Dan and defense

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Originally Posted by preachermatt83

Dan micromanages the Defense plain and simple. Insomuch as he will go in the meeting rooms and critique certain schematic things

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Dan is paid to micromanage the defense as well as the entire 17ing program - He's the head coach. I don't see *** so I guess you're serious with this.

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Originally Posted by starkvegasdawg34

This is for people that know because I surely don't.

I've seen a lot of people posting on here saying they wish Dan would quit meddling in the defense. But I remember reading somewhere or had someone tell me that a defensive starter was quoted as saying that Dan doesn't even know the names of the defensive players. He hates defense and has nothing to do with it. Those are two pretty polar opposite stances. So I wonder if he really is the micromanager of defense or if he is completely hands off to the point that he doesn't even know the players' names. My guess is that like most "facts" presented in an argument, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Maybe he tells the DC here is the type of defense that shall be run and then he scurries back to the offense. I don't know. So for those of you whose ties to the team go beyond this message board and maybe a set of season tickets, how involved is he really?

Oh, and don't call me Shirley.

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When I see him chest bump a defensive player after a nice play I just can't see him say atta boy now what's your name or pulling out his phone and hailstate app to match jersey nunbers to players name. He definitely could forget the name of his DC cause they constantly change

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Originally Posted by Really Clark?

First off the bend don't break is a philosophy that is ran in many many different schemes. Saban runs a bend don't break but from a 3-4 and while aggressive in ways, it's not a blitz heavy scheme. He has superior athletes so he can rush 4-5 guys and still play zone, match up zone, Cover 1, Cover 3, etc. There are just not many who don't run some version of bend don't break. So people need to understand that is technically what you see the majority of the time when you watch most defenses.

As far as going down the line DC by DC running the same stuff. That's incorrect to a certain degree and not incorrect because of circumstances. Torbush ran his own defense. You saw some similar stuff but Torbush was schooled under Teaff and Bully Brewer and it was different from Diaz. Now he didn't work was informed to find another job.

Then came Diaz and Wilson. They wrote our defensive playbook together. It was that playbook that was used through Wilson, Collins and back to Diaz. Diaz even mentioned how much of the terminology and scheme was the same as when he left. That had nothing to do with Mullen. Even though it is the most prevalent defense ran and Dan does like that.

Now Diaz was a Chuck Amato disciple who learned most of his philosophy under the NC State long time DC Al Michaels and was there under the Lou Holtz years. Holtz was a big influence on many of the modern Cover 2 type guys like Kiffin and Pete Carroll. Chris Wilson cut his teeth under Tim McGuire who, like Monte Kiffin, was influenced by Devaney and Osborn at Nebraska. McGuire has been coaching for a very long time and has put out some good assistants over the years. Wilson played under Gary Gibbs at Oklahoma. All bend don't break guys and if you started really looking at what they ran you will see a lot of similarities to what we do. The passing and spread concepts tweaking it of course.

Collins came in and he was influenced a lot by Ted Roof who played under Don Lindsey. Lindsey's list of who he has coached with and influenced and been influenced by is extensive. He was with Holtz from 81-83 and Frank Broyles in 1970. Was under John McKay and John Robinson at USC but Bear and Jim Sweeney (interesting fact he was Dennis Erickson's coach at Montana St and conveniced Jan Stenerud to tryout for kicker even though he was at Montana St in a skiing scholarship) was his two early influences.

Anyway, just another cog to add to the bend don't break philosophy and the bulk of these guys have also been 4-3 scheme types. So with that you see similarities bleed through. Then of course we get back to Diaz who wrote the dang thing to begin with.

With Sirmon there have been some differences but with our injuries and issues in the secondary, coverages have had to be more like what has been previously done. Although, it hasn't been completely identical even with that.

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Diaz is a multiple front fire zone blitz guy. He is 3 under 3 deep with somebody coming the majority of the time. We didnt see that here. My problem isnt so much the playcalling on D, its the basic schematic technique things that we do horribly awfully wrong. We are the only team in the country that gives up the 8-10 yard hitch whenever they want it. We give it up by alignment. We are the only team in the country that plays man coverage with our safeties from 8 yards. Its impossible for them to do that. Earl Thomas aint covering guys in man from that deep. We are one of the only teams in college that refuses to go with a nickel package. Its infuriating. We dont even tackle well, and Richie Brown cannot scrape and fill a hole whatsoever

I agree with RC, but it seems that it is always that we are just a tick off on getting to the QB, giving them just enough time to find that open receiver that our secondary had a brain fart on... if we were just a step quicker, we'd probably be leading in sacks... and to add, if the DL would just go balls to the wall instead of doing a bunch of cute spin moves, we'd be there.

And I also agree to an earlier post in the week that questioned our S&C now, opposed to Balis made....

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Originally Posted by GTHOM

Diaz is a multiple front fire zone blitz guy. He is 3 under 3 deep with somebody coming the majority of the time. We didnt see that here. My problem isnt so much the playcalling on D, its the basic schematic technique things that we do horribly awfully wrong. We are the only team in the country that gives up the 8-10 yard hitch whenever they want it. We give it up by alignment. We are the only team in the country that plays man coverage with our safeties from 8 yards. Its impossible for them to do that. Earl Thomas aint covering guys in man from that deep. We are one of the only teams in college that refuses to go with a nickel package. Its infuriating. We dont even tackle well, and Richie Brown cannot scrape and fill a hole whatsoever

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The soft coverage with no pressure sucks.

I suspect Dan is driven by "not making mistakes". But being highly predictable with middle of the field open, no stunts, no slants, no twists with our D linemen, no aggression, and now 8 years of film for opposing coaches to plan on, prevent at the end of Kentucky, THAT IS A MISTAKE, Dan.

You wonder if Nick James had slipped his man at the end of the Kentucky game and sacked the QB for a game winning play if Dan would have chewed his ass and benched him for "not sticking to the plan" and occupying his man by rushing straight ahead and engaging blockers!!!!" Our whole team plays like they are about to get ass chewed over *making a mistake* rather than getting a high five for busting someone's ass or generating a turnover/big play.