On the Banks debate... it's less about his coaching ability and more about the scheme that's causing issues

#29
#29
Im not arguing that our secondary is talented because they simply aren’t, but do you think giving up 10-15 yards by keeping everything in front of you is a winning formula?

I would rather see them play much tighter, even with a 3-5 yard cushion, than 10-15. It seemed like they did just the opposite on 3rd down.

I also think they will never learn to play tight coverage if they don’t do it in a game with any regularity. Practicing it is one thing.

If they’re going to concede first downs, I would rather see them do it while staying aggressive. Playing tighter coverage might also result in the pass Rush getting home more often rather than the QB being able to take a step or two drop and hit a wide open target.
 
#30
#30
My opinion and observation. There were a few games this year that the opposing offense played right into the void in our defense. It’s like they could easily read the pressure and got a man the ball in the dead space. We seemed to really excel with this last year on offense. How many times did we just say “ wow that’s a great call” when watching our offense.

The defense tends to give these up the most on 3rd down. I may be perceiving this more as an emotional fan but the Georgia game was a great example of us giving up 3rd down conversions and consequently not converting our third downs .

Defense won’t be perfect but it did feel like the teams that beat us, and even Kentucky had the ability to find holes in the defense at will.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TN1111
#31
#31
VFL-82-JP said:
So yeah, we know this is a multi-variable problem.

There's scheme (offensive/defensive philosophy, the playbook, adjustments in game, risk decisions, etc.).
There's player talent (raw stuff, like speed, quickness, strength, playmaking ability, so on).
There's execution, which is the application of talent (includes discipline, development, mental agility, etc.).
And so on.

Problem is, each of these can hide the others. For instance, a team lacking discipline, not executing well, can LOOK a lot like bad scheme. And the players can appear to be less talented than they are. Because of poor execution.

And a relative lack of talent can make the scheme seem poor, when it might have worked great if better players were available.

Similarly, a faulty scheme, whether not suited well to our players, or not suited to the opponent's game plan, or just flawed in general, can make good players seem less competent.

It's all one big mix, and us outsiders are always going to be awful at figuring out which is which. Primarily because we don't know what any of the play calls actually were.

So I'm all for treating coaches holistically. I'm not going to nitpick. I'll judge them entirely by their results. Because in addition to scheming, they're also responsible for recruiting, and developing. So they ultimately have their hands on the levers of all the variables.

But for that holistic way of judging to be fair, we have to give them time. Ostensibly, a full 5-year cycle, so that THIS coach's recruiting, and development, training, scheming, playcalling, and adjusting are all in the mix.

Then we can judge, and it's as simple as: are we competing for championships? If so, good coach. If not, he's not good enough.

We'll know this about Heupel, Banks, et al in another two years or so. Things are looking pretty good so far, but there's plenty of room for improvement, too.

Go Vols!
Click to expand...
Spoken like an engineer! Well said.
 
  • Like
Reactions: VFL-82-JP
#32
#32
VOLfrombama said:
Im not arguing that our secondary is talented because they simply aren’t, but do you think giving up 10-15 yards by keeping everything in front of you is a winning formula?

I would rather see them play much tighter, even with a 3-5 yard cushion, than 10-15. It seemed like they did just the opposite on 3rd down.

I also think they will never learn to play tight coverage if they don’t do it in a game with any regularity. Practicing it is one thing.

If they’re going to concede first downs, I would rather see them do it while staying aggressive. Playing tighter coverage might also result in the pass Rush getting home more often rather than the QB being able to take a step or two drop and hit a wide open target.
Click to expand...
The risk of playing tighter when you're outmatched for speed is what Hyatt did to defenses.

When you can't match the speed of the guy you're trying to stay on tightly, he might just blow by you for the big gain.

That cushion is to avoid giving up the big play. We used this all last year. Hyatt and Tillman could burn people deep, and did, but when they gave the cushion, we took it for 10-15yd gains.
 
#33
#33
SayUWantAreVOLution said:
The risk of playing tighter when you're outmatched for speed is what Hyatt did to defenses.

When you can't match the speed of the guy you're trying to stay on tightly, he might just blow by you for the big gain.

That cushion is to avoid giving up the big play. We used this all last year. Hyatt and Tillman could burn people deep, and did, but when they gave the cushion, we took it for 10-15yd gains.
Click to expand...
Right, but if you are getting lots of pressure or consistent pressure, the timing is off and a QB is on the move.
 
