You didn't think I knew that? I was piling on. I've been saying it for years... even pre-Hud. We are notoriously confident going into game 1 every season... because our defense is ill-prepared... and our offense thinks it is prepared, because they play opposite an ill-prepared defense.
No doubt about it. Coaching. It made me very disappointed in Munoz and Dez... to be quite honest. This week better involve WRs learning how to ram a defender's chest into his backbone. I've never seen such lost and wimpy attempts at blocking. I know you'd rather catch the ball... but for God's sake... help your DAMN team! Do what you're assigned to do! Who makes football players these days? Does every one of them have to be begged to be a bull?
The single worst aspect from our offense was the atrocious WR blocking. And it was obvious it was paramount to our plays. You don't have to knock the guys jock strap off. Our WRs 75% of the time failed to make contact when in blocking assignments. We didn't even get a penalty out of any of them for holding or anything. They decided they didn't like the duty... and blew it off. What coaching staff puts up with that?
---Correct---the differentiation was quite evident and I think that possibly the quickness of the ball to the flat (not sure)---also when McG is anywhere on the field the defense is aware of it and prepositions accordingly!!! been out of it too long but splitting our TEs out (excluding Ladarius Green) does not put a real threat to the opponents secondary with their athleticism!!
Understood. My post wasn't an obvious add on to yours. I was thinking more in terms of how that's been going on a very long time (practice creating illusions of sufficiency).
I'm not convinced we lack athletic talent on defense. It's just horribly coached. There is almost no chance of not fielding athletes on defense in south Louisiana. When you see defenses unable to do jack squat... it is a coaching issue. It takes all 11 players to make the system function. We have way too many fans that watch one player... or a group (ie secondary) and get massively confused on how defenses work. It is a net that with holes in any part of it... can and will be exploited. Our defense has coaching holes. The talent is inexperienced and hasn't worked as a unit for long... but the coaching is not there. And it is obvious.
I hope Lucas can at least see the basic breakdowns and get enough defensive cohesion working to give McNeese's offense some difficulty. If there offense has some schemeology to it... Lucas has his work cut out. Boise was not operating anything fancy. They were all simply following their assignments to the letter... seeing what we weren't doing well... and exploiting it.
Athletically, I think the defense is fine with the exception of the DL. In my synopsis of the game i posted last night, I mentioned that the DL just looks sluggish and slow to come off the snap with no explosiveness whatsoever. We have talent, even in the secondary which was torched. I also mentioned S. Thomas in that review. He got burned several times and by my estimation, he cost us 2 TD's directly. He also made some nice plays and tackles. Savion Brown was probably our best CB on Saturday but he almost got burned on a deep pass that was overthrown. Why? because he got all twisted up and basically had to rotate his hips 360 degrees to get back in place and by that time the receiver had developed some space. Its not athleticism, its just overall fundamentals.
Even with the long TD passes, I wasn't that disappointed with our secondary. I could see that they had speed and athleticism. Boise was the best QB/WR group we'll see this year. But you are right, our DL and the lack of pressure off the line once again killed us. Our secondary definitely lost assignments... but in the past it was both the athletes and the fundamentals. I think it's more on just fundamentals right now.
It gets old blaming the offense... but I was much more aggravated with our play calling, false starts and lack of execution on offense. AJ played well for his first UL start.
Savion Brown was our best CB? He was abused more than anyone. Troy McCullom was the ONLY person making plays in the secondary.
Thomas has good coverage several times, he has just not been coached to find the football in the air. It happened at least 3 times.
Atheltic ability is irrelevant when your coaches have you in no man's land.
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