Coastal Carolina

[AppSt94]

We accomplished three goals today.
1-0 this week
1-0 in the conference
4-0 on the season.

Everything else is irrelevant to the masses,

[asu1978]

I'm a '78 grad and I still have the need to be back,will be there at homecoming.That includes my family (It's addictive)

[appstatealum]

Guys, this model is not sustainable. Our offense and our special teams have been great, but we are putting a lot of pressure on them with this defense. We are a Zac Thomas injury away from being in big trouble.

Again, I stand up in my perch at KBS and wonder why we aren't making simple adjustments. Again, Roof (or whoever) has our LBs too shallow and, today, pinched in to the middle where Coastal just through shallow outs nullifying any blitzing or pass rush and forced our safeties to have to come down and make tackles or our CBs to break off blocks to make plays. All game. No adjustment. It's not even a "bend don't break" model because when the other team scores that much, you broke!

Look, I predicted the score to be 56-24 for a reason. I'm still not a believer in this defense. I wanted to see some trends that could have been started last week. Having Gaither off the line would have been a start. Again this week, he was back lined up too tight. You cant keep putting these guys in tough positions to make plays. Know your personnel and game plan to our strengths.

This offense is spectacular, and I said the same thing tonight "We would be a good Big 12 team". But it's not sustainable. Love the scoring, just want to see some competent defense to support it.

[AppStFan1]

We accomplished three goals today.
1-0 this week
1-0 in the conference
4-0 on the season.

Everything else is irrelevant to the masses,

Glad to be where we are but we have not accomplished anything yet and Roof is going to cost us 1-2 games and that is with ZT. If he goes down we are in trouble. #1-0 #BeatLouisiana

[AppStFan1]

Guys, this model is not sustainable. Our offense and our special teams have been great, but we are putting a lot of pressure on them with this defense. We are a Zac Thomas injury away from being in big trouble.

Again, I stand up in my perch at KBS and wonder why we aren't making simple adjustments. Again, Roof (or whoever) has our LBs too shallow and, today, pinched in to the middle where Coastal just through shallow outs nullifying any blitzing or pass rush and forced our safeties to have to come down and make tackles or our CBs to break off blocks to make plays. All game. No adjustment. It's not even a "bend don't break" model because when the other team scores that much, you broke!

Look, I predicted the score to be 56-24 for a reason. I'm still not a believer in this defense. I wanted to see some trends that could have been started last week. Having Gaither off the line would have been a start. Again this week, he was back lined up too tight. You cant keep putting these guys in tough positions to make plays. Know your personnel and game plan to our strengths.

This offense is spectacular, and I said the same thing tonight "We would be a good Big 12 team". But it's not sustainable. Love the scoring, just want to see some competent defense to support it.

Wait I thought we had people on here defending Roof for last week and saying we should eat crow? Simple fact here that Roof is not good at all. In fact, he is a bad DC. He is very stubborn and thinks he knows everything so when Drink or someone else says something to him I am sure he will blow it off.

This is not sustainable. I am happy we won but very worried that South Carolina, Louisiana, and Georgia Southern or Troy could beat us like this. If the defense does not change and we go back to our strengths we will continue to see high scoring games and eventually lose to a team with a good defense, or like you said if we lose ZT to injury we are screwed. If he goes down and misses 5 games we could lose 3-4 games easily. We need a stout defense that can keep us in a game if ZT goes out and Roof can't deliver that.

[appstatealum]

.... And before I hear it again, I love the fact that we are 4-0. Winning despite our defense is great, but there is every reason to be worried about what we are seeing. Every defensive scheme/gameplan has a weakness. What seperates the great defenses from the average defenses is, when the opposing team figures out the weakness and goes after it, you make adjustments. We are not seeing this, and that is the problem. At Carolina, we saw adjustments. Showing blitzes and dropping back, sliding coverages over, etc. This is how we created turnovers (on top of great individual efforts). Today, I saw very little adjustments and CCU continued to exploit the holes in our defense.

[appstatealum]

Quirky. I love this guy.

