Kansas Game Thoughts (Defense specifically)

[cyclone1209]

I thought today was by far the toughest Cyclone game I have watched in about two years (this and the Memphis bowl game most likely). Offense to me was not the primary problem. The running game was fair, and I could argue Hansen should have had more carries. Rocco's one int was bad, but he did lead drives for points.

Defense - friends of the Cyclone fanatic board, I want to have an honest discussion about our defense and the way it's currently constructed. I have had it with the 3 man front defense. I welcome your feedback too. Reasons listed below:

1) Sacks are one of the defense equivalents of "explosive plays" for that side of the ball. See below, we are ranked #109th in total defensive sacks this year. The teams ranked around/near us in the 109th in sacks you ask? Virginia, Rutgers, South Alabama. Not exactly great programs. We have had weeks this year with zero sacks, and today was one of those games.

NCAA College Football FBS current team Stats | NCAA.com

Discover the current NCAA FBS Football leaders in every stats category, as well as historic leaders.

www.ncaa.com

2) 3 man front Personnel Issue- I would submit if you have an Enyi Uwazurike in the middle (NFL player), and a Will McDonald (budding star NFL guy), you can absolutely do the 3 man front. It worked, because those guys were so damn good. They freed up everyone else in the linebacker level and secondary to play well too. JR Singleton is a nice player, so is Dom Orange - but we do not have the stars on the D line to play like this.

3) 3 man front Scheme Issue (rush defense) - Today we are playing Kansas. Kansas has a dual threat quarterback and NFL caliber running back. Why, oh why would we willingly give up a massive advantage to them on running plays? They got 6 yards automatically per carry b/c we had 3 down linemen and they had 5 men blocking. Our linebackers are not good enough in space with this scheme, and its kicking the crap out of guys like Dom and JR, asking them to butt heads with a guard and center on every play. (2 on 1)

4) 3 man front Scheme Issue (pass defense) - Today was a rough day for the secondary. It was rough in part b/c we got zero pressure on the quarterback. Skinner is a heck of a WR. However, when we rush 3 and we ask Myles Purchase to cover for 6 seconds, is that fair to him? I would say that we ask our corners to do too much sometimes in asking them to cover for so long. I have seen enough of 3 down lineman play patty cake with offensive tackles and the QB has enough time to make a sandwhich in the pocket.

There are some nice pieces at linebacker for us too. I like Beau Goodwin, and Cael Brezina, and Ebel. But in sticking to a 3 man front that means more pressure on the LBs. Should we be putting more pressure on the LBs with the injury situation right now?

Maybe i'm off on this one. We better have a couple of transfers incoming at Linebacker and at Defensive End. The current guys are making it hard against talented squads like Kansas. The Kennard Snyder guy is nowhere to be found, neither is Ikenna Ezeogu.

 

[MeowingCows]

Running 3 up front is fine...if you have the dudes. It asks a lot of your front 6 dudes. You need great DL guys or great LBs to make it work, and preferably both. Some years, we have had both.

This year, we have neither. Early on, the LBs were helping cover the cracks. Not anymore.

 

[azhuth09]

Seems like we used to use a lot of disguised blitz packages to bring pressure and help out the slime as well. Now we pretty much have 3 guys run at a wall.

 

[MeowingCows]

Oh, and just for clarity, there's nothing about a 3-3 set that says you can't generate pressure. It just requires great athletes to do so organically. It's pretty rare that we only rush 3 guys, we often send an LB from somewhere -- but the talent gap there prevents them from regularly making plays.

 

[CyGuy5]

The offense was absolutely a problem today too. They disappeared from the second drive of the game to midway through the third quarter.

On the defense, the reality is there is just not a lot of talent on that side of the ball

 

[CloniesForLife]

We desperately need a good edge rusher that's able to get consistent pressure. Just haven't had that since Will left

 

[KCyclone2010]

It’s a failure of coaching honestly to think the players we have can effectively run this defensive scheme. Our linebackers were playing 1A football 1-2 years ago. Maybe change the game plan

 

[Cyclonepride]

I can't think of many defenses that are going to succeed with the injuries we've had to our linebackers. They aren't able to hold the line on their responsibilities, so that affects what the secondary has to do, and when a good coordinator sees a clear problem, they are going to beat on that problem repeatedly. Simple as that.

 

[cyatheart]

Way too many injuries overall to expect them to stop anyone. Just can't be running guys out there that were playing class a football last year and expect anything else. Nothing wrong with the scheme when you got guys to run it. But we have to go get a lot more linebackers because they just are asked to do a lot and they get hurt a lot.

 

[CyGuy5]

On a side note, Barnes and Ebel are just not built for Big 12 football. Both are noticeably slow and consistently take themselves out of plays. So many times today were they nowhere to be found, while a TE was wide open or Neal was running free through a hole. If Brezina has lost his job to one of those guys, woof.

The entire defensive line really has no ability to get pressure. Kennard Snyder in particular has been disappointing IMO.

And the secondary, absolutely no idea what that garbage was today. Feels like a lot of guys have taken a big step back there. Letting mediocre (at best) WRs just run freely. That 2nd or 3rd TD when we just let their WR run right on by was the sorriest display of football I’ve seen in years. Not to mention Purchase just giving up and letting a guy right by him on a fly route. It’s not like our secondary is inexperienced, either.

But I keep going back to coaching. Put your guys in a position to succeed. Neither the offensive nor the defensive coaching staff has done a great job of that for the last month now. I just don’t see that getting better any time soon

 

[jdoggivjc]

I can't think of many defenses that are going to succeed with the injuries we've had to our linebackers. They aren't able to hold the line on their responsibilities, so that affects what the secondary has to do, and when a good coordinator sees a clear problem, they are going to beat on that problem repeatedly. Simple as that.

