Our defensive philosophy blows!

[msugolf]

Between the past 2 years coupled with the Chris Wilson fiasco, I've had enough of the read and react, bend don't break defenses. Our DLineman are big and that's about it. There's no quickness or speed off the ends. Once a decent OLine gets their hands on our guys they can't disengage.

As much as I hate to admit it, the Bears defense is aggressive and will absolutely get after you. We seem like we are the opposite, very passive and letting the offense dictate what we do.

I'd much rather have an undersized quick defense that tackles exceptionally well than our approach. i'd like to see a lot of our DLine players get a lot leaner in the offseason. Of course, if we don't get better safety play then none of this will matter. Hoping Peters plays from day 1.

[Thick]

I can't stand it either! Zone coverage, no blitz packages whether it be with safeties or lb's. We had a gimped up Bo, and did NOTHING to make him move in the pocket. Terrible game planning by Collins....juice my ass!

[msstate7]

I really question our philosophy. We had a really good scoring offense this year. I think you should play more aggressively on defense when you have an offense, not less.

[GreenheadDawg]

I don't know which one I'm more pissed at today, Mullen or Collins. The offensive game plan and calling were atrocious but so was Collins' game plan. You have a hurt QB who obviously was not mobile and you rush 4 the whole time, and by the way our D-line got butt raped. I'm so sick of this bend don't break defense. OM brings pressure on EVERY play. I respect that. I've noticed that we are an extremely easy team to game plan for on both sides of the ball. I think I'm with some of the posters that feel that we will never win on the big stage with this staff. I'm hoping they are young and will learn from this year but I think Mullen is too hardheaded to get out of his own way

[Mjoelner34]

Between the past 2 years coupled with the Chris Wilson fiasco, I've had enough of the read and react, bend don't break defenses. Our DLineman are big and that's about it. There's no quickness or speed off the ends. Once a decent OLine gets their hands on our guys they can't disengage.

As much as I hate to admit it, the Bears defense is aggressive and will absolutely get after you. We seem like we are the opposite, very passive and letting the offense dictate what we do.

I'd much rather have an undersized quick defense that tackles exceptionally well than our approach. i'd like to see a lot of our DLine players get a lot leaner in the offseason. Of course, if we don't get better safety play then none of this will matter. Hoping Peters plays from day 1.

^^^THIS^^^ Especially the bolded part. I noticed on Engram's first long play, he was 20 yards behind the safety being chased by a linebacker while the safety was in space by himself and still peeking in the backfield when the pass was thrown.

[GTHOM]

The coaches are 100 percent to blame. They have made the same stupid mistakes over and over again, the 1B crap, not kicking the ball out of the back of the endzone giving up field position, taming Dak, stupidity. 10-2 with that coaching staff is a credit to the players. The players did their fair share of screwing up yesterday too, but a teams attitude and performance reflects the coaching staff.

[MabenMaroon]

The philosophy is pretty good, but as mentioned earlier in the year by the players themselves, it takes strong eye discipline, sound tackling technique and total focus and concentration on the responsibilities of your position. That is where we failed against tsun. I watched the full replay and can count 6 plays where defenders bit on fakes and 5 plays where our defender try to tackle with his head or shoulder pads and missed the tackle. The results led to 7 of 8 of their longest plays, resulting in 24 of their points. Tsun had one good drive where they lined up and just beat us man on man. Nothing special on tsun's part for most of the game, lot of individual collapses on our part.

[HoopsDawg]

Between the past 2 years coupled with the Chris Wilson fiasco, I've had enough of the read and react, bend don't break defenses. Our DLineman are big and that's about it. There's no quickness or speed off the ends. Once a decent OLine gets their hands on our guys they can't disengage.

As much as I hate to admit it, the Bears defense is aggressive and will absolutely get after you. We seem like we are the opposite, very passive and letting the offense dictate what we do.

