Coming into the season, we all thought we knew what we had in our defense: A really, really solid backfield and some suspect parts of the front 7, mostly due to youth and inexperience. We were all very confident in our ability to stop the pass, and therefore allow our front 7 to focus a bit more on the run. But, somehow, we’ve made world-beaters out of 3 QBs in a row (including a frosh with noodle arms, a first year starter that’s mediocre at best, and another first year starter that’s mediocre at best) after shutting down all-world Colin K from Nevada.
So 4 games in, our D isn’t quite what we expected. We’ve learned we can’t just go man-to-man and sell out against the run all day. When we do, we get burned, especially in the short/intermediate routes. Tenuta’s adjustments at Purdue helped, but we still made Elliot look great, when he’s not. Check out our stats on the year thus far:
Rush Defense. Rank on YPG: 57. We’ve given up 522 yards on the ground, at an average of 4.42 YPC. That rolls up to 130.5 YPG. That’s not great, but it’s not terrible either, especially given the concerns we all had coming into the season.
Pass Defense. Rank on YPG: 106. (!!!!) There are less than 20 teams worse than us a defending the pass. In the country. We’ve given up 1037 yards through the air, and opponents are completing 61% of their passes, for an average of 259 yards per game. That’s pretty freaking bad.
One could say that we’ve had to pick our poision – we’ve decided to stop the run and force young/newly starting QBs to beat us through the air. We decided to give our young DL guys help up front to stop the run, and hoped that our experienced DBs and Safeties can handle the pass (hopefully, rushed due to the NONSTOP NEVERENDING BLITZBLITZBLITZ). In theory, this made sense. We faced teams with young or inexperienced QBs and we’d expect them to make mistakes, miss WRs, throw INTs and generally F things up under pressue. But in execution, we’ve struggled. Our DBs haven’t been all that disciplined in their coverage, and some plays have just been completely blown up. A lot of it has been miscommunication, which is another huge issue for the defensive backfield.
At Purdue, we mixed things up a bit and had a bit more success. We still stopped the run really well, as the D shut down their star RB Bolden (Purdue only ran for 74 yards on the day), but we still gave up way too many yards to the passing game, and that INCLUDES Elliot missing a bunch of guys, tossing a pretty bad INT, etc. So, there are problems.
This week, Washington poses a big challenge, as Locker can put the ball in the air well, and he has scrambling ability. Hopefully we can execute disciplined defense as we did against Nevada to shut down the UW attack, but the challenge becomes clear: ND needs to figure out a way to shut down the Pass.
I think that a more balanced defensive strategy will help, but NDs CBs, LBs when in coverage, and Safeties just need to learn how to defend a passing play better. Positioning, coverage adjustments, playing the ball and shutting down passing lanes are all areas where we need improvement. Heck, just making sure that everyone on the D is playing the same coverage is really important, and something we’ve failed at more than once per game thus far.
The other thing that will help the Pass D is some sort of pass rush. Obviously the blitz packages haven’t delivered as promised, and things are being shifted a bit, but we need that young DL to step up and make plays. (The good news is that it seems like the DL plays better when there ISN’T a blitz called). No matter how well our DBs play, a QB will pick you a part if they have time to read a book and take a nap in the backfield. And that’s been the case thus far.
I think we’ve seen improvement since Michigan. While the stats dont show it much, we’ve given up fewer points each week, and the D appears to be less disheveled/desperate with each passing game. I think the arrow is moving in the right direction, but do we have too far to go? This weekend will provide a good test for the ND defense, and I’m hoping they’re up to the challenge.
- (Re)Introducing: DANCING LEPRECHAUNS - August 29, 2019
- Ticket Auction: ND vs USC - August 22, 2019
- No Respect! - December 14, 2018
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I hope Ian Williams develops into an absolute stud if for no other reason then because he fills his helmet so well. Look at that picture, it almost doesn’t appear possible that such a small helmet can contain that guy’s head.