson to be covered by our linebackers. Obviously the best QB in the league and his favorite WR target saw this and Anderson just runs right to the back of the end zone and our linebackers just turn around and never even look at the QB or the ball and the ball almost hits them in the legs before Anderson catches it. So my questions are: Was this a defensive scheme issue? Was this a missed assignment/adjustment by the DB’s or defensive captain? Or was it just a brilliant play by Central?

2. Are we playing a cover 2 defense or just a straight zone defense and why aren’t we playing man-to-man defense? It just seems like our defenders are never actually covering receivers.

3. Why does it appear that our defenders are NEVER looking at the quarterback or for the ball? It looked like there could have been about three interceptions had our defenders just had their head turned around.

4. And I’m not going to single any defenders out, but I saw two interception chances in the fourth quarter where our defenders could have caught the ball. One time the defender, to me, could have made a dive attempt at the ball and the other it hit the defender in the hands but he appeared to me to short arm the ball. Is this just due to a lack of talent or it is coaching?

Thanks.

Redwingtom wrote:One time the defender, to me, could have made a dive attempt at the ball and the other it hit the defender in the hands but he appeared to me to short arm the ball. Is this just due to a lack of talent or it is coaching?

Thanks.

If it is the play I am thinking of it looked like the player shied away from a potential hit by trying to bend down and catch it near his ankles. It looked like if he would have extended himself he would have caught it easily. It looked like he didn't want to get hit to me, but I will say it was also possible he thought one of his own players was going to catch it and he backed off.

If that's the tipped ball, the guy that could have caught it definitely shied away from getting hit due to diving for the ball. I couldn't believe that he didn't dive for it. It made me sick.

VDub26Falcon wrote:If that's the tipped ball, the guy that could have caught it definitely shied away from getting hit due to diving for the ball. I couldn't believe that he didn't dive for it. It made me sick.

Yes, it was the tipped ball and I share your illness. I just don't seem to see any fire or passion in this defense. There seems to be no aggressiveness. I just don't know if this is how they are being coached or just a lack of the skill set necessary, or what, but it is very frustrating.

Redwingtom wrote:I’ll admit that I am by no means a football guru, but I know some of you follow defensive schemes pretty closely. For you that do, can you please answer the following questions for me:

1. On Central’s last touchdown, they lined up three wide receivers on the wide side of the field with the inside receiver being their top receiver in Senior Brian Anderson with 3,300 career yards and 23 TD’s. They only lined up one wide receiver on the short side of the field. Yet before the play, on the replay you could see some conversation taking place between our linebackers and our defensive backs. Yet we left two DB’s on the short side to cover the one receiver (and maybe a tight end) and two on the wide side leaving Anderson to be covered by our linebackers. Obviously the best QB in the league and his favorite WR target saw this and Anderson just runs right to the back of the end zone and our linebackers just turn around and never even look at the QB or the ball and the ball almost hits them in the legs before Anderson catches it. So my questions are: Was this a defensive scheme issue? Was this a missed assignment/adjustment by the DB’s or defensive captain? Or was it just a brilliant play by Central?

2. Are we playing a cover 2 defense or just a straight zone defense and why aren’t we playing man-to-man defense? It just seems like our defenders are never actually covering receivers.

3. Why does it appear that our defenders are NEVER looking at the quarterback or for the ball? It looked like there could have been about three interceptions had our defenders just had their head turned around.

4. And I’m not going to single any defenders out, but I saw two interception chances in the fourth quarter where our defenders could have caught the ball. One time the defender, to me, could have made a dive attempt at the ball and the other it hit the defender in the hands but he appeared to me to short arm the ball. Is this just due to a lack of talent or it is coaching?

Thanks.

As far as (1) is concerned, I can't really blame that on the coaches. The players need to recognize the formation and line up properly. However, if they were playing a zone defense on that play, then that would be why they didn't have 3 DBs on 3 WRs. Considering that, as you said, the linebacker was running with the receiver trying desperately to keep up, we played man defense and just didn't match-up properly. I blame the defensive players for that mistake.

(2) Obviously we play some man, or else I'm wrong on (1). However, I agree that on zone coverage, we have no idea how to actually attempt to cover people. Zone means you are responsible for a zone and the receivers that pass through it, not stand in the middle of the zone and wait for the QB to throw the ball.

