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(Scipio Tex) 2021 Texas-Baylor Post Mortem: Defense/Special Teams

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With two weeks off to reflect on a Longhorn defensive approach that hasn't been working, featuring second half run defense swoons that would shame any southern belle, Pete Kwiatkoski's midseason adjustments were to to play a few more backups snaps in the secondary, double down on turning the Longhorn defensive front into stalemate-seeking block magnets, and drill a coverage wrinkle.

Not quite the level of introspection and critical analysis I was hoping for from the Longhorn defensive chief. In fact, it was staking out a defensive identity of the "on this hill we will die" variety. Baylor was glad to help the Texas defensive brain trust with its death wish once Gerry Bohanon stopped throwing it to Texas defenders standing in the middle of the field. Baylor's first three possessions of the second half went:

9-75 Touchdown
14-80 Touchdown
3-53 Touchdown

Welcome to Boot Hill. A headstone reads: Here, the stubborn and the dead. The Texas defensive second half "stops" were Baylor running clock with a ten-point lead, which included running a QB counter on 3rd and 14, and a kneel down. Had the game been in doubt, Baylor would have continued doing what it wanted. The Texas DC wants it one way. It's the other way.

1. The Texas DL has the potential to be disruptive. Specifically: Collins, Sweat, Ojomo, Murphy. In the few instances where they were allowed to attack, disrupt, and one gap, the results were pretty good. Watch the 4th and 1 stand. Those times were rare. They spent an inordinate amount of time catching blocks and eating space. When DL lined up in a gap, far too often it was to hold it, influence, and draw bodies, rather than take it, be an athlete, and wreck things. Why neuter your front for the illusion of freeing your linebackers? Not this front, not for those linebackers.

2. Within that system, they execute it poorly. I mean pad level up front. Hand placement. Fits from the linebackers and safeties. Basic understanding of gap integrity. It stinks and the only cover for it is hustle and effort. As fatigue erodes those qualities, the defense wilts. The Longhorn players are trying hard, which is what really guts me.

3. This isn't PK's fault, but the team is physically weak. Which is a particularly poor match for PK's insistence on asking the DL to hold ground instead of take it. Weaker teams don't claim space well. If you think strength is just about "being strong" and lifting heavy ****, you misunderstand its value. It makes all things more sub-maximal. It underpins all other athletic attributes. Which means it has an effect on your conditioning. Football is a largely anaerobic sport with accumulated fatigue with bursts of aerobic activity that generally don't accumulate fatigue. When you're not strong and fit, everything gets harder. Plays you can make in the 1st quarter won't be made in the 4th.

4. Let's use the phrase complementary football correctly. Yes, the Texas offense has failed in this regard. But Xavier Worthy isn't going to kneel a 63 yard touchdown at the Baylor 20 so we can run more plays. And the Texas defense has it within its power to make the other offense get off of the field. If you give up 26 plays in three consecutive drives, I don't want to hear about the offense. 22 of Baylor's 26 plays on those three scoring drives occurred on 1st or 2nd down. That's Canadian Football. That's not bend but don't break. That's bend and break. Yes, you get tired when it's perpetually 2nd and 2.

Guess what else doesn't play well to Pete's approach if your players can't handle accumulated fatigue? Bend but don't break. This is a bad marriage of scheme, players, and offseason prep.

5. Speed option isn't that mystifying.

6. Count the number of times that Texas defenders move backwards at contact. Meeting a ballcarrier. Meeting a blocker. In the second half, who was the hammer and who was the nail? PK thinks he has an anvil that defuses the hammer's blow. It's a nail.

DL

I'm not evaluating individual play in a group that's not being utilized constructively. What's the point? Knock yourself out if you'd like to do so. I will praise freshman Byron Murphy for his effort and gameness.

