Defensive lessons from the 2007 team

[Flowers4Heisman]

I watched #18 USF beat #5 WVU last night and saw how our defense was in that game. (Hey, thanks for doing all the work to make the games available, python815!)

We had Trae and Mike in the back, so the rest were free to play up and be aggressive.

And we applied a lot of pressure, always.

Man, there was a lot of talent on that defensive unit, and many of them played in the NFL.

So...

(1) Play really tight defense. The current team gives the opposing team a lot of room.

(2) Tight man-to-man on the receivers and then either go after the QB or stop the run.

(3) Play with a lot of energy and tackle well.

[BullFan98]

I haven't done the research, but from watching the defensive line play on Saturday it appeared we gave up a lot of soft yards.  My guess is that our defensive line is much smaller than the d-line in '07.  Our line was pushed around by Towson's o-line and Towson took advantage of this by going for it on small yardage 4th down plays.  Maybe too early to tell (one game in the bag), but Woodie may be lacking in confidence in our DBs to allow pressure by way of multiple blitzes on every down.  In my opinion, the DB talent is not comparable to '07. 

Auggie Sanchez gives his all on every play, but he is on the small side and is not as effective on larger RBs, like Victor. 

[namuh-bull]

1 hour ago, TimBulla said:

I watched #18 USF beat #5 WVU last night and saw how our defense was in that game. (Hey, thanks for doing all the work to make the games available, python815!)

We had Trae and Mike in the back, so the rest were free to play up and be aggressive.

And we applied a lot of pressure, always.

Man, there was a lot of talent on that defensive unit, and many of them played in the NFL.

So...

(1) Play really tight defense. The current team gives the opposing team a lot of room.

(2) Tight man-to-man on the receivers and then either go after the QB or stop the run.

(3) Play with a lot of energy and tackle well.

Rule 1 always

Pressure the qb relentlessly 

Rule 2

Pressure him a little more

 

Go Bulls!

[Gismo]

I think like half that squad ended up in the NFL. You cannot just make a similar scheme and have the same result. We had lock down corners so we could play man-to-man. If your man coverage gets beat you will give up lost of big plays, so raw talent is really important for coverage. Then we had the best defensive end in the country with Selvie. Even with our talent we lost 3 games due to lack of depth on offense and inability of the defense to stop the run.

 

This is what makes Alabama's defense so good every year is they have the athletes to play man-to-man against anyone. Teams that can run the ball have the best chance.