  • Like
Reactions: papatomany
#34
#34
_ryan01 said:
the secondary is to slow to play man to man. Hopefully, the portal will help out next year.
Click to expand...
Pretty much this right here. With the players we currently have in secondary you can’t be aggressive all the time. We have some players but we don’t have a lot of them. Hadden, Pili, Carter (even though he’s young) those guys look the part of a true player in this conference. You’re thin at CB, LB, and S.
 
#35
#35
KeyVol14 said:
Banks in game adjustments are horrible. Also safety play has been terrible since he's been here and that's the position group he coaches.
Click to expand...
I’m not sure what’s going on with that group. Do we have no talent there? Every other defensive position you’ve seen some flashes of talent and development.
 
#36
#36
madbamahater said:
Right, but if you are getting lots of pressure or consistent pressure, the timing is off and a QB is on the move.
Click to expand...
That's correct. Our strength has been in our pressure.

If the coaches don't have confidence that they can get to the QB AND they can't stay with the receivers when it comes to speed, there's going to be cushion and soft zones.

If we HAD a "lights out" secondary or a Reggie clone rushing the passer, things would be different. We don't and they're not different.

The D, like the offense, is schemed like it is because these are the guys we have this year.

Recruiting and the portal AND coaching will help but mostly recruiting and the portal.
 
  • Like
Reactions: FollowTheLeader
#37
#37
The losses and not showing up for the games that matter was a total team effort. It wasn't just one side of the ball. The offense couldn't score or sustain a drive and minus the A&M game, the defense couldn't step up with a stop or turnover.

When the offense was clicking in the 22 season, just needed the defense to bend and not break.

So could care less if both coordinators decided to look for other opportunities.
 
#38
#38
We finished 5th in the SEC in points allowed and total yards. Second in rushing yards and tenth in passing yards. It would be interesting to see where our D ranked in terms of minutes/game or snaps/game.
 
#39
#39
We have said the same thing for 3 years, he doesn't have the players to play the scheme he wants. It takes time to develop recruits, but most of the DBs we played were older and experienced in doing what the coach doesn't want to do. That's on the coach.

Banks has been good for the program overall and you can see the defense is better than it was. If that earns him a head coaching job then I think that's something the fan base should celebrate.
 
#40
#40
knox-townVOL said:
Which is why I think we, as a fanbase, can't reach an agreement here. Simply put, the offense and defense need to complement each other. I'll do my best here to make this make sense:

We have a very aggressive offense. This offense is either going to score quickly, or punt quickly, that's just the reality of it.

On defense however, we run a very conservative "soft zone" defense. This defense is designed to not give up the big 40-50 yard play, and for the most part, does a great job at that. We rarely give up the big play. What we do give up, however, is the 2nd/3rd and medium-to-long at a really high rate. That's the downfall of this scheme, it leaves guys running wide open at mid to long range.

So what you end up with is an offense that gets off the field quickly, one way or another, and a defense that stays on the field for a long time in the interest of not giving up the huge downfield shot. This is not a good combination. A good combination would be an aggressive, press-man defense to go with our offense. Would we get burned more often? Absolutely, but we would also get off the field quicker one way or another.

We lose the game when the offense gets off the field quickly several times in a row, which it's built to do, and the defense stays on the field for the better part of a quarter.

So in summary:

Aggressive O + Aggressive D = ✅
Aggressive O + Conservative D = ❌
(That's us)
Conservative O + Conservative D = ✅
Conservative O + Aggressive D = ❌
(This was what Mason did at Vandy, Jimbo did at A&M, etc)

Supposedly Heupel isn't a big fan of this defensive scheme and that's caused some friction (per a couple of reputable insiders on 247), and this would be why.

TL;DR - Banks isn't bad, but we have to change the scheme.
Click to expand...
That’s not our scheme.
 
#41
#41
Defensively we seem to do a good job of stopping the run. That's complementary in the sense it prevents opponents from controlling the clock and keeping our offense off the field. The defense seems to struggle at times pressuring the QB on 3rd down and that's a problem.

I feel like the defense gets worn down over the course of a season. With TOP tilted against the defense, we need to be able to platoon a lot of players to keep them fresh. Not sure that can really be done. It would mean the roster needs to be loaded more on the defensive side.

There's only so much that can be done when running this style of offense. I was never a fan of it in the past but here we are. We can win games, some that we maybe wouldn't otherwise, but not sure it can take a team all the way.
 