I'd much rather have an undersized quick defense that tackles exceptionally well than our approach. i'd like to see a lot of our DLine players get a lot leaner in the offseason. Of course, if we don't get better safety play then none of this will matter. Hoping Peters plays from day 1.

I agree, most teams would take a guy like B-Mac and put him at DE. We also have 2 former RB's playing S. You want Safeties playing Safety or former QB's or WR's. Not RB's, this isn't 1991.

You would think with our style we would give up less big plays, but that certainly wasn't the case. We finished almost last in the country in passing yardage given up.

[PendingTransaction]

Mullen believes in bend don't break. Do y'all think that it's a coincident that all of our DCs employ this strategy? We don't allow our athletes to be athletes.

[preachermatt83]

Manny Diaz was not bend don't break. I want him back. Collins is not on his level no matter what any of you say. You give him the athletes and the freedom to run the D and he is awesome!

[Coach 57]

I'm going to try to not get aggravated after seeing these posts. So here goes, this "bad/poor philosophy" is the SAME that all but shut down the potent Auburn attack last year with Tre' Mason & Mashall show that nobody else (including Bama) could slow down. This is the SAME philosophy that shut down a championship senior led Bama offense. This is the SAME philosophy that got after & shut down COMPLETELY a HEALTHY Ole Miss Attack with Treadwell & Moncrief & Wallace? You guys are blowing me away with this quick reaction stuff. Go look at positions and stats at said position and the weakness is BLINDING if you look hard enough.

If you are a DC and you have the talent we have all over the field, all you can do is ATTEMPT to cover that position or deficiency up. Our safety position was the culprit! Not the "philosophy" Collins tried covering it up after injuries, suspensions & lack of experience. A lot of over reaction on this board since Saturday night. I understand some of it, but good grief think about how many times Nikoe bailed us out last year. Anybody remember Arkansas? Ole Miss? He was playing in a bum leg but was STILL better than the guys behind him. That should send up red flags if you are a MSU fan.

Plain and simple we had guys in the EB in position to make plays (*cough* tackles) and they DID NOT MAKE THEM! Their safeties tackled better and played better than ours Saturday. Part of that scheme (defensively to stop our offense) was predicated on 5 DBs making plays. That meant a safety was basically going to play as an extra backer. It mainly was Conner and he played VERY well!

If your going to get mad, wait till next year to do it. Why? Because we'll see if the 1b experiment paid off or not. It kept teams in games, it kept Ole Miss one step ahead. Now let's see if they can LEARN from getting beat. I personally think we will be fine & it will work itself out. But we've gotta get better play from our safeties!

[Liverpooldawg]

You guys need to stop embarrassing yourself. No system works when you miss tackle after tackle. We were in postion to make a play early on all but one of their big plays. For whatever reason we were missing tackles we had been making all year. Go back and look at the Auburn game. We made those tackles time after time.

[Liverpooldawg]

Manny Diaz was not bend don't break. I want him back. Collins is not on his level no matter what any of you say. You give him the athletes and the freedom to run the D and he is awesome!

Yes, Manny was a total failure at Texas because he only had two star recruits to work with there. Texas never gets any good ones.

[SignalToNoise]

I'm going to try to not get aggravated after seeing these posts. So here goes, this "bad/poor philosophy" is the SAME that all but shut down the potent Auburn attack last year with Tre' Mason & Mashall show that nobody else (including Bama) could slow down. This is the SAME philosophy that shut down a championship senior led Bama offense. This is the SAME philosophy that got after & shut down COMPLETELY a HEALTHY Ole Miss Attack with Treadwell & Moncrief & Wallace? You guys are blowing me away with this quick reaction stuff. Go look at positions and stats at said position and the weakness is BLINDING if you look hard enough.

If you are a DC and you have the talent we have all over the field, all you can do is ATTEMPT to cover that position or deficiency up. Our safety position was the culprit! Not the "philosophy" Collins tried covering it up after injuries, suspensions & lack of experience. A lot of over reaction on this board since Saturday night. I understand some of it, but good grief think about how many times Nikoe bailed us out last year. Anybody remember Arkansas? Ole Miss? He was playing in a bum leg but was STILL better than the guys behind him. That should send up red flags if you are a MSU fan.

