BG - Wisconsin game thread

[The Niz]

Brian, Ohio people love defense, and last year we loved seeing what we waited years for to happen. The new style of football irks me personally. It has been obnoxious to watch all season. I didn't even enjoy the Indiana game. I understand from the sort it was a great experience but why wouldn't it be? We beat a big ten team at home. On tv though, that s**t was garbage. I'm sitting in a bar in South Carolina and people are buying my drinks cause they're embarrassed for me. Give me defense every day.

I'm from ohio and defense is boring.

More importantly we'd be getting drilled in this game if we were a defensive oriented team as well. The score would be closer but we'd still be out of it completely.

Take the defensive style of last year all you want, but the. Fact remains that style was 1-4 against ut, and an 0fer against bcs competition. This is the future of football and when Babers gets the offense doing what it should nobody will give a rats ass about the defense because it will be fine, they'll still give up 30 points a night but it won't matter.

Why does that matter? The best we can ever do is win the MACC and then the bowl game.

[tvosra87]

This type of Offensive scheme only works if you can convert 3rd down, which against decent teams this year we have been unable to do. Image what you're asking our D to do today when our O goes 3 and out, runs 50 seconds off the clock and the D is back on the field against a team that is big and physical up front and can grind our D down. Being falcon fast and going 3 and out is really putting a strain on our D, although our defensive scheme of playing our cb's 10 yards off the LOS, missing tackles, and stupid penalties isn't helping much either.

[gspointer]

Givens should play more….

[hammb]

This type of Offensive scheme only works if you can convert 3rd down, which against decent teams this year we have been unable to do. Image what you're asking our D to do today when our O goes 3 and out, runs 50 seconds off the clock and the D is back on the field against a team that is big and physical up front and can grind our D down. Being falcon fast and going 3 and out is really putting a strain on our D, although our defensive scheme of playing our cb's 10 yards off the LOS, missing tackles, and stupid penalties isn't helping much either.

Agreed. I'm just as upset today as everybody else, but it's the offense I'm upset about. They didn't do their jobs. Babers needs to get his offense rolling then the defense will be irrelevant.

[hammb]

Agree that the offense didn't do enough to keep the game in reach....if you're going to okay a Baylor offense...you have to score.

That said...our defense has just fallen apart. I was glad to see Turner back because he looked like a quality player his 1st year here. Now...not so much. He takes the worst angles to the ball of any safety Ive seen and he's a very poor tackler. But then...hes hardly alone)

He has been awful this year. Even got beaten badly by vmi.

The defense threw in the towel after the Knapke int. that's very frustrating. It likely ended the game, but I would have liked to see more effort than that.

[gspointer]

This type of Offensive scheme only works if you can convert 3rd down, which against decent teams this year we have been unable to do. Image what you're asking our D to do today when our O goes 3 and out, runs 50 seconds off the clock and the D is back on the field against a team that is big and physical up front and can grind our D down. Being falcon fast and going 3 and out is really putting a strain on our D, although our defensive scheme of playing our cb's 10 yards off the LOS, missing tackles, and stupid penalties isn't helping much either.

Agreed. I'm just as upset today as everybody else, but it's the offense I'm upset about. They didn't do their jobs. Babers needs to get his offense rolling then the defense will be irrelevant.

DEFENSE IS NEVER IRRELEVANT! That is the stupidest thing I have read on this board.

[MarkL]

So the defense was abysmal today. Mix of three things - over matched physically, poor tackling, out of position. No point dwelling further there.

The offense disappointed me. Givens showed a great gear just now but that was against backups. Knapke is in his first road start so we must keep that in mind but this is the first time he looked poor. He looked apprehensive for the first half against IU but then he took shots down field starting in the third and led to the win. He looked apprehensive much of today, then made some mistakes and the whole offense avalanched. And as Hammb pointed out, the success of the defense depends upon the success of the offense, so effectively the whole team avalanched.

Remember, no Matt Johnson. An inexperienced QB in his third overall, first road start. Not an excuse because this is ugly, but it's clear to me there's nowhere for Knapke and this whole team to go but up.

[hammb]

This type of Offensive scheme only works if you can convert 3rd down, which against decent teams this year we have been unable to do. Image what you're asking our D to do today when our O goes 3 and out, runs 50 seconds off the clock and the D is back on the field against a team that is big and physical up front and can grind our D down. Being falcon fast and going 3 and out is really putting a strain on our D, although our defensive scheme of playing our cb's 10 yards off the LOS, missing tackles, and stupid penalties isn't helping much either.

Agreed. I'm just as upset today as everybody else, but it's the offense I'm upset about. They didn't do their jobs. Babers needs to get his offense rolling then the defense will be irrelevant.

