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Defense Needs a ton of work

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Knucklehank1

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Disappointed in Brown’s game plan. We had some success when attacking the gaps but got gashed when we tried a containment defense. We simply aren’t strong enough to play true contain defense. To give up this many yards to a team that doesn’t pass the ball is honestly embarrassing.
 
Yeah the game plan today was crap. No run blitzes and terrible alignment. Complete utter failure which is on the entire entire defensive staff. It ok to get beat up front it is not ok to constantly not have people in the right spot.

The rebuild on that side of the ball is real.

The Oline needs work they didn’t play good against the better lines they faced.
 
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I don't buy the no players thing. We have athletes and football players. I understand being short on depth, size, talent, etc.... but you can still give some resistance and tackle, or something. I appreciate all the staff has done this season..... but my one concern is on d. That really has not improved. I'll wait till next year and see if they improve
 
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The truth hurts and often appears to be an excuse when it is simply an astute observation of reality... a reality validated by the stats of the game.

Giving up 500+ yards rushing when you know all the plays are going to be running plays is not very good defense no matter how you break it down.

Anyone seeing something different?
 
That’s an excuse...
It is not an excuse it is a reality. I am not surprised at all by the result. Their line has be very good all year. The game plan appeared to be play them straight up which had no chance of working. I am surprised the lack of aggressiveness in the game plan. I haven’t been super impressed with the defensive staff.

With that said I can’t really evaluate them. There is not 1 NFL player on the Louisville defense. The lack of speed on that side of the ball is clear. You can game plan all day long but if their guys are better than yours good luck.
 
The offense scored 13 points on two big plays. The ST missed an EPA, failed fake punt, and another bad punt. This loss was a team effort.
 
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Sometimes you have to hit rock at the bottom before you start digging your way out of the hole. This year was seen by many as a rebuild. The fact that we had some skills on offense sorta masked the fact that the defense was pretty much decimated by having three DCs over three years and a prior coaching staff that just flat didn’t recruit much on the D side of the line. I trust Brown and feel like we need to give him some time to turn this thing around. Proud of our team and looking for better times ahead.
 
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It is not an excuse it is a reality. I am not surprised at all by the result. Their line has be very good all year. The game plan appeared to be play them straight up which had no chance of working. I am surprised the lack of aggressiveness in the game plan. I haven’t been super impressed with the defensive staff.

With that said I can’t really evaluate them. There is not 1 NFL player on the Louisville defense. The lack of speed on that side of the ball is clear. You can game plan all day long but if their guys are better than yours good luck.
The slapd!cks averaged about fifty more yards on offense this year than they gave up on defense. That is NOT domination along the LOS esp. when you consider how soft their schedule was.

There's not a way in hell that LPT team should be dominating you unless you allow yourself to be dominated. That's close to what I saw. Anything beyond that is excuse-making...
 
It wasn’t any different than how we played all year. No depth and just tired, sometimes you just run out of gas and you run on E. And I truly believe they played so hard this year, they truly gave everything they had.

We’re better than we were last season? Definitely.

Is it hard to build continuity with 4 DCs in 4 years. Heck yes

When you have a mass defection of transfers combined with a coach only recruiting receivers and running back, you can’t build a good defense.

We had to score points to win and when we didn’t there just wasn’t enough momentum for the D to keep fighting. We scored on 2 big plays all day, they got some stops late in the 2nd and just got broken to start the 2nd half.

They get a mulligan for this year. We went 7-5, let’s see where we are after another off season and a bunch of fresh bodies on the depth chart next year!
 
It is not an excuse it is a reality. I am not surprised at all by the result. Their line has be very good all year. The game plan appeared to be play them straight up which had no chance of working. I am surprised the lack of aggressiveness in the game plan. I haven’t been super impressed with the defensive staff.

With that said I can’t really evaluate them. There is not 1 NFL player on the Louisville defense. The lack of speed on that side of the ball is clear. You can game plan all day long but if their guys are better than yours good luck.
I was disappointed by the game plan myself . why were we playing straight up when we knew they weren't going to pass? I would have loaded the box and run blitzed every play and if they were able to beat us throwing the ball then so be it. At least they had to punt this year is about the only positive I saw.
 