Plain and simple we had guys in the EB in position to make plays (*cough* tackles) and they DID NOT MAKE THEM! Their safeties tackled better and played better than ours Saturday. Part of that scheme (defensively to stop our offense) was predicated on 5 DBs making plays. That meant a safety was basically going to play as an extra backer. It mainly was Conner and he played VERY well!

If your going to get mad, wait till next year to do it. Why? Because we'll see if the 1b experiment paid off or not. It kept teams in games, it kept Ole Miss one step ahead. Now let's see if they can LEARN from getting beat. I personally think we will be fine & it will work itself out. But we've gotta get better play from our safeties!

I agree with safety play being poor but what about the lack of pressure on Bo? It looked to me like we weren't even trying. What the hell was that about?

[CJDAWG85]

When exactly did Market get hurt? I don't remember seeing that?

[Coach 57]

The first big bomb to Engram (I think) down the seam. He feel and stayed down.

As far as our INability to pressure Bo, it had a WHOLE lot to do with 2 things. 1) I think Freeze challenged his OL like he hadn't done all year. They were coming off the ball and Tunsil played most of the game and handcuffed Preston and did a good job neutralizing him. Plus Freeze 2) was very adamant about running the football Vs last year not so much. It changes the dynamic of an OLmen when he's allowed to be aggressive and come off the ball. Our guys were not expecting that...credit their staff. Sometimes games come down to flat out execution from your players. Our defense was put in position TO execute, but failed to do so.

[SallyStansbury]

The first big bomb to Engram (I think) down the seam. He feel and stayed down.

As far as our INability to pressure Bo, it had a WHOLE lot to do with 2 things. 1) I think Freeze challenged his OL like he hadn't done all year. They were coming off the ball and Tunsil played most of the game and handcuffed Preston and did a good job neutralizing him. Plus Freeze 2) was very adamant about running the football Vs last year not so much. It changes the dynamic of an OLmen when he's allowed to be aggressive and come off the ball. Our guys were not expecting that...credit their staff. Sometimes games come down to flat out execution from your players. Our defense was put in position TO execute, but failed to do so.

So Freeze was unpredictable and aggressive, while we were predictable, passive, and failed to execute? Failed to execute..........failed to execute.........did I just have a Croomesque tingle, or was that gas?

[Irondawg]

let's be honest - going in did anyone NOT expect our front 4 to generate pressure on the OM line? We had consistently generated pressure with 4 in most games this year and OM was supposed to not have a very good o-line.

I'm not saying we shouldn't have adjusted at some point but I dont' think the initial gameplan was at fault.

On offense I read all year about how teams should just pound OM and wear them out in the 4th. I really think Dan thought it would work and even if the OM defense had early success against the run, that by the 4th they would be gassed. Simply didn't happen.

Our defense missing tackles and giving up the huge plays kept them emotially charged the whole second half. I really think if we had stopped them after we scored to take the lead that we are talking about a whole different ballgame.

[maroonmania]

Bend but don't break? Giving up huge play after huge play is not bend but don't break in my book. Yes, if we actually got someone to play from the red zone we were pretty dang good. But if someone scores from the 50 (or their own 5 by that matter) it still counts as 7 even if it doesn't hurt your precious "red zone defense" statistics. I actually thought Collins did a much better job with what he had last year than this year. Numbers are similar but we had much more experience and depth this year than last year so we should have been significantly better but we weren't. And I'm about ready to retire the "psycho defense" term, we are way too vanilla on defense at this point to be considered psycho anything.

[drunkernhelldawg]

In perspective, the defense worked very well this season. These calls for Collins' head are ridiculous at this point.

[maroonmania]

In perspective, the defense worked very well this season. These calls for Collins' head are ridiculous at this point.