  • Like
Reactions: FollowTheLeader
#43
#43
SayUWantAreVOLution said:
I'm just curious but do you think our receivers not having the speed and ability to get the separation of Hyatt and Tillman is bad coaching?

You can't "coach up" a player's natural gifts.
Click to expand...
Ok so all of our DBs are slow? They all barely crack the 4.7 40? They all are just not talented? Is that what you are saying?
 
#45
#45
BigOrangeTrain said:
Ok so all of our DBs are slow? They all barely crack the 4.7 40? They all are just not talented? Is that what you are saying?
Click to expand...
I'm saying some of our opponents have what we had last year: receivers with elite speed. MANY of the SEC teams have guys with great speed.

Our secondary isn't as blessed.

We saw our offense create havoc last year because they would drop back to avoid the deep ball and we could throw short or run well. If they got up tight, Hyatt just smoked them for the deep ball.

We need quicker, more explosive to break on the ball, and just plain faster guys to keep up with and beat the teams in the SEC.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BigOrangeTrain
#46
#46
TNVOLFN said:
It’s not complicated, great defense isn’t called or developed, great defense is played by great players. Saban, Smart, Donahue had great defenses because they had great players, bottom line.
Click to expand...
Exactly. That's really all it boils down to.

Here's a really quick and easy way to gage it. Whichever team we are playing at the time, look at our players and ask yourself "would our starters be starting on the team were lined up across from?" The more times you can say yes at each position, the more likely we will be victorious. Now, yes I KNOW there are exceptions! Christ, yes I know upsets happen! I'm not talking about that! I'm talking about in general. I'm talking about the rule, not the exception! The team with the most talent wins out 90% of the time!
 
  • Like
Reactions: TNVOLFN
#47
#47
SayUWantAreVOLution said:
The risk of playing tighter when you're outmatched for speed is what Hyatt did to defenses.

When you can't match the speed of the guy you're trying to stay on tightly, he might just blow by you for the big gain.

That cushion is to avoid giving up the big play. We used this all last year. Hyatt and Tillman could burn people deep, and did, but when they gave the cushion, we took it for 10-15yd gains.
Click to expand...
I know what the risk is. But the risk of giving up first down after first down is keeping the O off the field and wearing the defense down even further. I would prefer to be more agressive, especially on 3rd down, rather than just let a decent team control the ball and the game.

Also who are the Hyatts on Bama, Burton? No way. Bond had a decent game but really just 1 long catch.

That same D made Kensucky’s passing game look like world beaters and if Milton hadnt had a career game thats a loss.

Luther Burden was hurt badly when he played and had just a few catches. Instead they left the check down wide open all game and he torched them.

Pearsall had a decent game but nothing like Hyatt.

Georgia is really the only team with WRs that could beat everyone in the secondary. And the talent gap is enormous there so not worth discussing.
 
Last edited:
#48
#48
If the CBs and safeties are slow of foot, slow to react, and display questionable at best ability to tackle on an island in man coverage, the DC is most likely gonna call a more conservative game.

This defensive secondary needs an upgrade in talent or it won't matter much who is calling the plays.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TNVOLFN
#49
#49
VOLfrombama said:
I know what the risk is. But the risk of giving up first down after first down is keeping the O off the field and wearing the defense down even further. I would prefer to be more agressive, especially on 3rd down, rather than just let a decent team control the ball and the game.
Click to expand...
This conversation would be: why are we giving up the deep ball so much?

The answer is better athletes. The answer is almost always rooted in better athletes.

It's no better to be aggressive and give up the deep ball than it is to let a team grind on you BUT you have a better chance they'll screw up using the cushion and making them throw shorter than letting a speedster have 5yds on you for 6.

Your mileage may vary but that's how I see it.
 
#50
#50
SayUWantAreVOLution said:
This conversation would be: why are we giving up the deep ball so much?

The answer is better athletes. The answer is almost always rooted in better athletes.

It's no better to be aggressive and give up the deep ball than it is to let a team grind on you BUT you have a better chance they'll screw up using the cushion and making them throw shorter than letting a speedster have 5yds on you for 6.

Your mileage may vary but that's how I see it.
Click to expand...
You can still give a cushion, but tighten your coverage enough not to give up the 2-3 step drop and give time for your pass rush to get home instead of dropping your best player on defense in coverage. That would be an in game adjustment to the dink and dunk stuff that was never made
 
  • Like
Reactions: TN1111 and Woodlawn VOL
New posts
You must log in or register to reply here.

VN Store



Back
Top