[boonedocks]

Can someone please help me? We’re giving up 36 points a game against FBS teams! What happened to our defense this year? Okay, I know they were good, but did losing Stout and Duck make THAT much of a difference? Usually, in the past, we’ve had comparable replacements. Is it a change in defensive scheme? We WILL NOT beat Louisiana by letting them score at will. ESPN already gives them a 63% chance of winning!

Yes. Also Tae Hayes. We are getting beat in the secondary and I think it has a ton to do with those players not being here.

[John-N-Houston]

I too worry about our defense, but they do enough to help us win. I’m kinda to the point where I’m just accepting we are built like a PAC12 team. We score a boat load of points, fast, but as a result our defense spends a lot of time on the field. I can’t imagine the toll that takes on them.

I am however, jazzed about our offense. An unstoppable machine of death, grinding our opponents into mush. The team that holds us under 30 probably beats us. But good luck with that.

Yeah, great offense. What all this makes me think of is a Mike Tyson/Buster Douglas boxing match where Mike meets Buster in the center of the ring and says “Okay Buster, you hit me in the face, then I’ll hit you in the face and we’ll trade licks until one of us is not able to get back up. Then the other one wins. If I were Mike, I’d rather smack Buster a good one on the nose, then cover and protect from the counter punch. In case no one remembers, Mike did not cover!

[ashugh]

My son asked me yesterday “what’s wrong with Akeem this year”. My answer “nothing, it’s the scheme that’s killing him and us”.
36 points a game. That’s what we are giving up. Let that sink in. Who the hell is so blind they can’t see that they have totally screwed up our D by changing what was great. To hell with personal egos, get back to the defense these guys were recruited to play. Let’s get back to giving up less than 20 a game. We cannot win the conference or a bowl game giving up 36 points a game. Ridiculous and ignorant not to see it needs to be addressed.
Drink was all cocky at the post game presser saying “what about that defense, huh”. Dude, you gave up 31 points. Take that great win, but get a grip on reality. You gave up 31 and you’re giving up 36 a game. You’re the head coach of a scheme that sucks. That’s reality.

[Black Saturday]

I too worry about our defense, but they do enough to help us win. I’m kinda to the point where I’m just accepting we are built like a PAC12 team. We score a boat load of points, fast, but as a result our defense spends a lot of time on the field. I can’t imagine the toll that takes on them.

I am however, jazzed about our offense. An unstoppable machine of death, grinding our opponents into mush. The team that holds us under 30 probably beats us. But good luck with that.

The opening drives for TDs are getting old. Our opponents are throwing to open zones in our pass coverage. I'd dare say you can get together a group from Yosef's Cabin and do just as well. It's getting close to Halloween Roof, time to disguise your pass coverage.

[Black Saturday]

My son asked me yesterday “what’s wrong with Akeem this year”. My answer “nothing, it’s the scheme that’s killing him and us”.
36 points a game. That’s what we are giving up. Let that sink in. Who the hell is so blind they can’t see that they have totally screwed up our D by changing what was great. To hell with personal egos, get back to the defense these guys were recruited to play. Let’s get back to giving up less than 20 a game. We cannot win the conference or a bowl game giving up 36 points a game. Ridiculous and ignorant not to see it needs to be addressed.
Drink was all cocky at the post game presser saying “what about that defense, huh”. Dude, you gave up 31 points. Take that great win, but get a grip on reality. You gave up 31 and you’re giving up 36 a game. You’re the head coach of a scheme that sucks. That’s reality.

It was difficult for opponents to get 2 TDs on us last year. Hard to believe that we have heard we are recruiting good players each year and we returned 7 starters from last year. That math doesn't add up well so far this season.