I was just going to respond with the injuries to the LBs, and if I'm not mistaken our DL has seen some of that as well, which means our front 6 is decimated. That means the secondary has to get more involved in the run game, which, combined with the front 6 getting virtually no pressure, leaves the passing game wide open.

And I know people want to say "just try something other than the 3-3-5" - but 1. scheme isn't going to help much when you're already scraping the bottom of the barrel to find healthy bodies just to fill positions; and 2. introducing a new defensive scheme nearing the end of the season when your defense has been practicing and playing one scheme for their entire career at ISU probably isn't going to have the positive effect people think.

 

[demoncore1031]

When we switched to the 3-3-5 years back, Campbell said it was to get his best 11 players on the field. Well, this must no longer apply because going with 3 linebackers right now is not getting your best 11 on the field.

A 4-2-5 would make so much more sense. But we all know how stubborn Campbell is with the "if it's broke let's keep doing it" philosophy. It's getting pretty old, to be honest.

 

[simply1]

Tons of injuries and weren’t we still the top defense coming into today?

 

[Clonefan94]

.

When we switched to the 3-3-5 years back, Campbell said it was to get his best 11 players on the field. Well, this must no longer apply because going with 3 linebackers right now is not getting your best 11 on the field.

A 4-2-5 would make so much more sense. But we all know how stubborn Campbell is with the "if it's broke let's keep doing it" philosophy. It's getting pretty old, to be honest.

I’ve been trying to come up with a way to say this all night without being an *******. Thanks for putting the words on screen. It looks like we are sticking to the 3-3-5 despite having the players to pull it off.

 

[Pizzapitter]

Blows me mind...
3rd string "nobody types" at linebacker....and we expect something resembling good d?
Jfc....

 

[jdoggivjc]

Blows me mind...
3rd string "nobody types" at linebacker....and we expect something resembling good d?
Jfc....

it's really humorous people thinking that switching to a 4-man front will solve all of our defensive problems. With what we're currently throwing out there it's not going to be good no matter what the formation we throw out there. a 4-man front doesn't magically fix the problem that we don't have legitimate linebackers playing.

 

[fcclone]

Blows me mind...
3rd string "nobody types" at linebacker....and we expect something resembling good d?
Jfc....

I don’t mind a little criticism, as we were singing praises about our 1A walk-ons and freshman linebackers. But a little perspective should also be expected.

 

[OscarBerkshire]

You guys are all talking personnel. Idk what game you watched but at least in the first half the defensive scheme just wasn’t working. Jeff Grimes either had our signals or Heacock had his annual stinker (not mutually exclusive). Really players weren’t put in a position to make plays.

Some personnel did struggle; OFFENSIVELY. Defense wasn’t great but idk what you expected. All the big points they got were through the air in the first half.

Gabe Burkle, TE 84, is not a good player and did severe damage to the offense in the first half and is not good.

Offensive line got punked by this KU front. No tricks either. Just beat straight up the middle. Dylan Barrett was really holding this offense together.

Overall yeah didn’t pick us anyway but idk how you look at this team and say anything other than reeling, flailing, unprofessional. Hopefully we turn it around next week but man… this was probably the best chance we’ve ever had at a season like this and it’s gone.

 

[stewart092284]

it's really humorous people thinking that switching to a 4-man front will solve all of our defensive problems. With what we're currently throwing out there it's not going to be good no matter what the formation we throw out there. a 4-man front doesn't magically fix the problem that we don't have legitimate linebackers playing.

So, you're right and kinda wrong at the same time IMO.

1) A 4 man front greatly helps the DL. Because natural double teams, angles, and what not. You have more 1 on 1 matchups in pass rush situations as well.

2) It also helps Linebackers because its harder for OL - not impossible, obviously - but harder to get a clean lane to climb to the 2nd level.

3) Given our limitations at linebacker, I'd argue we have more quality at DL than we do at linebacker at the current moment. So that gets more quality on the field which is never a bad thing.

4) Its easier, again, its not impossible to run twists and stunts with a 3 man front but its slightly easier to become more creative with a 4 man front just because you have an extra linemen and also, they are closing together most of the time. So twists and stunts are slightly easier which again can confuse blocking schemes.

Overall, does it fix everything? No, you are 100% right on that. But it does address 1-3 and that helps us out more than what we are currently. Because right now, the question becomes a little bit of who is more ready to help us win right now - Goodwin or Myles Mendezoon? Same with Barnes, etc. (spelling)

Right now, honestly? I'd say Myles. Or any of the other DL who regularly play.

 

[demoncore1031]

You guys are all talking personnel. Idk what game you watched but at least in the first half the defensive scheme just wasn’t working. Jeff Grimes either had our signals or Heacock had his annual stinker (not mutually exclusive). Really players weren’t put in a position to make plays.

Some personnel did struggle; OFFENSIVELY. Defense wasn’t great but idk what you expected. All the big points they got were through the air in the first half.

Gabe Burkle, TE 84, is not a good player and did severe damage to the offense in the first half and is not good.

Offensive line got punked by this KU front. No tricks either. Just beat straight up the middle. Dylan Barrett was really holding this offense together.

Overall yeah didn’t pick us anyway but idk how you look at this team and say anything other than reeling, flailing, unprofessional. Hopefully we turn it around next week but man… this was probably the best chance we’ve ever had at a season like this and it’s gone.

I dunno about that. Barrett didn't look all that good in the games I watched. I think Buhr has played better, but that is just my opinion.