The D is not the problem...

[MoobyCow]

Um, the problem is both our defense and our offense are bad. We won at a decent clip with worse offenses bad in the past. Other teams win with no defense. You can't win with a pedestrian offense and a poor defense. You need to do something well so you can game plan around it. We do some things OKish and a lot of things poorly.

 

[willisneverrana43]

Let's be clear. I'm not sure that the offense is all that good -- at least against good competition. The offense has talent at WR (including one great player) and talent at RB, but then a lot of question marks or subpar players. But the defense is worse, and its play over the last 2+ years has been consistently bad, creating maybe the worst 2-3 year stretch in RU defensive history.

 

[WhiteBus]

The offense scored 53 against Indy. The defense gave up 52. Kinda blows the OP'S theory to hell.

 

[JPhoboken]

I agree that a better offense would help the D, but the stats don't lie and we are just giving up way to many yards and points.

Also, for me, a good defense is more than stats. A good defense makes stops in situtations where the game is on the line.

In the two winnable games, albeit against good teams, the defense had a chance to make stops on the other teams last drive(WSU and Mich St.) and both teams drove it down the length of the field to win the game.

They did get stops and made plays against Indiana in the 2nd half that contributed to the the big comeback, but Ind is not a good team, and who gave up the points to put the offense in the position to need a big comeback in the first place?

The D needs a lot of work and a major talent upgrade.

 

[rutgersal]

The D is bad and has had record-settingly bad years for going on three years running. It's the most obvious thing in the history of obviousness.

yes, the defense is bad, but there are mitigating circumstances to explain the badness, namely the loss of our 3 secondary starters. I think the defense is making the best of the bad hand.

most of the reason for the offensive badness is the performance of the quarterback, though other areas have room for improvement too. when the offensive continually goes 3 and out, and we have to continually trot out our tired defense to face top flight offense, the results are predictable, and the defense broke in the third quarter, though they continued to play as well as they could.

 

[c_husk]

THE " D" Its not great, heck its not good.... But it can be serviceable and considering all that has happened with our secondary, i'd say its actually performing ok. The problem with a marginal Defense is that if you do not have an effective offense, the D unit ends up seeing the field a lot more than it should, which in turn wears them down and exposes them quicker than normal. THAT is our problem.

I posted these in another thread but thought it should have its own discussion separate from the QB debacle.

Here is the PSU game
1st half
3-punt
9-punt
3-punt
8- punt
5-punt
4-INT
score 21-0

second:
3-punt
7-int
3-punt
16-fg
2-fum
6-down
28-3

The whole freaking team is the issue, Offense Stinks, Defense Stinks, Special Teams Stinks

 

[theRU]

Hey, found a pic of the OP:

really? I'd expect more from a moderator. Who hell do you think you are?

 

[theRU]

The whole freaking team is the issue, Offense Stinks, Defense Stinks, Special Teams Stinks

can't disagree

 

[theRU]

I never said the D is good guys.. i'm just pointing out that we knew we'd have a weak secondary. Its hard to mask that for an entire game when you constantly have 3 and outs.

The D does okay against teams that do not throw the ball very well. They even do OK through the first half.

Gave up 21 to OSU and PSU at the half, If the offenses had a pulse in those games we would be in it.

Obviously they were overmatched against the Air Raid against WSU, but we also committed 3 TO in that game. Again, not helping your weak unit very much are we?

Lets now look at the Offense which doesn't have any excuses for poor performance. Why is the O so bad???? How does this go un-noticed. Whats the excuse for putting up 3 against PSU? and essentially 0 against OSU?

 

[theRU]

The D is bad and has had record-settingly bad years for going on three years running. It's the most obvious thing in the history of obviousness.

I love how the D gets all the blame around here, You lost Hamilton, and the secondary. What do you all expect? I think the D is doing what we probably would expect of them at this point.

 

[Veiox]

The offense scored 53 against Indy. The defense gave up 52. Kinda blows the OP'S theory to hell.

Offense scored 49 against Indy.

 

[WhiteBus]

Offense scored 49 against Indy.

My bad. Your right. They did give up 52....correct??

 

[Veiox]

My bad. Your right. They did give up 52....correct??

Sure did.

 

[PaKnight]

Offense scored 49 against Indy.

It should have been 52, they score 7 td's and 1 FG.