LB

Right now, Jaylan Ford isn't the answer at linebacker, unfortunately. Demarvion and Brock are currently our best options. Overshown had a nice couple of blitzes, a clean hard tackle in the open field, and a good breakup of a likely touchdown to Ebner when he swatted the QB's arm. His flow against pin n' pull and a lot of conventional runs is basically guesswork. Brock had a gift pick on a deep drop and some clean tackles, but unfortunately, we're robbing Peter to pay Paul.

DB

A lot of guys played, so that's good. I saw Barron, Adimora, Dunn get real work. BJ Foster had the early pick on a bad Bohanon read and made two good clean tackles on 3rd down passes. A lot of guys played and the general goal was to make Bohanon do QB things and make throws outside of the hash to the sideline. That tactic varied in its success, trailing off as Baylor realized they could run the ball for chunk gains with their reconverted linebacker. I did see several Longhorn corners come up and contest throws, have break ups, and make good, hard tackles throughout the game. Josh Thompson had some good examples. That's the aspect of the defense I can live with when these guys tackle well and if Texas could shore it up against the run, the season record would be different.

Baylor did hurt Texas with some set piece RPOs, particularly when their running game started clicking, but the Baylor passing game isn't what won it for them. Jeff Grimes was nearly as scared of his QB as Steve Sarkisian is of Thompson, but the Longhorn inability to stifle the Baylor run game situationally never put passing game pressure back on Baylor. When the game mattered most, Baylor could run the ball when it wanted and Texas couldn't.

Special Teams

I can't imagine the Dicker punt run was a called play, but rather a player taking what he perceived as an optional green light in a horrible game situation where he thought he saw something that wasn't. Like Xavier Worthy taking a kickoff back five yards deep against OU and fumbling, coaches need to remind the player of the situation and turn that green light option to a cautious yellow or outright red.

Final

There is a real tension between a coach installing and doing what he wants to do vs. optimizing the assets they inherit. The coach has to build towards his vision, but also remain practical about the near term. This is the fundamental tension of coaching and there's no black and white answer. However, coaches who wish to see near term success should seek happy mediums between their vision of how to play the game vs. player suitability.

More crucially, if other critical systems that support that vision are failing - whether conditioning, or talent levels at linebacker and safety, what you want to do doesn't really matter. It better be about what they can do.

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17 minutes ago, CurlyDumps said:

If Sark is in the neighborhood of deserving the opportunity he was given, and wants to make it to year 4, PK will be gone 24 hours after the season ends.

You would think trying a fake punt on 4th and 11 says Sark has no faith in this dude whatsoever.

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21 minutes ago, TotallyLegit said:

But I was told the players are loser pussies?

They are trying hard lol. Imagine writing that part of his break down and being serious when talking about division one football players at a blue blood. How fucking pathetic. If we have to wonder if they are trying hard then what the fuck are we doing here? 

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2 hours ago, Auto Driller said:

PK is the defensive equivalent of Greg Davis. Instead of throwing a 5 yard route on 3rd and 8, we teach our defense to play 8 yards off the ball on 3rd and 5. It’s a yin-yang thing.


He is the defensive coordinator version of Shawn Watson. 

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I am not sure what some of you think the defense should be when it has to trot out talent like Schooler and Brock. The talent on that side of the ball is terrible.

You made me curious about Schooler so I went back to his frosh year at Oregon. They were not good as a team, but he had 4 picks and was 3rd on the team in tackles. Then he moved to WR.

He’s seen the field at two major colleges at two positions. Must be a horrible athlete.

That’s not to say he’s kickin butt, but maybe there’s a bit more to it than simply talent.

Even by the star rankings, we’ve got some talent. Since star rankings are based largely on measuresables, we’d expect to be better tha Baylor. And OSU.