[asu7]

One day we will meet a defense that can stop us for whatever reason maybe our O will be off. Then our D will need to make stops. I just don’t think they can on a consistent basis. They show signs of greatness on a drive here and there but are not consistent enough to get the other teams O off the field. I hope our O remains unstoppable but something tells me they will have an off night. It’s like in basketball ... we are a team that is living off the 3 right now. We all know what happens to teams that live off the 3. #getitfixed #playtoourstengths

[NattyBumppo'sRevenge]

WTF? Appy? Must be a sour UNC journalist.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/g ... =401121943

[appstatealum]

Can someone please help me? We’re giving up 36 points a game against FBS teams! What happened to our defense this year? Okay, I know they were good, but did losing Stout and Duck make THAT much of a difference? Usually, in the past, we’ve had comparable replacements. Is it a change in defensive scheme? We WILL NOT beat Louisiana by letting them score at will. ESPN already gives them a 63% chance of winning!

Yes. Also Tae Hayes. We are getting beat in the secondary and I think it has a ton to do with those players not being here.

I've actually been impressed with the coverage ability of our young corners. The coverage ability is there, they lose a receiver every now and then in single man coverage, but that happens. The biggest problem they have is not getting their heads turned. The reason why we are seeing them getting gashed lately is in the soft zone where linebackers arent able to drop in the flats fast enough and safeties aren't getting to the sidelines quickly. Teams are just throwing to the hole in the zone. This is a scheme issue. Hayes and Duck were very good, but they gave up plays too. Our scheme allowed for them to be aggressive because QBs had to throw over or between LBs and our safety play in cover 2 was much better. Our safeties are the biggest issue right now. With this scheme, there is a lot they have to account for and they aren't doing a good job with it. TEs and RBs in the flats, receivers on shallow posts.... These are mainly LB and Safety assignments. LBs are getting lost in the OLine push and safeties are taking bad angles bc they are struggling with deciphering their assignments.

These things can be improved, but outside of some good adjustments at Carolina, I haven't seen it yet. Let's not blame Jolley or these other young CBs, their technique is still a work in progress, but their coverage has been solid in terms of man-man over the last two weeks.

[AppSt94]

Guys, this model is not sustainable. Our offense and our special teams have been great, but we are putting a lot of pressure on them with this defense. We are a Zac Thomas injury away from being in big trouble.

Again, I stand up in my perch at KBS and wonder why we aren't making simple adjustments. Again, Roof (or whoever) has our LBs too shallow and, today, pinched in to the middle where Coastal just through shallow outs nullifying any blitzing or pass rush and forced our safeties to have to come down and make tackles or our CBs to break off blocks to make plays. All game. No adjustment. It's not even a "bend don't break" model because when the other team scores that much, you broke!

Look, I predicted the score to be 56-24 for a reason. I'm still not a believer in this defense. I wanted to see some trends that could have been started last week. Having Gaither off the line would have been a start. Again this week, he was back lined up too tight. You cant keep putting these guys in tough positions to make plays. Know your personnel and game plan to our strengths.

This offense is spectacular, and I said the same thing tonight "We would be a good Big 12 team". But it's not sustainable. Love the scoring, just want to see some competent defense to support it.

You bring up a good point about playing to our strengths, but what exactly are our strengths? Do we even know yet? I get that it is easy to point the finger at Roof as the route to the problem, and he is the CEO of the defense so he is line to receive the criticism, but the defense may be what it is now after last year’s talent level matriculated. Yesterday was my first game to watch live and this is what I saw; we don’t get the same push up field from our line as we did with Stout last year. He was a tremendous disrupter which allowed us to get the LBs flowing in gaps to get penetration. I think Taylor can grow to be that type of player but he isn’t there yet. I don’t have an issue with our LB play. Our secondary play is clearly a work in progress. It was frustrating to watch Jolly and SJC constantly give 10- 12 yard cushions but maybe that’s what the coaches want. We replaced Brown with Harrbison who comes from the NFL. You don’t get to coach at that level without having some sort of clue on how to get the most out of your players. Also, Jolly and SJC are showing signs of competence on the outside, but the are not at the level of Duck and Hayes yet. Duck was able to shut down a whole side of the field which allowed the Safeties to do more in a smaller space which made things more difficult for teams to openers the offensively.

Like you said, I am thrilled to be 4-0. And yes we have things to work on, but our staff is still learning to work together, but I would put them up against anyone when it comes to game planning against our opponents.

