Let the defensive post-mortems begin.
If what Jeremy Lomax and Mark Richt had to say to David Hale is any indication, it sounds like the Dawg defense was woefully unprepared to handle what Alabama was running in the first half of last week’s game.
“You’ve just got to do more film study,” Lomax said. “That’s what it’s going to take. Get in the film room, watch more film, and I feel like us as a whole have been slacking at that. We need to be able to read stances more and know whether it s run or pass.”
Now whether that’s something to hang on the coaches, players or both, I can’t say. But you have to hope it’s fixable. It better be by the LSU game, because you’d expect that the Tigers are equipped to run much of the same stuff that ‘Bama did.
Along the same lines, here’s a quote Martinez gave the AB-H about one particular thing that Alabama was able to run quite successfully:
Martinez said Georgia was stung particularly by Alabama’s play-action passes on first and second down when the defense was geared up to stop a Crimson Tide running game that entered 14th in the nation in rushing.
“When you’re sitting there committed to the run and you run play-action, that hurt us,” Martinez said. “We’ve got to play better with the play-action because that’s what he hurt us with. They did a nice job of boots and screens and kept us off balance…”
Yes they did. And everyone in the stadium kept wishing that the defense would adjust to it. The play that stuck the final knife into Georgia was a fourth quarter screen pass that set up the field goal to put ‘Bama up 34-17, so you’d have to say that was a problem that never got solved.
Again, though, flawed schemes can be fixed. We’ll get an indication soon enough of whether that’s happening.
Friday, October 03, 2008
This about sums it up
Very insightful summary on what happened Saturday. Because if you CAN run the ball, you don't have to. Just UGA knowing Alabama could run the ball allowed Alabama to pass the ball. I hope this is the last word on how bad our defense looked. I hate that 'soft zone'. We can pick it apart and we should give the opponents enough credit that they can too. So yeah, we had major penalty issues, uncharacteristic problems in the kicking game, and a sputtering offense in the first half, but this to me goes right to the heart of the matter. From the Senator.
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At the same time, I like the way Willie reduces it. If he's correct and not over-simplifying, (at this point, I am giving him the benefit of the doubt) this is definitely something that can get better. Funny though that a multiple offense like the one we see every day in practice would give us such fits.
From ABH, said a little differently:
"When you're sitting there committed to the run and you run play-action, that hurt us," Martinez said. "We've got to play better with the play-action because that's what he hurt us with. They did a nice job of boots and screens and kept us off balance. Other than that, it was just one take off and throw (22-yard touchdown pass to Julio Jones), which is basically a 50-50 deal, a low percentage play that if you play it well, you feel like you've got a good chance."
The soft zone is an enigma...but if you can't get to the qb with just your front 4 and your corners can't shut anyone down you don't have much choice. We all know that Evans is a liability but I have been really disappointed with Asher this year...he's grabbing and I think looking into the backfield way too much...I get the hole wanting to make a play but cover you assignment. The other thing I don't get is if we can make good adjustments at the half, like we did, why can't we do it to any extent on the sidelines????
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