 

[jonS]

The defense is the problem. They can't defend against the spread because it limits their ability to pressure the quarterback. And without any pressure on the QB, the defense is shredded. The DBs play a very soft pass defense.......

 

[urbanecane]

Yes but we're going against big ten lines and not the smaller big east lines. That's a big difference. Make then on DL we only really had Francis and Scott Vallone as threats on DL. Now we have Wilkins, JPO, Turay, Lambert, Joseph. At LB it's a push with Longa and Khaseeme Greene about the same. Big difference was that we had experienced lock down corners in logan ryan and mccourty on both sides and a hard hitting safety in duron harmon.

We left our DBs on islands most games and blitzed the heck out of people. Our secondary limits what we can do. Our DL in 2012 wouldn't have done much against the good big ten lines either.

Neither Francis or McCourty were on that team.

 

[willisneverrana43]

yes, the defense is bad, but there are mitigating circumstances to explain the badness, namely the loss of our 3 secondary starters. I think the defense is making the best of the bad hand.

That argument would be more persuasive to me if the previous two years under Rossi hadn't also happened. It's always something. So now there is guesswork that the secondary that got torched the last two years would absolutely better this year if some of those torchees, or the players who couldn't supplant those torchees, were only here to play now. I'm not so sure about that. Imagine if Turay were out this year. There would be loads of people on here claiming that his absence is a BIG difference maker in the performance of the defense. In reality, he's not even a starter. And, remember, Hamilton was here last year and the year before when the defense was getting torched.

The problem is that there are too few good players, and Rossi seems in over his head. Going on 3 years goes a long way toward proving that. Sure, you can guess that players were just about to improve before they left, but that is just that -- guesswork, and in the face of gobs of evidence otherwise during the Rossi regime.

 

[patk89]

no, i mean having 25 3 and outs isn't help them.

If the defense put our offense into better position by actually holding back the opponent's offense, maybe we would not have to make conservative calls deep in our territory leading to 3 and outs. Would our current defense give up fewer points and yards if we had a 2006 style offense? Of course. But our defense is not good, especially against the pass.

 

[rutgersal]

That argument would be more persuasive to me if the previous two years under Rossi hadn't also happened. It's always something. So now there is guesswork that the secondary that got torched the last two years would absolutely better this year if some of those torchees, or the players who couldn't supplant those torchees, were only here to play now. I'm not so sure about that. Imagine if Turay were out this year. There would be loads of people on here claiming that his absence is a BIG difference maker in the performance of the defense. In reality, he's not even a starter. And, remember, Hamilton was here last year and the year before when the defense was getting torched.

The problem is that there are too few good players, and Rossi seems in over his head. Going on 3 years goes a long way toward proving that. Sure, you can guess that players were just about to improve before they left, but that is just that -- guesswork, and in the face of gobs of evidence otherwise during the Rossi regime.

I think you're getting confused. 2014 was Rossi's first full year as DC. In 2013, Rossi solely coached the ND bowl game, so that doesn't count. what defense isn't going to be affected by the loss of 4 defensive starters, including its best? while we don't beat OSU with them, we certainly wouldn't be regarded as one of the worst defenses in the country. right now the secondary and other defenders is going through a learning curve against some of the best teams in college football. thats why i give the defense a pass.

the defense will be much better in 2016 with the return of Hamilton and the return of 4 returning starters in the secondary.

 

[willisneverrana43]

I think you're getting confused. 2014 was Rossi's first full year as DC. In 2013, Rossi solely coached the ND bowl game, so that doesn't count. what defense isn't going to be affected by the loss of 4 defensive starters, including its best? while we don't beat OSU with them, we certainly wouldn't be regarded as one of the worst defenses in the country. right now the secondary and other defenders is going through a learning curve against some of the best teams in college football. thats why i give the defense a pass.

the defense will be much better in 2016 with the return of Hamilton and the return of 4 returning starters in the secondary.

Al, true. Cohen was that year, now Rossi. I've seen no discernible difference in their results, and I last year a saw a secondary performing similarly to this year's. If that hadn't happened, maybe Rossi gets the pass that you want to give him. And maybe if he weren't a huge crapshoot when he was hired -- as no other P5 conference team would have hired him as its DC -- he might get a pass. But he had no meaningful track record when he got here, had a terrible year last year, and is having another now.

I will grant this. His talent level is low, with or without the dismissed DBs. But that's a whole other problem.