[appstatealum]

AppSt94, you are right. I forget to mention the NT issue. Our NT is not getting any push and it is adding to the issue of our shallow LBs. OLine is getting to second level on most plays too easily. And you are right again, our defense has no identity. We have similar personnel to last year, so our identity should be speed at the point of attack. Solid cover 2 where teams have to throw between and over players. In this scheme, our players play to their strength of speed and swarm. Elements of this include zone blitzing and coverage disguise which leads to turnovers. Remember years past? Lots of tipped balls, safeties making plays over the top, our corners being able to play the ball vs man cover. QBs were having to thread a lot of passes and RBs were having to try and beat our guys to the holes in cover 2 zone. Our speed and aggression at the point of the attack was incredible. That should be our identity, those are the players we have recruited and still have.

At this point, I don't care who I point the finger at- Roof, Gasp, Horb, DJ, Drink. A friend of mine (who let's just say has a vast knowledge of the game) and I were up there seeing motions and things that CCU was doing that were fairly predictable and wondering why the adjustments weren't being made. They werent dramatic things, just simple tweaks. I'm really not sure what to make of this defense. I think, collectively, we have all highlighted the issues and many of us have explained in detail. Drink is a smart guy, hopefully he is reviewing the film each week and recognizing the same things. ULL sure will be seeing the film.

[MrCraig]

I too worry about our defense, but they do enough to help us win. I’m kinda to the point where I’m just accepting we are built like a PAC12 team. We score a boat load of points, fast, but as a result our defense spends a lot of time on the field. I can’t imagine the toll that takes on them.

I am however, jazzed about our offense. An unstoppable machine of death, grinding our opponents into mush. The team that holds us under 30 probably beats us. But good luck with that.

The opening drives for TDs are getting old. Our opponents are throwing to open zones in our pass coverage. I'd dare say you can get together a group from Yosef's Cabin and do just as well. It's getting close to Halloween Roof, time to disguise your pass coverage.

I think I get your point; however, we aren’t going to have to worry about pass coverage much on Halloween. Also, maybe I’m misremembering, but I recall a lot of opening driven TDs last year too.

[GreatAppSt]

The opening drives for TDs are getting old. Our opponents are throwing to open zones in our pass coverage. I'd dare say you can get together a group from Yosef's Cabin and do just as well. It's getting close to Halloween Roof, time to disguise your pass coverage.

App has been scored on the first drive by every FBS team this season. This trend is years in the making, happened with Satts Defenses many many times as well, drove me nuts. And you are right It's old

[AppStFan1]

AppSt94, you are right. I forget to mention the NT issue. Our NT is not getting any push and it is adding to the issue of our shallow LBs. OLine is getting to second level on most plays too easily. At this point, I don't care who I point the finger at- Roof, Gasp, Horb, DJ, Drink. A friend of mine (who let's just say has a vast knowledge of the game) and I were up there seeing motions and things that CCU was doing that were fairly predictable and wondering why the adjustments weren't being made. They werent dramatic things, just simple tweaks. I'm really not sure what to make of this defense. I think, collectively, we have all highlighted the issues and many of us have explained in detail. Drink is a smart guy, hopefully he is reviewing the film each week and recognizing the same things. ULL sure will be seeing the film.

AppSt94 made a good point about DT and others of us have mentioned it. DT is a bigger deal and I'm just wondering if we missed on the DT position the last few years or they are just a year away? The film of Washington, Smith, and Earle was good. There is not a team on our schedule we can't tack at least 40 points on but I also fear there is only 2-3 teams we can hold under 30.

Drink manages and calls games better than Satt but we certainly aren't getting the same caliber game plan on defense.

I blame Roof and not the others on defense for the calls. Roof is the one making decisions and I really don't think Harbison or Gaspo are the issues. I have zero confidence in Roof adjusting. It would be interesting to see what Drink says or does if we score 50 in a game and still lose. I hope that does not happen but it is easy to make excuses for one area of play when you keep winning. A lot harder if you take a loss because of it.

Louisiana is putting up 44 a game and they are the best offense we play all year. It may take 60 for us to beat them. We will not beat Louisiana if we don't make some adjustments on defense.