New projected defensive depth chart

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Really hard for a coach to move to a system he does not know for a year or two to survive personnel issues.
 

corcoran1 said:
Really hard for a coach to move to a system he does not know for a year or two to survive personnel issues.
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Your probably not fit to be the defensive coordinator at a D1 school, or any school, if you can't go from coaching a 4-3 to a 3-4 for at least a year. I'm sure Smith can though.

I think most of the defensive's Paup played with in the NFL were 3-4 too.
 

die hard gopher said:
Your probably not fit to be the defensive coordinator at a D1 school, or any school, if you can't go from coaching a 4-3 to a 3-4 for at least a year. I'm sure Smith can though.

I think most of the defensive's Paup played with in the NFL were 3-4 too.
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I respectfully disagree- you see examples all over NCAA and pro football of DCs maintains the system they are comfortable with. The scheme difference between the 2 systems is huge. Teaching kids one system this year and then reversing to the other the following year is made for a couple-3 years of difficult adjustments.


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Before the season our coaches had other coaches come in and teach them the 3-4. They then implemented it slowly and if you will remember had some breakdowns early on. It isn't trivial to make the switch. With that said, we were pretty good at it by the end of the year and I would like the new coaches to leverage that this year, if possible.


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John Galt said:
My understanding is Fleck is purely a 4-3 guy, so I'm not sure why so many people are wasting their lives describing what a 3-4 might look like under him.
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That's what I thought. Why are we wasting time talking about it??
 


I don't think u realize how difficult it is to go from 4-3 3-4.. coaches are not just doing it for one year that would be stupid. U recruit to what your play books says.
 


gopherhoopsguy said:
I don't think u realize how difficult it is to go from 4-3 3-4.. coaches are not just doing it for one year that would be stupid. U recruit to what your play books says.
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I would hope they do whatever gives us the best chance to win games and right now a 3-4 probably gives us a better chance than a 4-3. Brady Hoke really wanted to be a prostyle, power run team but in year one at Michigan he had Dennard Robinson, a dynamic, smaller dual threat guy so he adapted to the type of players he had and they went 11-2. Once he was able to recruit the type of players he had, he was able to transition into the type of offense he was more comfortable with. They most assuredly would not have went 11-2 if they tried putting Dennard under center handing it off to the RB 30-40 times a game, passing under play action or in drop back situations.

Also no one is saying Smith and Fleck shouldn't recruit 4-3 type of players if thats what type of D they prefer.
 




RatherBeGolfing said:
Beebe IMO is kind of a tweener in a 43. He's a little undersized weight wise to be a DT consistently in it but isn't quite the athlete for a DE in it. In a 34 though he could be a valuable as a DE to clog up some holes.
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I'm sorry to break it to you, but Beebe plays TE.
 

John Galt said:
I'm sorry to break it to you, but Beebe plays TE.
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Yes - we all know that. Earlier in the thread, I asked that since Beebe's position was somewhat 'up in the air' during his recruitment and we currently don't have many underclassmen at DL, if there was any possibility of him getting moved to defense. That is what RatherBeGolfing is responding to.
 


die hard gopher said:
I would hope they do whatever gives us the best chance to win games and right now a 3-4 probably gives us a better chance than a 4-3. Brady Hoke really wanted to be a prostyle, power run team but in year one at Michigan he had Dennard Robinson, a dynamic, smaller dual threat guy so he adapted to the type of players he had and they went 11-2. Once he was able to recruit the type of players he had, he was able to transition into the type of offense he was more comfortable with. They most assuredly would not have went 11-2 if they tried putting Dennard under center handing it off to the RB 30-40 times a game, passing under play action or in drop back situations.

Also no one is saying Smith and Fleck shouldn't recruit 4-3 type of players if thats what type of D they prefer.
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This is a horrible example. Hoke sacrificed short-term gains (going 11-2 with the existing talent) for long-term program-building. He proceeded to go 8-5, 7-6 and 5-7. Better off pulling off the Band-Aid in year 1 if you're truly trying to build something new.
 



They have the personnel to run 4-3 next year, and they'll continue to recruit to a 4-3 defense. I really don't see them running much 3-4 outside of situational packages. They lose 2 good LBs in Poock and Celestin after next year, and they'll continue to rotate the young guys for depth/injures. It's also possible they could redshirt someone like Barber to stagger the classes a little more. They'll likely lightly recruit LBs the next year or two and heavily recruit DTs and everything will even out for a 4-3.
 