DEFENSE IS NEVER IRRELEVANT! That is the stupidest thing I have read on this board.

Had the offense scored when they should have the defense made three stops, including two turnovers, very early on in this game. I don't mean irrelevant like it doesn't matter. I mean that it would be good enough as constructed to win games.

People are only pissed because the defense isn't built to hold teams to zinder 30 points. If we were scoring 40 like we should then it wouldn't be as big of a deal. The defense threw in the towel after the Knapke int, which is a problem, but if that's a td there something tells me this entire game would be different.

They need to learn how to deal with adversity in this faster paced style.

I'm upset with the offense, and upset that the defense phoned it in so quickly. I'm not upset that the defense gives up points in bunches when the offense doesn't score...that is inevitable. This team needs to score.

For now I'm writing it off as a learning experience with Knapke, and hopefully some hard talks with guys about the effort so early in the second quarter,

[gspointer]

I like the offensive strategy. It makes sense. The problem I have is that the schools that made the system popular don't even fake wanting to have a decent defense. I hope babers is different and his staff actually spends some time recruiting the defensive side, but I'm not holding my breath. The "we'll out score everybody" won't work every week. At some point, you'll need a defense that's more than 11 warm bodies.

The problem is that it is impossible to look like you've got a good defense with an uptempo offense. They will always play more plays, give up more yards, and give up more points. However you expect the defense to still make a few stops and force some turnovers.

Unfortunately today they are absolutely getting shredded with horrible angles and worse tackling. Combined with the offense that gave up its opportunity to put a scare into Wisconsin. When the offense sucks you're gonna get blown out. When the offense sucks and the defense can't tackle it is going to look real ugly while you get blown out.

And most disappointing is so far since midway through the second quarter I'm not even seeing the effort.

I do not buy that it is impossible to have a "good" defense with an up tempo offense!

[footballguy51]

Hasn't anybody ever heard that offense wins games, but defense wins championships?

[hammb]

I like the offensive strategy. It makes sense. The problem I have is that the schools that made the system popular don't even fake wanting to have a decent defense. I hope babers is different and his staff actually spends some time recruiting the defensive side, but I'm not holding my breath. The "we'll out score everybody" won't work every week. At some point, you'll need a defense that's more than 11 warm bodies.

The problem is that it is impossible to look like you've got a good defense with an uptempo offense. They will always play more plays, give up more yards, and give up more points. However you expect the defense to still make a few stops and force some turnovers.

Unfortunately today they are absolutely getting shredded with horrible angles and worse tackling. Combined with the offense that gave up its opportunity to put a scare into Wisconsin. When the offense sucks you're gonna get blown out. When the offense sucks and the defense can't tackle it is going to look real ugly while you get blown out.

And most disappointing is so far since midway through the second quarter I'm not even seeing the effort.

I do not buy that it is impossible to have a "good" defense with an up tempo offense!

It is impossible have a defense that looks good in the traditional sense. They will always give up a lot of points and yards. Even more when your offense isn't scoring as it should.

This defense will be measured in their ability to keep teams to 3 instead of 7, preventing big plays, and on generating turnovers. They failed miserably on 2 of those 3 things today. Throw in the offense looking so bad and it was a train wreck. Also it's only one game that we were expected to lose. Last years team probably loses this one 42-10 but I'm not sure that's any better than today was. We got out coached and outplayed by a team with better talent. Learn from it and move on.

[gspointer]

Oh please. Your comments about the defense show little. You are having a man crush with the babes offense. IT IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE TO HAVE A GOOD DEFENSE WITH AN UP TEMP OFFENSE. THAT IS JUST STUPID!

[BGGrad01]

I don't have faith in this defensive staff to put together a plan or our players to execute it against anybody other than kent. I guess we'll see what kind of defense comes together when Babers gets his players, but this is awful right now and I haven't seen anything to make me think it might get better in the MAC.

I'm a little surprised that the freshman safety from Cincy is not good enough to see the field. Was he not a 3 star guy? I would think that he would be good enough to toss in there to take poor angles and miss tackles.

[Flipper]

When our offense does well and scores points and our defense gets some stops and makes the other guys work bit..we have a chance to win. When we don't run an effective offense and make tackles on defense, we lose. That's true if you run a wishbone..a power I..a spread...whatever offense you try to run. Not tackling ball carriers and not completing passes while you are struggling to create space for your running backs is a formula for an ass kicking...regardless of the scheme.

And can we bury this myth about last year's defense...they didn't stop anyone good either.

[Dayons_Den]

This argument on our D philosophy would be like baseball fans complaining a sinker ball pitcher give up too many ground balls and not enough strikeouts.