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I was disappointed by the game plan myself . why were we playing straight up when we knew they weren't going to pass? I would have loaded the box and run blitzed every play and if they were able to beat us throwing the ball then so be it. At least they had to punt this year is about the only positive I saw.

We were loading the box which explains why they were breaking off the long TD runs after the first line of missed tackles.
 
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We were loading the box which explains why they were breaking off the long TD runs after the first line of missed tackles.
Not really we were playing safeties 10 yards deep and giving our usual 8 yard cushions to the wideouts. The only time we stopped them was when we brought the safeties up like when Pass made the 4th down stop.
 
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I'm not sure we all agree on what "loading the box" means.

When I look at the personnel and see just four D-linemen and two LBs within five yards of the O-linemen as I did multiple times today, that doesn't meet my definition. When I see three wideouts and three DBs split off in coverage as I did multiple times, I'm similarly confused.

And I think the stat for the first 40 LPT plays was 95% rushes. WTF were we expecting? I was told all week that Satterfield & staff knew this was coming. Stupes did nothing different, I don't know jack about football coaching, but I KNEW THAT.

Getting into the best or right alignment has nothing to do with talent or recruiting...
 
The slapd!cks averaged about fifty more yards on offense this year than they gave up on defense. That is NOT domination along the LOS esp. when you consider how soft their schedule was.

There's not a way in hell that LPT team should be dominating you unless you allow yourself to be dominated. That's close to what I saw. Anything beyond that is excuse-making...
Do you even watch football? At what point has Louisville ever won the line of scrimmage on defense for 3 years? There is a talent gap on the defensive side of the ball. Please find me a college team that has a good defense playing walk in’s and no NFL players.

You tell me who on the Louisville DLine and even linebacker would start for UK. The answer is none.

This is a incredibly flawed team that managed 7 wins. The flaw is completely related to talent.
 
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I'm not sure we all agree on what "loading the box" means.

When I look at the personnel and see just four D-linemen and two LBs within five yards of the O-linemen as I did multiple times today, that doesn't meet my definition. When I see three wideouts and three DBs split off in coverage as I did multiple times, I'm similarly confused.

And I think the stat for the first 40 LPT plays was 95% rushes. WTF were we expecting? I was told all week that Satterfield & staff knew this was coming. Stupes did nothing different, I don't know jack about football coaching, but I KNEW THAT.

Getting into the best or right alignment has nothing to do with talent or recruiting...
I’m not an expert, but all year it seems like our guys would stand up a bit further back to make up for the lack of size. I don’t think that changed one bit today, I think he thought we couldn’t line up with them so he wanted to back off, but that just gave them a 3 yard push every play.

Now I couldn’t tell if we adjusted the play style or not.
 
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Do you even watch football? At what point has Louisville ever won the line of scrimmage on defense for 3 years? There is a talent gap on the defensive side of the ball. Please find me a college team that has a good defense playing walk in’s and no NFL players.

You tell me who on the Louisville DLine and even linebacker would start for UK. The answer is none.

This is a incredibly flawed team that managed 7 wins. The flaw is completely related to talent.
The slappies set a school rushing record against us today. Do we have worse guys on defense than every team that has ever played the slapd!cks?

Do you ever pay attention to numbers?...
 
Do you pay attention to how those numbers were accumulated? Did you see any D-Line or Linebacker getting off blocks or making one on one tackles? When a linebacker were in a position to make a tackle they whiffed. Then other times the kids didn’t do their job in protecting gaps. Their guys were better than our guys.

It is really simple when you aren’t really talented you better be perfect in your execution. I don’t expect any 1st year coach to be perfect.
 
Do you pay attention to how those numbers were accumulated? Did you see any D-Line or Linebacker getting off blocks or making one on one tackles? When a linebacker were in a position to make a tackle they whiffed. Then other times the kids didn’t do their job in protecting gaps. Their guys were better than our guys.

It is really simple when you aren’t really talented you better be perfect in your execution. I don’t expect any 1st year coach to be perfect.
I think people are confusing lack of effort with just lack of energy/endurance. Where people think they looked like they weren’t trying, they just were too tired.

