Was the crappy defense due to lack of pass rush or lack of coverage? The Definitive Proof

#28
#28
sonofUT62 said:
I think we will show some things against UGA in the red zone that we haven’t done a lot of. Maybe Sampeon and Wright in the backfield together and one motions out. I hope the Florida game was an anomaly for UGAs offense. They looked like a nightmare for a team that doesn’t cover or tackle well in the secondary.
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Better worry about Mizzou first
 
#29
#29
It seems without Hadden, and taking UK's QBs play up until that point into consideration, Coach Banks wanted Him to make plays in the passing game to beat them. He did. Tennessee's offense doesn't score enough consistently for that game plan to be successful on a regular basis in this conference. I'm sure He called the best game He could with what He had available. I personally would like to see the DBs press more, but if You don't have the talent or Coaching (Martinez must go), then playing complementary football is more important than ever......Martinez must go.
 
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#30
#30
37620VOL said:
I set out to prove, with undeniable evidence, that our lack of QB pressure against UK was because our DBs and LBs didn't cover well enough and UK's strategy seemed to be "get the ball out quick".

The data did not check out. In fact, I don't think there's much of a conclusion at all to glean from the data. I pulled the number of pressures and sacks from our first 8 games and compared them to our opposing QB's TTT (Time To Throw) statistic. Here's the data:

GAMETTTPRESSURESSACKS
UVA
2.4​
20​
5​
AP
1.9​
15​
7​
UF
2.5​
11​
1​
UTSA
2.3​
30​
4​
SC
3​
33​
7​
TAMU
3.2​
32​
2​
BAMA
3.5​
13​
3​
UK
2.7​
9​
1​


So, I don't know, let me know what you can glean from it or if you have some better stats to analyze. My gut says the first 4 games we were getting home on the pass rush insanely fast but possibly against weaker competition. SC and TAMU saw good pass rush but mobile QBs were able to extend plays yet the coverage held up. Against BAMA and UK the pass rush was lacking and, without a reliable shutdown corner, the coverage was also quite bad.

I say all this with low confidence, but we seem to fare better when the pass rush gets home in under 2.5 seconds. So I say dial it up, Banks!
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Best I can tell, the last 2 games with reduced pressures directly cooincide with the zebras allowing the other team to constantly "hold" our guys every play. Makes sense to have less pressures if you're being held constantly.
 
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#31
#31
Give Kentucky's OL and QB credit. The OL kept our pass rush in check and Leary was able to find the open guys. The good news is we still won with Leary having his best game so far. The soft zone helped however the front 7 typically gets pressure even if they don't record a sack. I don't think Stoops is a coaching genius (far from it actually) but he definitely has upgraded talent in the trenches since he has been in Lexington. The oddsmakers predicted this to be a close game and it was. Good guys came out as the victors though. GBO!!
 
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#32
#32
loosecannon said:
Dialing it up was killing us. Leary understood the basic ideas behind blitzing: you throw where the blitzed came from. He did that repeatedly and torches us again and again. The blitzes weren’t getting free and the replacers weren’t getting a lot of wins picking up or robbing as replacers
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I did rewatch several plays of Kentucky completing throws and I personally thought Leary threw with amazing accuracy. Certainly it’s harder to be so accurate when the pressure is coming (especially with speed rushers off the edge) so the lack of pressure played into it BUT…I think Leary simply threw several extremely accurate passes. JMO.
 
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#34
#34
It ain’t rocket science to me. Yes, the defense was geared to stop the run and Leary played well. However, we had zero pass rush even on obvious passing downs. Combine that with a secondary with poor man to man cover skills and you get what you saw. If you give a 10 yard cushion to the receivers, I can probably complete some passes. (Only a slight exaggeration.)

Scheme was also suspect at times. Several times Beasley got isolated on their slot receiver and that’s a matchup with no chance.
 
#35
#35
Pass rush in the 1st half of the Bama game was very good. Consistent pressure and generated a couple sacks. The 2nd half it was nearly non-existent and it rolled over into Kentucky. The DL needs to find that fire again.
 
