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It is exciting to concentrate on offense. However, to ignore defense completely is foolish. What Clawson has accomplished has been destroyed in a few quick months. Now we must endure what the basketball team endured for the next few years. This is only the beginning.

Funny how you asshats only show up when there's a loss

falcon83 wrote:However, to ignore defense completely is foolish.

It looks to me like this staff has spent a lot of time on the defense, which seems to be getting better every week now.

Love the improvements we've seen week to week on defense. This Babers style and his commitment to improving week to week is ok I guess.

Dayons_Den wrote:Love the improvements we've seen week to week on defense. This Babers style and his commitment to improving week to week is ok I guess.

I agree, the defense has seemed to have gotten better each of the last few weeks. However, the problem though now seems to be the offense going in the opposite direction. With the exception of our first two drives of both the OU and WMU games where we came out on fire, we have been really sluggish otherwise. Remember, the second drive vs OU was a very short field. We've seen a lot of overthrown/underthrown/batted balls, no running lanes and suspect play calling much of the last two weeks. This is what I expected to see once we lost Johnson, but not at this point after looking much more on the same page between now and then.

If anything the major concern now is the offense. This is a very difficult team to figure out. They may put up 40 on Akron or they may score in the teens again.

The challenge for the coaches now becomes finding a way to get the offense to be successful again. Western laid out the blueprint on how to stop BG and other teams are going to try to emulate that. Blitz, load the box and jam the receivers at the line.

jpfalcon09 wrote:The challenge for the coaches now becomes finding a way to get the offense to be successful again. Western laid out the blueprint on how to stop BG and other teams are going to try to emulate that. Blitz, load the box and jam the receivers at the line.

Perfect timing for a long break.

What's funny about this thread is you really can't fault they "system" here. They loaded the box to stuff the run and blitzed like hell on passing downs. Our OL couldn't create openings and our QB locked up under the blitz... Other than running out three TE's...I think we still have three..and trying to outslug them playing like you're Woody Hayes, I don't know how you overcome those issues. You don't block well and handle a blitz and you're going to fail under pretty much any offensive system. If Knapke can make the right read and hit the hot route on the blitz, if the OL can pull and trap correctly to create openings for the backs , well score some points and force the defense to make some adjustments. If not...we're going to struggle from here on out. This is a critical 4 week stretch for Knapke...do well and you set yourself up as a viable candidate to start even if Johnson comes back next year. continue to backslide and you'll probably be watching Nicholas, Johnson and Callaway sort the job out next year.

Flipper wrote:This is a critical 4 week stretch for Knapke...do well and you set yourself up as a viable candidate to start even if Johnson comes back next year. continue to backslide and you'll probably be watching Nicholas, Johnson and Callaway sort the job out next year.

I agree it's a big stretch for Knapke. Prior to WMU, I felt did/has done a pretty good job filling in. But over the last few weeks, I feel like he's struggled more as the season has gone along, especially the last two games. To me he looked better early on vs VMI, Indiana, UMass and most of Buffalo. The second half vs Ohio with a lead the entire game he looked off, and against WMU he did too almost the entire game. I don't mean this as a dig at all (it's just an observation) but to me, I feel like the last few games I'm watching Matt Schilz all over again. To me, that is where Matt Johnson differs from Knapke and Schilz. Johnson just has the "it" factor. With Schilz and Knapke, I felt/feel like I'm hoping something good happens. With Johnson I felt like something good WAS going to happen.