What do you think they should be?
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2 hours ago, satyanash said:

(Scipio Tex) 2021 Texas-Baylor Post Mortem: Defense/Special Teams

 

I’ve been saying this over and over: any defensive scheme that de-emphasizes defensive line play for he sake of linebacker play will not work with our current roster and will not work with the type of talent we see in the state of Texas. PK is just another overhyped defensive coordinator that’s married to a scheme. He’s Todd Orlando with a higher ceiling. We saw the same exact thing with TO’s three man “tite” front. It just took longer to manifest itself because the 2017 and 2018 rosters were fairly stacked on defense. Everyone remembers 2019 when we were all frustrated to see Ossai used as a linebacker in coverage. It took a few bowl game practices and Naivar switching us to a four man line to see drastic improvement up front. I get that we don’t have world beaters up front, but we shouldn’t be this bad. Every possible effort should be made to mask our linebacker deficiencies. Run a dime package or a 5-1-5 if that’s what it takes. 

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This shit is worse than anything I saw out of Todd Orlando 

Hyperbole much? Orlando had Poona Ford, Chris Nelson, charles omenihu, Joseph ossai, Gary Johnson, Kris Boyd, Holton hill, pj Locke, and many more.
Any one of those players would be playing over whoever the fuck we have in that position now.

Orlando gave up a bunch of big plays and ran blitzes from Scandinavia. They were kicking the extra point before the blitzes even hit home.

PK isn’t doing well, but Orlando had so much more to work with
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3 minutes ago, Atticus said:


Hyperbole much? Orlando had Poona Ford, Chris Nelson, charles omenihu, Joseph ossai, Gary Johnson, Kris Boyd, Holton hill, pj Locke, and many more.
Any one of those players would be playing over whoever the fuck we have in that position now.

Orlando gave up a bunch of big plays and ran blitzes from Scandinavia. They were kicking the extra point before the blitzes even hit home.

PK isn’t doing well, but Orlando had so much more to work with

Solid data -- Thx!!!

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DDg4tl.gif

PK run defense in a nutshell.  

1) Baylor ends up sending out no receivers, with 9 blockers on the play; we have 3 dudes at least 10 yards off the LOS at the snap, with the two safeties bailing. They are off the screen. 

2) Absolutely terrible gap integrity in the front 7. Our DL in this 3-4 is supposed to occupy lineman and free up LBs. The center and tackle reach the LBs effortlessly. The gap assignments are hard to discern here. Frankly, it looks like our players have little idea. They play soft and uncertain.

3) The LBs tip toe up toward the line, waiting for the free lineman to come to them.  

4) Ford runs himself out of position and then gets held right in front of the ref (thanks Big 12).  

This is quite possibly the worst run defense I've ever seen here, and that includes the Gary Darnell and Tony Orlando years.  And it's not just talent.  They are playing uncertain and scared because their coach is coaching uncertain and scared.  

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I hadn’t noticed it much until today, but we are aligned way too wide too often. 3 guys outside their widest guy. I’m a big proponent of positioning a defender so that he can make a play to either side. This alignment negates that prospect.

Then the safeties.

It’s hard to blame the players when positioned to fail.

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I hadn’t noticed it much until today, but we are aligned way too wide too often. 3 guys outside their widest guy. I’m a big proponent of positioning a defender so that he can make a play to either side. This alignment negates that prospect.

Then the safeties.

It’s hard to blame the players when positioned to fail.

Send Pete an email on what you see on tv. He may change it up.
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There are 15 teams out of 130 giving up more yards per rush than us.  We’re giving up 5 yards and change.  200 per game.  That includes efforts against the likes of Rice and ULL.   And yet fundamentally we don’t change anything, while game after game teams put us away in the fourth quarter by running the ball.  

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Defensive line is probably the most disappointing unit, by far, of the season. How does everyone just get blocked, all the time? Nobody can win a 1on1 matchup? Even when a guy gets in the backfield and is in position to do something, he fucking whiffs and there's nothing behind him. Not like other teams that have multiple guys seemingly always around the ball carrier. I mean how many times have we seen the other team fumble a snap and STILL make a positive play? The opposing QBs literally have time to fumble, pick up the snap, run around a bit, and still make a positive play.