#36
#36
tennrich1 said:
I did rewatch several plays of Kentucky completing throws and I personally thought Leary threw with amazing accuracy. Certainly it’s harder to be so accurate when the pressure is coming (especially with speed rushers off the edge) so the lack of pressure played into it BUT…I think Leary simply threw several extremely accurate passes. JMO.
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He played out of his mind at times.
 
#37
#37
loosecannon said:
Dialing it up was killing us. Leary understood the basic ideas behind blitzing: you throw where the blitzed came from. He did that repeatedly and torches us again and again. The blitzes weren’t getting free and the replacers weren’t getting a lot of wins picking up or robbing as replacers
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Agree, Leary played his best game at Kentucky, have to give him some credit in their success.
 
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#38
#38
lostsheep said:
Refreshing to see someone set out to prove a theory, realize it's not correct, actually admit it, and seek input.
Most of us will argue 'til we're blue in the face to prove whatever random theories we come up with having zero evidence to support it.
Well done, @37620VOL !
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thank you, thank you

I can't say I didn't pout about it for a minute or two before deciding to post "just the facts, ma'am/(sir)"
 
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#42
#42
Soft Zone, Good pickups of pass rush, and lack of Kamal Hadden. It all added up. I don't think I've seen us play as much soft zone all season as we did VS them but maybe that was because of the threat of the run?
Outside of the few QB scrambles we shut down their running game completely. Not counting Leary they rushed for 18 for 51 with a long of 8. Leary was actually the most effective rusher all on scrambles also because of that soft zone. He either picked apart the zone or ran for a first down.

Honestly, it looks like it was the game plan. Ray Davis is the leading rusher in the SEC averaging over 100 a game.. we were the first team (42) to hold him under 52 yards. The only other team that held them as a team under 100 was Georgia (sacked Leary for -28 and held rbs to 83)

We dared them to beat us in the air and survived it.
 
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#43
#43
37620VOL said:
I set out to prove, with undeniable evidence, that our lack of QB pressure against UK was because our DBs and LBs didn't cover well enough and UK's strategy seemed to be "get the ball out quick".

The data did not check out. In fact, I don't think there's much of a conclusion at all to glean from the data. I pulled the number of pressures and sacks from our first 8 games and compared them to our opposing QB's TTT (Time To Throw) statistic. Here's the data:

GAMETTTPRESSURESSACKS
UVA
2.4​
20​
5​
AP
1.9​
15​
7​
UF
2.5​
11​
1​
UTSA
2.3​
30​
4​
SC
3​
33​
7​
TAMU
3.2​
32​
2​
BAMA
3.5​
13​
3​
UK
2.7​
9​
1​


So, I don't know, let me know what you can glean from it or if you have some better stats to analyze. My gut says the first 4 games we were getting home on the pass rush insanely fast but possibly against weaker competition. SC and TAMU saw good pass rush but mobile QBs were able to extend plays yet the coverage held up. Against BAMA and UK the pass rush was lacking and, without a reliable shutdown corner, the coverage was also quite bad.

I say all this with low confidence, but we seem to fare better when the pass rush gets home in under 2.5 seconds. So I say dial it up, Banks!
Click to expand...
Better competition is my uneducated assessment.
 
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#45
#45
37620VOL said:
I set out to prove, with undeniable evidence, that our lack of QB pressure against UK was because our DBs and LBs didn't cover well enough and UK's strategy seemed to be "get the ball out quick".

The data did not check out. In fact, I don't think there's much of a conclusion at all to glean from the data. I pulled the number of pressures and sacks from our first 8 games and compared them to our opposing QB's TTT (Time To Throw) statistic. Here's the data:

GAMETTTPRESSURESSACKS
UVA
2.4​
20​
5​
AP
1.9​
15​
7​
UF
2.5​
11​
1​
UTSA
2.3​
30​
4​
SC
3​
33​
7​
TAMU
3.2​
32​
2​
BAMA
3.5​
13​
3​
UK
2.7​
9​
1​


So, I don't know, let me know what you can glean from it or if you have some better stats to analyze. My gut says the first 4 games we were getting home on the pass rush insanely fast but possibly against weaker competition. SC and TAMU saw good pass rush but mobile QBs were able to extend plays yet the coverage held up. Against BAMA and UK the pass rush was lacking and, without a reliable shutdown corner, the coverage was also quite bad.

