The Bobcat Nation

First let me point out that PSU is a pretty darn good football team. They have played some very tough competition this year and had Boise State on the ropes the week before at their place.

**** POSITIVES****

1) Offense starting to get in synch and using the whole field. We pretty much use Gatewood as our first down rusher now (I bet he had 6-8 passes caught on first down for 4-6 yards).

2) Lulay had some very very nice throws in that game and seems to be getting a lot nicer touch on his long balls. The TD to Murray in the endzone was RIGHT ON THE MONEY.

3) Groves looks like he can be the MAN in this offense. He is shifty and can make guys miss. If someone misses a tackle on him in the LB/Secondary this kid can take it to the house.

4) Pass blocking was pretty darn good for most of the game. Lulay had quite a bit of time there (until that darn hit at the end). Did anyone see how that guy got through? Was it a missed block on the tackle or did RB not pick him up? I didn't really see who was the one that missed that block or if there was just more guys coming than there were blockers.

**** NEGATIVES ****

1) Kick Offs/Coverage - How can our coverage be that bad on a consistent basis? I mean you think we would even get lucky on a few kicks just making a tackle/runner running wrong way. They were on the 35+ every time almost. I am not a fan of the pooch kick, but I guess if it is going to be that bad (which it shouldn't be) kick the ball out of bounds every time then I guess.

2) False Starts/Delay of game penalties (we scored 41 points, but could have had more). 2 separate drives that were stalled by penalties (including the one that Lulay got his punt blocked).

3) Tackling - Again, we are at the point of attack and everyone wants the big hit on the guy (tackling up high). How about bend your knees and tackle the guy. They really really really need to practice tackling on defense. They have guys there usually on initial contact and we still do not make the play. Also, like what was mentioned on another thread .. where is our gang/swarm tackling that we are known for? We need that as if a guy misses the swarm is there to take him down. A 3-4 defense is all about guys with speed running to the ball. It seems like we are rushing 3-4 guys (3 a lot on 3rd down) and just playing a soft zone with people standing around? That is not how a 3-4 is suppossed to be played? 3-4 is an ATTACKING defense designed to CONFUSE the defense. We definately need to come up with more scheme/zone blitzes to keep the offenses out of their comfort zones. The soft zone is just like a zone in Basketball. It will work or a quarter or two, but eventually the offense will adjust and find soft spots in it and start lighting you up.

I really like coach Piatowski (sp) as a defensive coordinater, but I almost think the 3-4 isn't his thing so far (or he is just learning on it). I understand why we are playing it due to our injuries/depth/fast LB's .. but if we can't disguise it/shake up what we are doing from play to play the good teams will chew up yards on the field on us. Our STUD LB's need to start tackling better as well. We cannot miss tackles like that.


*** DISHONAREABLE MENTION ****

Big Sky Refs - Again, a spectactular showing by the refs in this game (on both sides) .. NOT! It was really bad in the Griz game too. I guess we are just going to have to put up with this from week to week and hope the BAD balances itself out.

It seems we're working off of an oxymoron on defense this year. We institute an aggressive setup and then constantly talk that we're a "bend don't break" team.

To me, it's got to be one or the other. Either we put more people on the line and play this whole bend not break type d; which I absolutely hate by the way. Or, we make a commitment to attacking with more perrsonnel and doing it a lot more frequently.

Let's be proactive, not reactive

barechestcat wrote:It seems we're working off of an oxymoron on defense this year. We institute an aggressive setup and then constantly talk that we're a "bend don't break" team.

To me, it's got to be one or the other. Either we put more people on the line and play this whole bend not break type d; which I absolutely hate by the way. Or, we make a commitment to attacking with more perrsonnel and doing it a lot more frequently.

Let's be proactive, not reactive

I've seen us blitz several times from the outside with no results. Mollohan up the middle is the only one that seems to be getting through. It appears that the tackles are being handled by a single blocker so the OT can switch outsideand pick up the outside backer. The Outside backers also are not using any strength or quickness techniques to get rid of blockers so they get tied up. Has anyone seen Epi King make a play other than the interception against ISU? I was watching him on the tape I made of the game...he may have a lot of speed but doesn't get to the ball very often to make a play...and when he does he's not very physical. We need some mean people out there on D...we probably have some nice kids...but that don't feed the bulldog!

During the play where we recovered the punt that hit the PSU player...Grant Elliot was punched up under the face mask right in front of a ref...he turned and looked at the ref and said "so what the F___ is this?" the result was a double offsetting personal foul penalty!

Helcat72 wrote:I've seen us blitz several times from the outside with no results. Mollohan up the middle is the only one that seems to be getting through. It appears that the tackles are being handled by a single blocker so the OT can switch outsideand pick up the outside backer. The Outside backers also are not using any strength or quickness techniques to get rid of blockers so they get tied up. Has anyone seen Epi King make a play other than the interception against ISU? I was watching him on the tape I made of the game...he may have a lot of speed but doesn't get to the ball very often to make a play...and when he does he's not very physical. We need some mean people out there on D...we probably have some nice kids...but that don't feed the bulldog!

During the play where we recovered the punt that hit the PSU player...Grant Elliot was punched up under the face mask right in front of a ref...he turned and looked at the ref and said "so what the F___ is this?" the result was a double offsetting personal foul penalty!

Not sure if Epi has been getting blown off the ball, but I was wondering the same thing myself. The only play I have seen him make in the last 2 weeks was that tackle on the Weber RB that busted it to the outside .. he ran him down and pushed him out of bounds. Pretty much only 2-3 players have been playmakers on D the last 2-3 weeks and that is Marudas/Force/Daly. We need the WHOLE team up there making plays with our swarm defense. I'm not harping on Epi as I know he is a fine player, but I just haven't seen much of him either in there so not sure what is happening on that. Maybe he is being assigned as a spy/quick guy over the middle etc. I don't know.

Did you all notice that Epi was playing some Sam backer?

The whole defense seems to be trying to do too much. They have to stay disciplined. Lowe and Kolone have to come back and be productive. In that I mean play well enought to take the heat off some of these guys who are trying to do too much. It's fixable, but they have to focus on their own roles and the fundamentals of tackling.

When you are in a 3-4 and only blitz 1 person that is the design of the defense and everybody knows that there will be 4 rushing. Sending 4 guys in the 3-4 isn't blitzing it is the 3-4 defense. I have seen every game this year and can count on 2 hands the number of times we have sent 3 guys blitzing. Almost everytime we have had a positive come out of it. The best scheme was against NDSU when we were sending force and the OLB from the same strong side. we did it twice, the first time NDSU didn't read it and we hit their RB the same time he got the ball. In the next series we forced the QB to throw out of bounds and he still took a shot (legally).

We just need to send more people I agree the 3rd and long is a tuffy to call but I say send the house a few times and man up on the recievers and backs. Then when you drop out of it they will have some short out's called or a screen and they don't get the 3rd down.

I was watching a High school game this past weekend and they were in the 3-4 most of the game. However they had LB jumping around constantly "faking it" the poor QB audibled 3 times on one play and then got a delay of game. I hardly ever see us faking it we line up and even the guys flying over in the plane know who is rushing. It is simple if you only send 4 and they have at least 5 and probably 6 it is pretty tough to get to them.