Nobody else is mentioning that on top of facing all the runs this week, we played almost 80 snaps against Syracuse last week.
 
Do you pay attention to how those numbers were accumulated? Did you see any D-Line or Linebacker getting off blocks or making one on one tackles? When a linebacker were in a position to make a tackle they whiffed. Then other times the kids didn’t do their job in protecting gaps. Their guys were better than our guys.

It is really simple when you aren’t really talented you better be perfect in your execution. I don’t expect any 1st year coach to be perfect.
So that's the first time a team defending LPT has exhibited such poor performance entirely related to roster talent? They've played football over a hundred years and almost eleven hundred games. Your roster is the worst.

Just quoting that is mind blowing...
 
Our defense has been giving up a ton of yards and points all season. The difference is that our offense could keep up or we would get a timely turnover. Not today.

Honestly, Brown is in a difficult situation. We just don’t have the dudes to be competitive. Once Grantham left and the last of Strong guys graduated that was it for our defense. And this years recruiting class doesn’t seem to be the “homerun” we need.
 
So that's the first time a team defending LPT has exhibited such poor performance entirely related to roster talent? They've played football over a hundred years and almost eleven hundred games. Your roster is the worst.

Just quoting that is mind blowing...
I don’t know what to tell you but Louisville has been getting gashed for the past 3 years. With 3 different coaches. Yeah it is a talent issue. They were killed in the transfer portal on the defensive side. They have 2 legit Division 1 DT that is it. The recruiting on that side of the ball has been average at best since Strong left.

The games they lost the offense couldn’t keep up which going to happen when they face good defenses. The offense scores quick and has 3 and outs talk about pouring gas on a fire.

I will say it again it is a complete rebuild in the defensive side. That is not the kids or current staffs fault. Next year won’t be much better it is going to take time. They have to develop talent and build depth.
 
There were so many plays (too many to remember) that get blown up if the first guy that gets there just tackles. I haven't seen great tackling since Charlie was here.
 
Fans were spoiled, there's been NFL 1st Rd draft pick guys on that line (Rankins, LoZo) for a decent stretch - they were great players. They made plays in the backfield. They were so good they put their teammates in position to make plays.

Need that kind of talent. If there is NFL draft talent on the D side of the ball then you have to point the fingers at the coaches all the way. Since there clearly isn't, it's up to the coaches to find the talent. Can't expect Rankins/LoZo types, but certainly some guys that are good enough to get drafted somewhere.
 
Not really we were playing safeties 10 yards deep and giving our usual 8 yard cushions to the wideouts. The only time we stopped them was when we brought the safeties up like when Pass made the 4th down stop.

To combat the Kentucky rushing scheme, Louisville attempted to load the box. The downside to doing that is that if tackles are missed, like they were on Saturday, big plays can happen.

Kentucky had four straight second-half touchdown runs of 60, 46, 64 and 32 yards. While the Cardinals have been known to give up big plays in the passing game, they've fared well against keeping long run plays out of the end zone. Before Saturday's game the Cardinals gave up just three rushing touchdowns of 35 yards or more.

“Once they clear that five-to-six-yard area there’s not anybody else there and if you don’t make the tackle, it’s going to be a touchdown,” Satterfield said. “That’s why they had so many big plays.”
Courier Journal: Louisville's tackling woes exposed against Kentucky

https://www.courier-journal.com/sto...tackling-woes-exposed-vs-kentucky/4339544002/
 
Look anytime you give up 500 yards the staff did a terrible job preparing the kids. The kids were out of position and when they were in position they missed tackles. They don’t have enough talent to overcome missed tackles and being out of position.

The thing I just don’t get is how the linebackers and safeties were slow playing everything almost like they were afraid of the pass. I would of preferred a much more aggressive game plan.
 
