Defense: How Does That Happen?

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LesBolstad

LesBolstad

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Not being a great defensive mind; wondering how does a defense completely collapse like that? Played very well for 3 quarters, then it was like 11 on 7 on the field. Reminded me of Maces last game. It is primarily a function of fatigue and not being able to get fresh guys out there? I'm sure the coaches are doing whatever they can but it's so frustrating to see it going on. You see this happen to some really good D's in the college game against the spread.
 

I think they were just gassed. Our offense wasn't doing them any favors with some of the short drives early on in the 2nd half.
 

Our defense was gassed. Everybody said that we needed to run the ball a lot to keep IU's offense off the field and allow our defense time to recover -- we didn't follow that plan.
 

To me, we were basically unprepared for the tempo.

We stopped them in the first half because a lot of incomplete passes slowed them down. Once they got rolling, we were powerless.

We dodged a bullet.
 

Studwell55 said:
To me, we were basically unprepared for the tempo.

We stopped them in the first half because a lot of incomplete passes slowed them down. Once they got rolling, we were powerless.

We dodged a bullet.
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I don't think you can all of a sudden become prepared for a tempo you've never seen before. It's not like you can just run your team like crazy all week to get them in shape for this type of offense.

It was a combination of their offense just finally clicking, fatigue, and our offense just being so successful we didn't have very many long drives. Even with all the scoring we did, the longest drive we had all game was 8 plays.
 


Studwell55 said:
To me, we were basically unprepared for the tempo.

We stopped them in the first half because a lot of incomplete passes slowed them down. Once they got rolling, we were powerless.

We dodged a bullet.
Click to expand...

SMH...unprepared? This is a top 10 offense in the NCAA and they score on everyone. Maybe they are just really good on offense. In reality, our lack of offensive ball control hurt our defense and their second half execution was decidedly better by their second QB who seemed to throw the ball much better which opened up their run more and etc.

I do agree, we dodged a bullet, but not because of some failure to prepare, it was a lack of execution.
 


Uhh.. Gassed and facing easily a top 10 offense. Also, we don't have a top 10 defense. Including the 2nd half, our defense played damn good.
 

GophersInIowa said:
I don't think you can all of a sudden become prepared for a tempo you've never seen before. It's not like you can just run your team like crazy all week to get them in shape for this type of offense.

It was a combination of their offense just finally clicking, fatigue, and our offense just being so successful we didn't have very many long drives. Even with all the scoring we did, the longest drive we had all game was 8 plays.
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Wow! Did not realize that. That explains a lot to me. Thank God it took them long enough (just barely) to start clicking.
 



Studwell55 said:
To me, we were basically unprepared for the tempo.

We stopped them in the first half because a lot of incomplete passes slowed them down. Once they got rolling, we were powerless.

We dodged a bullet.
Click to expand...
I thought the game plan, preparation if you will, was outstanding. My fear going in was that our offense wouldn't be able to score enough TDs to win, but all worked out. I thought Brock was in position all day in coverage, but they were able to thread some passes in in the second half. To suggest we weren't prepared seems uninformed. I mean really? You think our coaches were caught off guard by Indiana's tempo? C'mon. You're smarter than that.
 

killme said:
I thought the game plan, preparation if you will, was outstanding. My fear going in was that our offense wouldn't be able to score enough TDs to win, but all worked out. I thought Brock was in position all day in coverage, but they were able to thread some passes in in the second half. To suggest we weren't prepared seems uninformed. I mean really? You think our coaches were caught off guard by Indiana's tempo? C'mon. You're smarter than that.
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Hi, you must be new here...
 

e.bigelow said:
I think they were just gassed. Our offense wasn't doing them any favors with some of the short drives early on in the 2nd half.
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The offense scored 6 times, but unfortunately the longest drive was 3:40 minutes.
 

MaxyJR1 said:
The offense scored 6 times, but unfortunately the longest drive was 3:40 minutes.
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I would take the TD every time, but i'm not going to lie, M. Williams going down on a knee at the one inch line so we could kneel it 3 times and punch it in on 4th down crossed my mind as he was running.
 



MaxyJR1 said:
The offense scored 6 times, but unfortunately the longest drive was 3:40 minutes.
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True, true. Our defense was just exhausted. That is what I came away with from the 2nd half. Hoping to see the replay sometime this week on BTN so I can watch again.
 

We are going to need to find a way to defend that offense better if Indiana is going to keep playing this way in the conference. Eventually, they are bound to figure out how to defend at least a little bit. Hopefully, as their defense improves, it will be a double edged sword where they might slow down the scoring against them, but that would keep the other team's defense off the field longer to get a better rest. It is really interesting to think of a defense that is so bad that their opposing counterpart doesn't get enough rest because they get scored on too quickly.
 