First, haven't seen anyone calling for Collins' head so I don't know where you got that but our defense did not work well this season overall given expectations. The only game you could say our defense won for us was Arkansas. I think we can strive for a little better than 81 of 128 in total defense. Scoring defense was better but we still failed to get other offenses off the field because of all the yards being given up.

http://www.cfbstats.com/2014/leader/national/team/defense/split01/category10/sort01.html

[drunkernhelldawg]

First, haven't seen anyone calling for Collins' head so I don't know where you got that but our defense did not work well this season overall given expectations. The only game you could say our defense won for us was Arkansas. I think we can strive for a little better than 81 of 128 in total defense. Scoring defense was better but we still failed to get other offenses off the field because of all the yards being given up.

http://www.cfbstats.com/2014/leader/national/team/defense/split01/category10/sort01.html

Statistics don't mean shit. Not defending the performance Saturday but saying that our defense did its job most the of the time this season. I have seen the calls I referenced either on this board or another MSU board.

[GTHOM]

Guys can blame players all they want, they did miss tackles, our safeties were not very good this year, but in the 2nd half we played a cover 2 defense and never blitzed. When we did it was a corner blitz. Said this a million times since yesterday and it makes me sick every time i type it. They shredded our cover 2 by attacking the middle of the field, that is exactly how your supposed to attack it. That is on collins for not calling man, and not bringing pressure. How people can say we are bend but dont break when we allowed a ton of big plays this year is idiotic. You cannot play a lot of zone and still get toasted deep. Something needs to change. TSUN had 1 way to beat us and we let them do it. They ran the ball outside on us and we never even attempted to play our DEs differently, just had them engaging and reading not widening out and trying to set the edge. The long run they had was poor execution by our players

[maroonmania]

Guys can blame players all they want, they did miss tackles, our safeties were not very good this year, but in the 2nd half we played a cover 2 defense and never blitzed. When we did it was a corner blitz. Said this a million times since yesterday and it makes me sick every time i type it. They shredded our cover 2 by attacking the middle of the field, that is exactly how your supposed to attack it. That is on collins for not calling man, and not bringing pressure. How people can say we are bend but dont break when we allowed a ton of big plays this year is idiotic. You cannot play a lot of zone and still get toasted deep. Something needs to change. TSUN had 1 way to beat us and we let them do it. They ran the ball outside on us and we never even attempted to play our DEs differently, just had them engaging and reading not widening out and trying to set the edge. The long run they had was poor execution by our players

All of this PLUS they weren't supposed to be able to run on us but had over 200 yards rushing and their first 100 yard rushing game from a RB for the whole SEC season. That they ran for that much yardage on our vaunted rush defense was perhaps even more embarrasing than the big pass plays we gave up.

[drunkernhelldawg]

All of this PLUS they weren't supposed to be able to run on us but had over 200 yards rushing and their first 100 yard rushing game from a RB for the whole SEC season. That they ran for that much yardage on our vaunted rush defense was perhaps even more embarrasing than the big pass plays we gave up.

When I was a kid, an old man at Dudy Noble told me he went to every game because something he'd never seen before happens in every game. That's [anykindof]ball.

[Liverpooldawg]

Guys can blame players all they want, they did miss tackles, our safeties were not very good this year, but in the 2nd half we played a cover 2 defense and never blitzed. When we did it was a corner blitz. Said this a million times since yesterday and it makes me sick every time i type it. They shredded our cover 2 by attacking the middle of the field, that is exactly how your supposed to attack it. That is on collins for not calling man, and not bringing pressure. How people can say we are bend but dont break when we allowed a ton of big plays this year is idiotic. You cannot play a lot of zone and still get toasted deep. Something needs to change. TSUN had 1 way to beat us and we let them do it. They ran the ball outside on us and we never even attempted to play our DEs differently, just had them engaging and reading not widening out and trying to set the edge. The long run they had was poor execution by our players

We get it man, you want the whole coaching staff gone. Enough already.