 

Another thing that gets me is watching these guys try to defend read option plays. Holy fucking fuck, get off your heels. Quit letting the fucking offense decide what happens there and go and fucking hit someone. It's pathetic.

 

Maybe those guys are being coached to fucking suck. Maybe they just suck. But either way it sucks to watch. These dudes should be drilling fundamentals until they puke, but it's so late in the season that it probably wouldn't help.

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All I want to see is a defensive scheme where we put 4 ACTUAL defensive linemen on the field to stop the run before we worry about anything else. Not 3 DT and a “Jack”, or a “Joker”, or a “Buckaroo”. 2 DE and 2 DT. We’re going to need to hit the portal for the DE because the clown show of D coordinators we have hired over the past decade didn’t seem to want to recruit them.

Secondly, out DBs need to stop being coached to bail to 10-15 yards beyond the LOS pre-snap. If I can see it happening on TV you can damn sure guarantee that opposing coaches see it. I would wager that 70% or more of Baylor’s receptions yesterday were a 5-10 yard hitch route. Why even try to run deep when we give up the first down willingly?

It really can’t be that hard to find a coordinator who understands the fundamentals of defensive football…right? 

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13 hours ago, CurlyDumps said:

If Sark is in the neighborhood of deserving the opportunity he was given, and wants to make it to year 4, PK will be gone 24 hours after the season ends.

He’ll get 2 years before he has to do the complete staff reboot Hail Mary. You’ve watched this movie before.

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2 hours ago, Pam Cummings said:

Defensive line is probably the most disappointing unit, by far, of the season. How does everyone just get blocked, all the time? Nobody can win a 1on1 matchup?

They’re not being asked to be disrupters. They’re being asked to eat blocks so that our LB’s and S’s can be playmakers. And that’s fine supposing our DL can actually eat the blocks and defend two gaps or that we have playmakers at the positions set up to make the plays. 
 

Basically, we’re trying to run a defense by asking each unit to do what they’re not good at because PK has a hard on for LB play. 

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11 minutes ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

They’re not being asked to be disrupters. They’re being asked to eat blocks so that our LB’s and S’s can be playmakers. And that’s fine supposing our DL can actually eat the blocks and defend two gaps or that we have playmakers at the positions set up to make the plays. 
 

Basically, we’re trying to run a defense by asking each unit to do what they’re not good at because PK has a hard on for LB play. 

Like Scipio said, he wants it to be one way, but it's the other way.

It will be interesting to see what Sark does.  A big test.

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I am out on PK. I understand he has personnel limitations and whatever, but he has not shown the awareness that is necessary between the ears to be able to stop these Big 12 offenses and the SEC won’t be much better with the direction the conference is moving offensively. 

The football played offensively in the PAC 12 compared to the Big 12 and SEC isn’t even in the same zip code.

I’m sure things would look a little different if he had actual linebackers and safeties who could fill holes, but the overall playcalling awareness is not going to change. 

If we retain him, whatever. It’s just delaying what we already know. I feel bad saying all this because I have always been one to give coaches time and get some of their own players, but I’ve seen enough. 

 

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23 minutes ago, USNALonghorn said:

Either Sark takes care of this situation or PK becomes his Orlando/Watson/Diaz. The coordinator opposite of our HCs background seems to be a problematic trend dating back to Mack hiring Manny Diaz.

Well, Charlie, bless him had a blind spot or stupidity for the other side of the ball.  Herman was a stubborn cuss on both sides of the ball.

We don't really know where Sark is on this.  Looks like we're about to find out.

Also, CDC apparently applied pressure to Herman to make changes.  Because Sark is "his" hire, one might think he'd do the same.

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7 hours ago, LTtxfan said:

Thx for this  @BurntOrange&White 

Damn PK,

Gerry is not typically a guy to call for a coach to be replaced so quickly

DCF89F1C-EFB4-4701-8ED6-8806175CFF15.jpeg

Ha yeah I was going to post this here this morning. 
 

it’s crazy that Gerry is already saying this. He’s right though. PKs performance this year has me wondering if it was PK or Lake that was the dude at Washington. 