(3) I think our defenders lack the speed to keep up with the receivers, and they lack the knowledge to look for the ball when the receiver looks for the ball. You need to chase the receiver, and then when he locks onto the ball with his eyes, you need to turn for the ball. Otherwise, the refs could call pass interference almost every time. It's called face-guarding, and it's illegal.

(4) I remember both instances, and it was frustrating as all hell. Actually, I remember an instance where the ball hit the defender in the foot because it was underthrown that badly. If you turn around to look for the ball, that's an easy interception. I'm going to go with a lack of coaching on that, along with a lack of speed. They are just trying to keep up, and if they turn around for the ball they'll probably slow down a bit and get completely burned.

Redwingtom wrote:1. On Central’s last touchdown, they lined up three wide receivers on the wide side of the field with the inside receiver being their top receiver in Senior Brian Anderson with 3,300 career yards and 23 TD’s. They only lined up one wide receiver on the short side of the field. Yet before the play, on the replay you could see some conversation taking place between our linebackers and our defensive backs. Yet we left two DB’s on the short side to cover the one receiver (and maybe a tight end) and two on the wide side leaving Anderson to be covered by our linebackers. Obviously the best QB in the league and his favorite WR target saw this and Anderson just runs right to the back of the end zone and our linebackers just turn around and never even look at the QB or the ball and the ball almost hits them in the legs before Anderson catches it. So my questions are: Was this a defensive scheme issue? Was this a missed assignment/adjustment by the DB’s or defensive captain? Or was it just a brilliant play by Central?

Ah, the intricacies of game planning. It is not uncommon for LBs to cover slot/inside WRs. In this situation, down close to the goal line, we chose to go with a defense that favored stopping a running play. But with such a small area to cover, you can get away with using LBs to cover these WRs since they aren't going to be running 40 yards down the field. But you like to keep LBs on the field, especially against a running QB so they can come back up and make tackles. Each team reviews game films. Maybe we thought they had a tendency to run out of this formation at this spot on the field, so we went with this def. Or maybe CMU knew that we would play this coverage and purposely called a play with one of their top WR being covered by a LB. LOTS of things to consider. But the simple answer is that the LB has to do a better job in coverage on this particular play.

Redwingtom wrote:2. Are we playing a cover 2 defense or just a straight zone defense and why aren’t we playing man-to-man defense? It just seems like our defenders are never actually covering receivers.

Even in a zone defense, the defender is supposed to basically play man to man on the first guy to enter his zone. If that guy move out of his zone, they are supposed to 'pass him off' to the defender in that next zone. So like when a WR goes 8 yards up the field and then cuts in and runs parallel to the line of scrimmage, the CB would pick him up first, but then let him go to the LB in the next zone. This is why offenses 'flood the zone' to gain an advantage against this defense. Or they run a second guy into a zone after the first guy clears it. That is, first WR pulls the defender into the middle let's say and then you follow that by a different WR doing an out route and he is wide open near the sideline since the DB followed the first WR.

Redwingtom wrote:3. Why does it appear that our defenders are NEVER looking at the quarterback or for the ball? It looked like there could have been about three interceptions had our defenders just had their head turned around.

I would say defenders that look in the backfield will get burnt deep all the time. A good offensive coach can recognize when a DB spends too much time looking in the backfield. A simple double move by the WR against this guy results in a long TD pass. DBs need to follow their man, that is their responsibility, not the QB. But they do need to recognize when the man looks like he is going after the ball. At that point, they should turn their head and locate the ball. But not until then.

If you have questions like that, come to the radio show on Mondays. Coach Clawson is very open and usually sticks around for a half hour or so and talks to people and is very open when answering a question if it is legit. He is really a breath of fresh air.

factman wrote:If you have questions like that, come to the radio show on Mondays. Coach Clawson is very open and usually sticks around for a half hour or so and talks to people and is very open when answering a question if it is legit. He is really a breath of fresh air.

I would love to, but it's just not possible for me when I work West of Ann Arbor.

However, if anyone could ask him if he is planning on any defensive scheme adjustments I would love to know the answer.

And I did hear in his post game conference that he was saying that you can't blame all the problems on the lack of red zone productivity so I think he sees the issues as well...at least he better!