The offense scored 13 points on two big plays. The ST missed an EPA, failed fake punt, and another bad punt. This loss was a team effort.
The Defense was a known quantity. Crappy. Quite Crappy. But the Offense is what made for the Kentucky lawnmower job. Cards had zero offense in 2nd half. No plan. None. They had the entire halftime to adjust to what UK Defense was doing in the first half. They didn't. Cards Offense is what made this into a 32 point beatdown. Cards almost surely were going to lose this game on this day. But not by 32 points! Outscored 28-0 in second half. Cards Offense scored ZERO in second half. Obviously Defense is awful. But Offense has been quite good most of season. Complete collapse by Offensive Coaches and Offensive Players yesterday is what made this into a rout of gigantic proportions.

This game should have been a 14 point loss.

Head Coach and Off Coord didn't fix anything at halftime. Awful!
 
To go back to the OP, if the "Defense needs a ton of work" (which it does!), then the Offense needs a 'half-ton'. I don't think there are more than 2 or 3 Defensive players and 4 or 5 Offensive players that would start for any Top 20 college football team. The D Line players and the Backers look to all be physically weak, small, and underweight. The Off Line, except for Becton, looks undersized, and weak.

The Receivers and RBs look OK.

That's basically at least 11 players who are not properly sized and skilled and strong enough to play at the top half of P5.
 
This Defense should keep the current staff for three more seasons. It HAS to get better! Continuity.

And if we can't develop an O Line which is actually strong enough to block in 3 seasons, then I give up!
 
That is the magic question can Louisville recruit well enough to compete with the top team in the conference. They haven’t been able to since their arrival in the ACC. The roster management/ turnover hasn’t been good either.

It is a very difficult place to recruit to. Not much home grown talent with a lot of competition for that small pool of players

.
 
That is the magic question can Louisville recruit well enough to compete with the top team in the conference. They haven’t been able to since their arrival in the ACC. The roster management/ turnover hasn’t been good either.

It is a very difficult place to recruit to. Not much home grown talent with a lot of competition for that small pool of players

.
Hell yeah we can recruit well enough. Strong’s first 2 classes were monsters. The amount of NFL talent in those classes is insane.

The real question is CAN this staff recruit at that level? They have 2 proven power 5 recruiters. We have to wait and see what happens. Coming from App State they don’t have the connections with the top schools and talent that a staff would have if they came from a mid-high level power 5 team. BUT, after players have seen what this staff can do they should start to turn some heads.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. All we need is to get 4-5 4-star kids per class to be a contender. We will find out in this next class
 
I don’t know what to tell you but Louisville has been getting gashed for the past 3 years. With 3 different coaches. Yeah it is a talent issue. They were killed in the transfer portal on the defensive side. They have 2 legit Division 1 DT that is it. The recruiting on that side of the ball has been average at best since Strong left.

The games they lost the offense couldn’t keep up which going to happen when they face good defenses. The offense scores quick and has 3 and outs talk about pouring gas on a fire.

I will say it again it is a complete rebuild in the defensive side. That is not the kids or current staffs fault. Next year won’t be much better it is going to take time. They have to develop talent and build depth.
No you've been getting gashed for three years because your defensive coaches couldn't coach. That's why we kept changing coordinators. The problem is the next guy we brought in was worse than the guy he replaced. The head coach didn't know what he was doing.

And my fear is that's still the case with the defense. U of L history shows it probably is...
 
I don't know what game some were watching, but the defense yesterday did NOT "load the box", at least by my definition. I never saw a slapd!ck wide receiver go uncovered yesterday. That's defending a gimmick offense honestly, and there's no excuse for that...
 
We never stacked the box. The middle was a wide open lane all day to run thru. Their O-line was very solid and we knew we were going to have trouble with them. Learning opportunity for a young DC.
 
No you've been getting gashed for three years because your defensive coaches couldn't coach. That's why we kept changing coordinators. The problem is the next guy we brought in was worse than the guy he replaced. The head coach didn't know what he was doing.

And my fear is that's still the case with the defense. U of L history shows it probably is...
Go back and look at the defense recruiting last 4 years. It hasn’t been very good. When you have no continuity 4 coordinators in 4 years recruiting is pretty tough. Add in the transfers you have a void talent wise.

The coaches have to do better. I tend to wait and see how they recruit 1st then see how the players develop. Hard to judge a class until they actually play. We will see what kind of progress is made next year.
 
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