LesBolstad said:
Not being a great defensive mind; wondering how does a defense completely collapse like that? Played very well for 3 quarters, then it was like 11 on 7 on the field. Reminded me of Maces last game. It is primarily a function of fatigue and not being able to get fresh guys out there? I'm sure the coaches are doing whatever they can but it's so frustrating to see it going on. You see this happen to some really good D's in the college game against the spread.
Click to expand...

Roberson had a terrible first half. Some of that can be attributed to our defense but much of that was on him, making bad throws and missing open receivers. There was some internal stuff going on over there apparently that led to them abandoning their typical 2 QB rotation and sticking with one guy. We saw the true Indiana offense kick in during the second half with Sudfeld at the helm.

Not trying to take anything from our defense because they played very solid for the bulk of the game but similar to the Texas Tech team from 2006 this offense from Indiana is very difficult to shut down. It was pointed out that they put up 28 on Michigan State and MSU clearly has a phenomenal defense this year.
 

Studwell55 said:
To me, we were basically unprepared for the tempo.

We stopped them in the first half because a lot of incomplete passes slowed them down. Once they got rolling, we were powerless.

We dodged a bullet.
Click to expand...

Once again, you don't get it. Shocking.

 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
We are going to need to find a way to defend that offense better if Indiana is going to keep playing this way in the conference. Eventually, they are bound to figure out how to defend at least a little bit. Hopefully, as their defense improves, it will be a double edged sword where they might slow down the scoring against them, but that would keep the other team's defense off the field longer to get a better rest. It is really interesting to think of a defense that is so bad that their opposing counterpart doesn't get enough rest because they get scored on too quickly.
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We play them again in 2018, after that they are not on the schedule as of now. I say we don't prepare at all. By then, Wilson will be gone.
 

mnsports1 said:
I would take the TD every time, but i'm not going to lie, M. Williams going down on a knee at the one inch line so we could kneel it 3 times and punch it in on 4th down crossed my mind as he was running.
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Never intentionally take points off the board. Indiana thought they were going to score at the end, didn't they?
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
We are going to need to find a way to defend that offense better if Indiana is going to keep playing this way in the conference. Eventually, they are bound to figure out how to defend at least a little bit.
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I thought of this at first as well, and then I remembered with the new division alignments, we will RARELY play Indiana. Fine by me!!!

To the OP's question, maybe a better question is, how did we manage to shut them down as long as we did? That's just as valid of a question, since hardly anybody has figured that out this year, outside of MSU. Bottom line, they did what they had to do to win.
 


highwayman said:
Never intentionally take points off the board. Indiana thought they were going to score at the end, didn't they?
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That's for sure. I'm with you. How many times has a team been tackled at the 1 after a big play and came away with no points. By scoring and taking the lead we put the onus on them to make plays and not make mistakes. It's harder than it looks from your living room.
 

I think we let up a little bit when the score got to 35-13, and Indiana didn't give up and went right down the field. All of a sudden, they were in a rhythm, and eventually we got tired. Our offense was extremely disappointing in the second half. We should have been able to run the clock out easily, but we executed really badly on many plays, and the defense had to be on the field much too often.
 

I was really surprised that with the style of offense that Wilson is going with that Sudfeld isn't THE GUY. He appears to have much better mechanics and is a more accurate passer than Roberson. Maybe Wilson thought the Gophers would play more of a press man to man and it would create lots of running room for Roberson?
 


highwayman said:
We play them again in 2018, after that they are not on the schedule as of now. I say we don't prepare at all. By then, Wilson will be gone.
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I also question whether they will be able to get enough quality recruits for both sides of the ball. Also if your defense is practicing against this every day they likely won't be very good against power teams.
 

We should've had plenty of 5+ minute drives to keep our Defense in good shape but our Offense scored quickly too many times...
 

thailleagle said:
We should've had plenty of 5+ minute drives to keep our Defense in good shape but our Offense scored quickly too many times...
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This was actually a MINOR concern of mine during the week leading up to the game but then you catch yourself and say "Really?". I'm worried about this Gophers offense scoring TOO fast? Shockingly, it came to fruition, but didn't cost them the game.
 

CKill said we were gassed because the pace IU ran the offense at did not allow substitution. Hopefully, Saban and a few other coaches can get some kind of rules change that allows time for defenses to substitute on a regular basis, even if it is only once per four down series, etc.
 

highwayman said:
Never intentionally take points off the board. Indiana thought they were going to score at the end, didn't they?
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In calmer reflection after the game, I wholeheartedly agree with you. As Dos Equis was running though, I have to admit that I was at Senser's screaming for him to slide at the 1. If he would have done that and we didn't score, he would have definitely been a top contender for Not Top 10.
 

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