BarnBoy said:
This is a horrible example. Hoke sacrificed short-term gains (going 11-2 with the existing talent) for long-term program-building. He proceeded to go 8-5, 7-6 and 5-7. Better off pulling off the Band-Aid in year 1 if you're truly trying to build something new.
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It didn't work out in the end but going 11-2 in the firs year with a BCS bowl win over V-Tech makes it way easier to sell your program to recruits than going 8-5. Thats a pretty big deal and you have tangible results and are selling more than just hope. And we'll never know for sure but I just don't think Hoke playing spread with Dennard had anything to do with them going 7-6 and 5-7 in years 3 and 4. I think that probably would have happened anyway.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
They have the personnel to run 4-3 next year, and they'll continue to recruit to a 4-3 defense. I really don't see them running much 3-4 outside of situational packages. They lose 2 good LBs in Poock and Celestin after next year, and they'll continue to rotate the young guys for depth/injures. It's also possible they could redshirt someone like Barber to stagger the classes a little more. They'll likely lightly recruit LBs the next year or two and heavily recruit DTs and everything will even out for a 4-3.
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I guess I have a different take in the LB situation. I think after this year our LB corp will be excruciatingly thin since we lose the two starters you mention and the two upperclassmen (Williams and Huff) don't appear to be options for playing every down. Thus we'll have two junior ILB (Waters and Barber), two OLB (Coughlin and Martin), Cashman and a hopefully RS Frosh OLB (Guthrie) going forward. I think LB needs to be an area of concentration this go-around so that we have able, hopefully RS sophomore replacements for Coughlin etc.


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Are we going to a 3-4? With Devers' speed and an off-season of strength training, I'm surprised more of you are not projecting him as a starter.

Am I missing something?
 

die hard gopher said:
I would hope they do whatever gives us the best chance to win games and right now a 3-4 probably gives us a better chance than a 4-3. Brady Hoke really wanted to be a prostyle, power run team but in year one at Michigan he had Dennard Robinson, a dynamic, smaller dual threat guy so he adapted to the type of players he had and they went 11-2. Once he was able to recruit the type of players he had, he was able to transition into the type of offense he was more comfortable with. They most assuredly would not have went 11-2 if they tried putting Dennard under center handing it off to the RB 30-40 times a game, passing under play action or in drop back situations.

Also no one is saying Smith and Fleck shouldn't recruit 4-3 type of players if thats what type of D they prefer.
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Would not have done went
 

Last year, the Gophers were a base 4-3 team- but on passing downs, they put more LB's out there in blitz packages. I could see Fleck doing something similar. Have a base run defense, and a 3rd-and-long package where you turn Cashman loose. Remember, Claeys always said that his staff didn't want to expose Cashman by playing him in run downs. They felt Cashman was best suited for passing downs - and against smaller offenses - not big run-blocking outfits. Unless he can find a way to get bigger and stronger without sacrificing speed, I'm not sure Cashman is an every-down player.
 

Oregon Gopher said:
I guess I have a different take in the LB situation. I think after this year our LB corp will be excruciatingly thin since we lose the two starters you mention and the two upperclassmen (Williams and Huff) don't appear to be options for playing every down. Thus we'll have two junior ILB (Waters and Barber), two OLB (Coughlin and Martin), Cashman and a hopefully RS Frosh OLB (Guthrie) going forward. I think LB needs to be an area of concentration this go-around so that we have able, hopefully RS sophomore replacements for Coughlin etc.
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Yeah, I guess it just depends on how you view Huff, Cashman, and Williams. After next year they still have 8 LBs to play 3 positions. My thought is they'd take one this class, which would give them 9 in 2018, than a couple in the 2019 class. I think LB and RB are the easiest positions to use younger guys and the Gophers have done that successfully in the past.
 

die hard gopher said:
Huff could absolutely become an every down LB.
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Maybe so but haven't seen him play much against the run. Nevertheless, the main point of my post was that we absolutely need to recruit LBs this year to be ready for when all of our LBs except Guthrie are gone in two years as opposed to GWG's take that we could lightly recruit LBs for the next year or two!!


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Oregon Gopher said:
Maybe so but haven't seen him play much against the run. Nevertheless, the main point of my post was that we absolutely need to recruit LBs this year to be ready for when all of our LBs except Guthrie are gone in two years as opposed to GWG's take that we could lightly recruit LBs for the next year or two!!


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I agree with that. Would have really liked to keep Jackson and/or Fischer even with the 3 LB's we took last year. We definitely need to take at least 2 LB's this year after taking only one for 17.
 

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