I say all this with low confidence, but we seem to fare better when the pass rush gets home in under 2.5 seconds. So I say dial it up, Banks!
Click to expand...
Looks like we mysteriously can’t rush the passer in road games.
 
#47
#47
Funny random thing I noticed while looking into this. We play Uconn next week and since now everyone has had their bye and games are equal. There is fairly decent chance end of next week Milton could be 2nd in the SEC in TD's. he is currently only 2 behind second place of 16 and we actually enter the 'easy' part of our league schedule. Outside of UGA...

UCONN is just a bad team period

Missouri does not have the defense they had last year...they arent bad but they are not scary either...Our defense which everyone thinks sucks... is 3rd in the SEC points allowed giving up 20.4 Missou is 9th giving up 23.3 and i dont think we will be playing the run as hard against them

UGA.. well that's just an L lets all be honest with ourselves. UGA is the one team that's not really shown any real weakness this season. The only game they won by less than 10 was 7 points vs Auburn. USCe by 10 and everyone else by at least 2 td's and the backup QB took snaps.

Vandy is classic Vandy this year they lost Ray Davis to Kentucky so their running game is meh... and they like to turn over the ball, 11 picks 5 fumbles lost on the season

Missou is on the road other 3 are at home. I think Milton can come out of the whole exchange with 10-12 TD's. Its only a matter of time before this passing offense breaks it open and this is the stretch for it.
 
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#48
#48
pimo1 said:
Soft Zone, Good pickups of pass rush, and lack of Kamal Hadden. It all added up. I don't think I've seen us play as much soft zone all season as we did VS them but maybe that was because of the threat of the run?
Outside of the few QB scrambles we shut down their running game completely. Not counting Leary they rushed for 18 for 51 with a long of 8. Leary was actually the most effective rusher all on scrambles also because of that soft zone. He either picked apart the zone or ran for a first down.

Honestly, it looks like it was the game plan. Ray Davis is the leading rusher in the SEC averaging over 100 a game.. we were the first team (42) to hold him under 52 yards. The only other team that held them as a team under 100 was Georgia (sacked Leary for -28 and held rbs to 83)

We dared them to beat us in the air and survived it.
Click to expand...
I think the heavy emphasis on zone came from three different reasons. Firstly, zone is typically better than man when playing the run. Secondly, we don’t have two man corners. Thirdly, they kept extra blockers in to protect against the rush, so we had to blitz more and resulting played zone behind as a sometimes less complicated alignment for the defense. Florida killed us when we played man by utilizing presnap motion to create bad matchups. We had guys running around n we just stunk at it. We simplified a little to avoid the big bust, gave up yards, but won the game.
 
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#49
#49
DaddyChad said:
This game it was both the pressure wasn’t there most of the time and the coverage wasn’t great either. You can point out holds by their line but we got little to no pressure on Leary, we also had several instances where the defender was 5-7 yards off the receiver.
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It seems like... probably not as bad as it seems... but it seems like that all the other teams DB's (unless the opposing DB's fall down) are usually drapped all over our receivers while our DB's are never in the same television screen as the other teams receivers.
🤷‍♂️
 
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#50
#50
VOLINVONORE said:
I think the problem with our zone defense, is the LBs, DBs, and Safeties are suppose to defend their area and break on the the receiver if the ball is thrown in their zone; not wait for the receiver to catch the ball and then they to tackle him before he starts down field. The defense should attempt to , find the ball, close in on the receiver, intercept the ball if possible, prohibit the receiver from catching the ball and finally make the tackle if the they can not complete any of the first steps. I saw a lot of trying to make the tackle and not much of the other activities. Few passes are going to be defended well if the receiver has no defender within 5 yard of him.
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And then when we are in position, we don't turn our head and find the ball. Tammarrian McDonald did once and knocked the ball away.
But lots of times we were in position but didn't turn our head and the receiver caught the ball. Could have broken up the pass if we turn our head.
 
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