Line ‘em up: Predictions and Game Thread UNLV at UTEP

[lobbybuu]

Why do yall think our secondary is so bad? You'd think we'd be way better in the back-end considering we have a lot of returners who know how to play together (maybe thats too much of a conclusion by me) and everyone is a year older so I'd think some improvement would be made.

Jalen Frazier from NC State was a waste of a scholarship and Jaxen Turner looks really really really bad. Getting a couple of interceptions doesn't change that. He doesnt look rangy at all and has gotten burned badly several times each game. He was solid at Arizona so his performance thus far leaves much to be desired.

 

[Masked_rebel]

Why do yall think our secondary is so bad? You'd think we'd be way better in the back-end considering we have a lot of returners who know how to play together (maybe thats too much of a conclusion by me) and everyone is a year older so I'd think some improvement would be made.

Jalen Frazier from NC State was a waste of a scholarship and Jaxen Turner looks really really really bad. Getting a couple of interceptions doesn't change that. He doesnt look rangy at all and has gotten burned badly several times each game. He was solid at Arizona so his performance thus far leaves much to be desired.

1 part scheme, 1 part pressure..

The scheme has been terrible. Way to conservative and way to much zone... Don't get beat deep seems to be the only thing they care about.
Inability to generate QB pressure... speaks for itself. Hard to get 3rd down stops when you're dropping 8 and only rushing 3. Then when we do blitz, it tends to be slow and behind, resulting in late hits... and we're missing some talent there...

 

[j. spilotro]

Why do yall think our secondary is so bad? You'd think we'd be way better in the back-end considering we have a lot of returners who know how to play together (maybe thats too much of a conclusion by me) and everyone is a year older so I'd think some improvement would be made.

Jalen Frazier from NC State was a waste of a scholarship and Jaxen Turner looks really really really bad. Getting a couple of interceptions doesn't change that. He doesnt look rangy at all and has gotten burned badly several times each game. He was solid at Arizona so his performance thus far leaves much to be desired.

It has to be partially by design, no? I mean, if the philosophy is to sag because you’re worried about the deep ball, you’re going to see a lot of underneath completions. We’ve seen that a lot previously.

I prefer tight, straight up man to man, jamming them and sticking with them, but it’s easy for me to say from the seats.

Sometimes we some really good coverage and deflections and close outs. Other times we see stuff so wide open I could complete the pass left handed.

On the plus side, we are finally seeing a coach that is stressing special teams. All coaches say they do, but when you see how ineffective we’ve been in the past, you know it’s been lip service. Seems like these guys realize it can be a critical part of the game.

I’m still not sold on this team, they have some noticeable warts, especially defensively. They’ve done all they are supposed to do so far, so credit where credit is due.

 

[reagan21]

Could it be because the broadcast team is calling this game remotely? I read an article the other day about a college game being called by people not even in the stadium. SMH

ESPN sent cameras etc but I think the audio was just a simulcast of the UTEP radio crew

 

[Knight Rebel702]

ESPN sent cameras etc but I think the audio was just a simulcast of the UTEP radio crew

A very bad one at that! Lol

 

[reagan21]

A very bad one at that! Lol

True. I watched most of it on mute.

 

[dcut03]

1 part scheme, 1 part pressure..

The scheme has been terrible. Way to conservative and way to much zone... Don't get beat deep seems to be the only thing they care about.
Inability to generate QB pressure... speaks for itself. Hard to get 3rd down stops when you're dropping 8 and only rushing 3. Then when we do blitz, it tends to be slow and behind, resulting in late hits... and we're missing some talent there...

I think it is more scheme than personnel. I think we have a decent secondary and it's ineptitude is getting a bit overblown.

UTEP is a decent offensive team with a good offensive line. We still were able to limit them to under 100 yards rushing (which I think was our main concern last game), and we were still able to get sacks/ and pressures. I

Guys are going to get beat, especially at our level. It happens. Keeping UTEP under what 350 yards total isn't a terrible thing.

I think against Hawaii we will see some different things, especially if they are a bit one dimensional. The benefit of running a 3-3-5 essentially is that playing pass happy teams allows us to run normal packages against spread teams.

 

[dcut03]

It'll probably happen more and more if we commit to Maiava at QB and not flip back to Doug for a few games till he inevitably gets knocked out of a game again... like I really don't want to see us go back to Doug next week have 2-3 weeks of mediocre play vs bad teams where we get close wins and where we enter a big game and lays and egg vs Fresno similar to last yr vs SJSU... just to then go back to Maiava for a few weeks... offense needs to continue getting time together and I can only see good things from that

Time will tell. But considering the approach, last game looked like a gameplan that you run with a back up QB not an official changing of the guard. Run, Run, Run, short pass. It felt like it was because of health, not that it was an official starting QB change.
I think Doug will get the keys once healthy. and Rebel Net will FLIP THE EFF OUT, lol.
Maiava played decent but basically all of the criticisms for Doug this season was the exactly the same as how JM played last game but with more mistakes.