[GTHOM]

We get it man, you want the whole coaching staff gone. Enough already.

Put some more words in my mouth. you forgot get a new QB and tear the expansion down

[GTHOM]

All of this PLUS they weren't supposed to be able to run on us but had over 200 yards rushing and their first 100 yard rushing game from a RB for the whole SEC season. That they ran for that much yardage on our vaunted rush defense was perhaps even more embarrasing than the big pass plays we gave up.

they got about 90 of them on one play, we never adjusted to them running outside. blame collins or whoever decided not to do that

[Liverpooldawg]

Put some more words in my mouth. you forgot get a new QB and tear the expansion down

If not then back off a bit. Enough already.

[Dawgcentral]

They had a crippled QB who is prone to making mistakes. Pressure on him to leave the pocket should have been a priority. Two of his top receivers were out of the game.

Orgeron attended two of our camps this year. Anyone think he can do a better job than Turner with our defensive line? Can Hughes become our recruiting coordinator? I'm not advocating wholesale changes, just wondering if we can tweak things in order to gain some more aggression on defense. Seems like our front four should be more aggressive.

[drunkernhelldawg]

They had a crippled QB who is prone to making mistakes. Pressure on him to leave the pocket should have been a priority. Two of his top receivers were out of the game.

Orgeron attended two of our camps this year. Anyone think he can do a better job than Turner with our defensive line? Can Hughes become our recruiting coordinator? I'm not advocating wholesale changes, just wondering if we can tweak things in order to gain some more aggression on defense. Seems like our front four should be more aggressive.

I'm tired of hearing this crippled qb shit. He had plenty of mobility and he wasn't making mistakes. As far as the receivers go, CBS went on and on about it, but OM apparently has other players who can run routes and catch a football. The significance of those factors is way overblown. Football is all about adjusting to the present situation. Last Saturday's game is not being played this Saturday. I do agree with you though that our defense was awful. Whatever we were doing, we should have been doing something else.

[Dawgcentral]

I'm tired of hearing this crippled qb shit. He had plenty of mobility and he wasn't making mistakes. As far as the receivers go, CBS went on and on about it, but OM apparently has other players who can run routes and catch a football. The significance of those factors is way overblown. Football is all about adjusting to the present situation. Last Saturday's game is not being played this Saturday. I do agree with you though that our defense was awful. Whatever we were doing, we should have been doing something else.

Yeah. How many times did we sack a QB with his ankle taped 2 inches thick? They have plenty of receivers yet the TE beat is all damn night. I really don't give a damn if you're tired of hearing it. I'm just offering an opinion.

[Dawgcentral]

And Bo threw an early INT. So he was making mistakes.

[Todd4State]

Bend but don't break as a philosophy is sound in general football terms. Much like the West Coast Offense is also sound in football terms.

As a preference, I do like blitzing and putting pressure on the QB and mix in some zone as well.

If we're in zone all the time, I think that leads to a lack of aggressiveness sometimes. Plus, every coach in America knows zone beaters for every type of zone coverage- which is why we need to disguise more. Personally, as far as us, I think our lack of aggressiveness in general led to us not being able to create a lot of turnovers. I believe that blitzing is what causes turnovers a lot of the time- and when you do that, you stop the offense and a lot of times get a shorter field to score. We did do well with sacking the QB overall this year. Unless you have four elite D-linemen, it's hard to ask four guys to get pressure when they are going up against five blockers.

I want to see more stunting on the d-line, more blitzing from the LB's and safeties (especially if they can't cover anyway), more relying on Redmond and Calhoun in coverage rather than blitzing Redmond and hoping he makes a tackle.

[drunkernhelldawg]

Yeah. How many times did we sack a QB with his ankle taped 2 inches thick? They have plenty of receivers yet the TE beat is all damn night. I really don't give a damn if you're tired of hearing it. I'm just offering an opinion.