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1 hour ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

They’re not being asked to be disrupters. They’re being asked to eat blocks so that our LB’s and S’s can be playmakers. And that’s fine supposing our DL can actually eat the blocks and defend two gaps or that we have playmakers at the positions set up to make the plays. 
 

Basically, we’re trying to run a defense by asking each unit to do what they’re not good at because PK has a hard on for LB play. 

This is what I don’t understand - if our defensive scheme is so deficient either by design, ill-fitting personnel, or just talent deficiencies, why is it so much more effective in the first half? I know teams make adjustments at halftime, but after watching the Arkansas game does any team’s initial game plan think it’s a good  idea to throw the ball all over the yard on us? Certainly after watching the second half of the OU game OSU and Baylor have come in with a run-heavy initial plan, but we have been able to shut them down in first halves. If the scheme was so poorly conceived from the start, it seems like teams would be exploiting it from the beginning. 
 

I ask you all this sincerely, not trying to make a rhetorical point, because you seem to know X’s and O’s very well. I’m genuinely trying to understand this. 

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He’ll get 2 years before he has to do the complete staff reboot Hail Mary. You’ve watched this movie before.

My favorite part of the movie is at the end of the 2nd act, the administration asks the same idiot protagonist that made the bad hires in the first place to use his bad judgement again to make new hires, only in far more unfavorable conditions. Then everyone involved deludes themselves into thinking this will turn things around because “this time it’s different.”

I’ve seen it so many times, it’s getting hard to root for the good guys anymore.
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1 hour ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

They’re not being asked to be disrupters. They’re being asked to eat blocks so that our LB’s and S’s can be playmakers. And that’s fine supposing our DL can actually eat the blocks and defend two gaps or that we have playmakers at the positions set up to make the plays. 
 

Basically, we’re trying to run a defense by asking each unit to do what they’re not good at because PK has a hard on for LB play. 

This right here is part of the problem. You don’t recruit quality DL by telling them their role is to eat blocks so that someone else can make a play. 
 

It has been a problem ever since Charlie hired whoever the fuck as his first D coordinator. We had Cedric Reed coming off a season where he played a real DE position and IIRC he has somewhere close to 10 sacks. We moved to a 3-4 front and had him playing 4I and guess what, his production dropped to almost 0. He actually publicly complained about this. And every coordinator we have hired since runs some variation of this same scheme. Supposedly PK is a 4-3 guy, but all I know is that I rarely see a defensive lineman set up outside the OT.

Games are won and lost along the lines. Until we run a scheme that allows DL to be playmakers we are going to continue to be mercilessly negative recruited, and rightfully so.

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5 minutes ago, bschoolprof said:


My favorite part of the movie is at the end of the 2nd act, the administration asks the same idiot protagonist that made the bad hires in the first place to use his bad judgement again to make new hires, only in far more unfavorable conditions. Then everyone involved deludes themselves into thinking this will turn things around because “this time it’s different.”

I’ve seen it so many times, it’s getting hard to root for the good guys anymore.

But in this reboot players can leave immediately with no restrictions 

 

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7 minutes ago, sportsbay said:

How many white legs do we have on defense?  I count 4 as starters..... Bush as a half starter so that's 5.  The # of white legs on defense = the number of losses per season.  We have at least one more loss coming but I expect more.  Gideon knows all about this stat.

Bush hasn’t gotten a snap the last two games. Whatever else you can say, I think PK recognized that problem and acted on it. I’d definitely like to see someone other than Schooler in there, and would probably give Ford more run over Brockermeyer. 

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My absolute favorite play design from yesterday, and there were so many to choose from- was the reverse pass TD from inside the 20. 

As expected, despite only defending a short field, we use two safeties over the top. Because we all know the most important thing to defend in the red zone is the deep ball. Despite having two safeties parked in the middle, we somehow manage to allow a slow developing play to pass right into the middle of the end zone through the magic of misdirection. 