I don't want to crap on JM, he is a RS freshman who has a lot of promise who has made some big plays for us this year.

Maybe that is the plan for this season, extra heavy with the run? All the interviews with Marion talks about the vertical passing game, so that seems wrong. BUt if we are going to more run heavy, Doug makes more sense in that regard.

 

[InZoneU]

1 part scheme, 1 part pressure..

The scheme has been terrible. Way to conservative and way to much zone... Don't get beat deep seems to be the only thing they care about.
Inability to generate QB pressure... speaks for itself. Hard to get 3rd down stops when you're dropping 8 and only rushing 3. Then when we do blitz, it tends to be slow and behind, resulting in late hits... and we're missing some talent there...

If we rush 3 we might as well just drop 11 in coverage instead as the front 3 get nowhere. I don't know what the #s are but I'd guess we give up 85% completion rate doing that and it has me baffled.

 

[Boston Rebel 2]

1 part scheme, 1 part pressure..

The scheme has been terrible. Way to conservative and way to much zone... Don't get beat deep seems to be the only thing they care about.
Inability to generate QB pressure... speaks for itself. Hard to get 3rd down stops when you're dropping 8 and only rushing 3. Then when we do blitz, it tends to be slow and behind, resulting in late hits... and we're missing some talent there...

I agree with this nothing improves your secondary more than pressure and we have none of it. How many sacks do we have through 4 games? You can't blitz every play but they definitely could use more of it.

 

[dcut03]

I agree with this nothing improves your secondary more than pressure and we have none of it. How many sacks do we have through 4 games? You can't blitz every play but they definitely could use more of it.

Well we are 7th in Turnover margin, 5th in total turnovers, 9th in interception percentage, 58th in sack percentage.
47th in run defense, 115 in pass defense, 85th in total defense.

By nature of a 3 man front. You are going to "blitz" most plays with one of the LBs. occasionally we only rush 3. But usually one of the backers is on at least a delayed blitz to add pressure.

I do think our zones are pretty predictable since every time we show zone and stick with it, teams seem to find an easy pitch and catch. But you have to mix in play calls IMO. If we ran man all the time, our CB's will get tired and we again become more predictable.

 

[lvrebalum2012]

Maybe that is the plan for this season, extra heavy with the run? All the interviews with Marion talks about the vertical passing game, so that seems wrong. BUt if we are going to more run heavy, Doug makes more sense in that regard.

At the same time Odom is constantly talking about the importance of establishing the run. This might be so it opens up the passing game, but sounds like having a good run game is a preference of our head coach.

 

[Couev]

I do think one of the steps for growth in the defensive backfield is to run a little deception, show zone be in man or vice versa--I think the problem is we're still a little bit out of position in the zone ESPECIALLY from the LBs. Either they are having issues getting too deep or getting too wide, or our defensive scheme is to just leave huge bits of the field completely unmarked, which seems unlikely. I think that's part of the issue with the safeties, they are having to come down out of cover 2/cover 4 looks and take away crossing patterns the linebackers should be covering, which leaves lots of deep halves open.

I also think this is the least blitzing/aggressive version of the 3-3-5 I've seen. We go with 3 and 4 rushers a LOT. And if you're dropping 7 or 8, your zone defense should be pretty good behind it.

It gets hard to start trying to confuse people when you're confused in your own base coverages. But I think that we can clean some of that up and get to a point where we can start coming out of showing man or zone or even running some more complicated hybrid defenses.

 

[Boston Rebel 2]

Well we are 7th in Turnover margin, 5th in total turnovers, 9th in interception percentage, 58th in sack percentage.
47th in run defense, 115 in pass defense, 85th in total defense.

By nature of a 3 man front. You are going to "blitz" most plays with one of the LBs. occasionally we only rush 3. But usually one of the backers is on at least a delayed blitz to add pressure.

I do think our zones are pretty predictable since every time we show zone and stick with it, teams seem to find an easy pitch and catch. But you have to mix in play calls IMO. If we ran man all the time, our CB's will get tired and we again become more predictable.

We are tied for 75th with about 10 teams in sacks more importantly 97th in points allowed. I have only been able to watch two games but our OLB’s don’t appear strong enough for our defensive sets.