Don't take it personally. I just disagree. Didn't you think Wallace moved effectively in the game? My point is that all those negatives for them end up not actually mattering. Maybe part of our game plan was to try and take advantage of those negatives, and maybe that's what bit us n the ass. If any of our coaches or players thought about those things leading up to the game, that was to the advantage of them, not us. And I didn't say Wallace was mistake free; I'm saying he wasn't "mistake prone" in our game as he made no more than the normal number of mistakes for his position. So yeah, I am tired of this crippled quarterback myth. And I think all of those negatives for OM are being overplayed.

[GTHOM]

Bend but don't break as a philosophy is sound in general football terms. Much like the West Coast Offense is also sound in football terms.

As a preference, I do like blitzing and putting pressure on the QB and mix in some zone as well.

If we're in zone all the time, I think that leads to a lack of aggressiveness sometimes. Plus, every coach in America knows zone beaters for every type of zone coverage- which is why we need to disguise more. Personally, as far as us, I think our lack of aggressiveness in general led to us not being able to create a lot of turnovers. I believe that blitzing is what causes turnovers a lot of the time- and when you do that, you stop the offense and a lot of times get a shorter field to score. We did do well with sacking the QB overall this year. Unless you have four elite D-linemen, it's hard to ask four guys to get pressure when they are going up against five blockers.

I want to see more stunting on the d-line, more blitzing from the LB's and safeties (especially if they can't cover anyway), more relying on Redmond and Calhoun in coverage rather than blitzing Redmond and hoping he makes a tackle.

Great post. Somebody show collins this

[GTHOM]

If not then back off a bit. Enough already.

Dont understand where i said fire all the coaches or even one coach

[Liverpooldawg]

Dont understand where i said fire all the coaches or even one coach

Every post you have made in every thread since Saturday night has been a viscious attack on the coaches, Mullen and Collins in particular. I understand being upset but give it a rest. I was calling it the worst season every Saturday night. I've backed off with time. You have to move on unless you really have an agenda. You can lay blame on the coaches, they obviously deserve some. But to lay it in them and then alone is asinine. Coaches don't miss tackles or get pushed around on the line. It would be different if that kind of stuff had happened all year, then that might make those coaching issues. The FACT is it hadn't happened all year. We had been a very good tackling team and had at worst held our own on the line of scrimmage. That was a comprehensive defeat. You can't just place blame on one area like coaching. The players had a collective bad day and IMO our fans had one of our worst weeks leading up to a game ever. Time to move on.

[GTHOM]

Every post you have made in every thread since Saturday night has been a viscious attack on the coaches, Mullen and Collins in particular. I understand being upset but give it a rest. I was calling it the worst season every Saturday night. I've backed off with time. You have to move on unless you really have an agenda. You can lay blame on the coaches, they obviously deserve some. But to lay it in them and then alone is asinine. Coaches don't miss tackles or get pushed around on the line. It would be different if that kind of stuff had happened all year, then that might make those coaching issues. The FACT is it hadn't happened all year. We had been a very good tackling team and had at worst held our own on the line of scrimmage. That was a comprehensive defeat. You can't just place blame on one area like coaching. The players had a collective bad day and IMO our fans had one of our worst weeks leading up to a game ever. Time to move on.

I clearly said the coaches cant make tackles for them, and block for them.

[Dawgcentral]

Don't take it personally. I just disagree. Didn't you think Wallace moved effectively in the game? My point is that all those negatives for them end up not actually mattering. Maybe part of our game plan was to try and take advantage of those negatives, and maybe that's what bit us n the ass. If any of our coaches or players thought about those things leading up to the game, that was to the advantage of them, not us. And I didn't say Wallace was mistake free; I'm saying he wasn't "mistake prone" in our game as he made no more than the normal number of mistakes for his position. So yeah, I am tired of this crippled quarterback myth. And I think all of those negatives for OM are being overplayed.

Sorry if that came off badly. Didn't take it personally. I just feel like with our talent up front we could dial up some more pressure on a QB that wasn't going to do much outside of the pocket.