That play should not have worked even against a conventional defense. It worked even against a defense theoretically designed to prevent that from happening. At this point, our two safeties are rendered ineligible by play design and on a large percentage of plays we have 9 players on the field. 

It’s time to put four guys on the line, have them attack and play man defense across the board. 
 

 

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10 minutes ago, Newy25 said:

My absolute favorite play design from yesterday, and there were so many to choose from- was the reverse pass TD from inside the 20. 

As expected, despite only defending a short field, we use two safeties over the top. Because we all know the most important thing to defend in the red zone is the deep ball. Despite having two safeties parked in the middle, we somehow manage to allow a slow developing play to pass right into the middle of the end zone through the magic of misdirection. 

That play should not have worked even against a conventional defense. It worked even against a defense theoretically designed to prevent that from happening. At this point, our two safeties are rendered ineligible by play design and on a large percentage of plays we have 9 players on the field. 

It’s time to put four guys on the line, have them attack and play man defense across the board. 
 

 

Who were the safeties parked in the middle? I seem to remember the middle being wide the fuck open. Schooler sure as hell wasn't there.

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3 minutes ago, Newy25 said:

My absolute favorite play design from yesterday, and there were so many to choose from- was the reverse pass TD from inside the 20. 

As expected, despite only defending a short field, we use two safeties over the top. Because we all know the most important thing to defend in the red zone is the deep ball. Despite having two safeties parked in the middle, we somehow manage to allow a slow developing play to pass right into the middle of the end zone through the magic of misdirection. 

That play should not have worked even against a conventional defense. It worked even against a defense theoretically designed to prevent that from happening. At this point, our two safeties are rendered ineligible by play design and on a large percentage of plays we have 9 players on the field. 

It’s time to put four guys on the line, have them attack and play man defense across the board.

...you mean the Philly Special that works all the time in the NFL and other CFB games?

...you mean the play that almost always a pass to the QB who walks it in w/o anyone covering?

...you mean the play where the guy who was supposed to cover the guy who caught the ball got tricked by the run?

Texas before the snap:

image.png.1fc37a4c99ff339a217d94346a888e35.png

ball in the air:

image.png.96a9c4205cc12b5849a5ae6076f89c60.png

Schooler at the bottom of the screen is out of position (tricked by reverse) - lined up on the Y in the end zone at snap.

the other safety is the guy at the top right of the screen on the goal line who came up to cover the reverse/Bohanan

the guy behind Bohanan is the CB who is back in his zone maybe (Thompson?)

 

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Just now, hookem48 said:

Who were the safeties parked in the middle? I seem to remember the middle being wide the fuck open. Schooler sure as hell wasn't there.

linked above w/ screenshot and video. it's almost for sure on the safety - either Schooler or the other S.

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4 minutes ago, hookem48 said:

Who were the safeties parked in the middle? I seem to remember the middle being wide the fuck open. Schooler sure as hell wasn't there.


The same two safeties who sit in the deep middle on every play. This time against a team snapping from inside the ten yard line.  Yet somehow they still were not in the middle of the field to defend against a play coming right at them. 

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3 minutes ago, Newy25 said:


The same two safeties who sit in the deep middle on every play. This time against a team snapping from inside the ten yard line.  Yet somehow they still were not in the middle of the field to defend against a play coming right at them. 

they are literally ~9 yards off the LOS, ~1 yard in the EZ.

they appear to be set up in position based on play call/scheme for this exact play. don't know for sure about the other S but it sure looks like Schooler was out of position entirely.

if it's the case, that isn't a scheme issue that is a player issue.

again, this is a play that works all the time at every level. NFL, college, HS, everywhere. it's a good play. it works.

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  • blacklab changed the title to Hey PK -- Keep the Sacks and Turnovers Comin' !!!
  • immamac changed the title to Hey PK -- What would you say you do here?

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