Defense: What happened

[Bull Dozer]

16 minutes ago, FazaUSF said:

It has been a long downward spiral from when Leavitt had USF being talked about as "the new DB U". Holtz's staff was lax on the basics. Taggart abandoned and ignored defense altogether with the strategy to outscore opponents no matter what the defense gives up. The current staff plays checkers at chess tournaments. Defense wins championships, which is why we have none... 

This is patently False the defense was good his first year, sucked his 3rd, good when Tom Allen was here, and then he made a bad promotion and Woody was just inept. It wasn't philosophical it was an inept coordinator. The guy couldn't get his team lined up properly against an unbalanced line for christ sakes.  

[Bullrush33]

Whoa whoa whoa.... This defense is all on Chuckles. He hasn’t recruited very well in this area. We are three recruiting cycles in his tenure. DT are weak. Lack of ready Linebackers. Loyalty to Jean Mary who doesn’t seem to know what he is doing. Year one was great with Taggarts players but it has been a free fall since then.  This last game was on the offense mostly putting the defense in bad position. And missed tackling again. I thought we fixed this. The last second td before the half Hampton goes for a fumble hit instead of tackling. If he would have tacked the clock would have expired. Bone head play or coaching? You decide! It had been a patter 

[Bull Dozer]

1 hour ago, TheAccountant said:

I think it all started with Taggart's mentality. He had the mentality of bend dont break. The defense was going to give up points, but it was fine because our offense would score more. He recruited heavily on the offensive side of the ball and not on the defensive. When he left and strong came in, we were left with a lot of young and mediocre defensive guys and a lot of talented offensive guys. Strong is known to recruit more heavily on the defensive side, which imo is one of the reasons our offense struggled last year.

 

TLDR: Taggart recruited heavily on the offensive side of the ball

If this was true we would have a ton of underclassmen that CCS recruited that are better players on D but that's not they case. CCS has had 3 years to recruit and develop the defense and hasn't so he loaded up on transfers. That's not even considering all of they kids he brought in like Boyce, Price, Donnell Thomas, Culpepper, K Johnson etc that left the program. This defense is 3 years past CWT to blame it on him is just silly. If the supposed defensive guru can't coach a defense up in 3 years maybe the game has passed him bye.... 

Edited September 6, 2019 by Bull Dozer

[NewEnglandBull]

Our recruiting on defense has been pretty bad. Can’t we get LBs? I know we have a few but nothing big....

[Roaming Bull]

22 hours ago, Bull Dozer said:

This defense is 3 years past CWT to blame it on him is just silly. If the supposed defensive guru can't coach a defense up in 3 years maybe the game has passed him bye.... 

We need to stop looking back CWT. Most of us were critical of him during his tenure, but generally happy with product on field by the time he left. This squad and their performance are on Strong. He’s done what he thought he needed to do in terms of getting rid of guys and recruiting. If the talent isn’t there it’s not on the previous coach anymore. He needs to hang up his whistle and clipboard.

[FazaUSF]

23 hours ago, Bull Dozer said:

This is patently False the defense was good his first year, sucked his 3rd, good when Tom Allen was here, and then he made a bad promotion and Woody was just inept. It wasn't philosophical it was an inept coordinator. The guy couldn't get his team lined up properly against an unbalanced line for christ sakes.  

Did you pay attention to points given up per game by the USF defense while CWT was here? Go ahead and average 'em out. Go ahead and review his quotes when asked about the "bend, break, jailbreak" defensive stats. CWT did not place any emphasis on defense whatsoever, and more or less looked at it as the players on the field giving the offense a break...  Or were we watching the same team? 

It worked for him, but the point is that defense hasn't been a strong point for USF football in 3 straight coaching tenures. 

[Bull Dozer]

20 minutes ago, Roaming Bull said:

We need to stop looking back CWT. Most of us were critical of him during his tenure, but generally happy with product on field by the time he left. This squad and their performance are on Strong. He’s done what he thought he needed to do in terms of getting rid of guys and recruiting. If the talent isn’t there it’s not on the previous coach anymore. He needs to hang up his whistle and clipboard.

This. it's CCS's 3rd year this defense is his to suggest otherwise is silly 

[Azmodi]

Hmm, as to the OP's question. The Ref's blew the starting whistle.

[zarnozdabull]

Dude our defense is good.

ANYONE would get tired with this offense keeping you on the field.

[Who'sYourData?]

Defense certainly looked good today.  Can't blame the defense last week against Wisky when the offense couldn't get a first down, and Wisconsin has a power game that will run down the best of defenses over time.