What kind of defense would you like to see next year?

[Anonymous]

I re-watched the UCLA game and Oregon game. Our defense did better when we didn’t blitz. I hope we go back to the standard 4-3, last year’s defense let us down. Allowing a poor Oregon team to drive the length of the field and score a TD with the game on the line was awful. 

This is what I’d like to see:

DT: Lotulelei, Mokofisi

DE: Fitts, Anae

LB: Luafatasaga, Thompson, Hansen

CB: Johnson, Lewis

S: Ballard, Blair

[Utah]

It’s tough. Notice how we defended Arizona a lot better? Scalley wants to run a 5-1 front, which is a 4-3/3-4 hybrid. Basically you have a NT instead of a MLB, a rush OLB/DE for blitzes and another coverage OLB. 

I say stay the same, because in theory this is a great defense (USC has run this as does LSU). Let’s see how this year goes. 

[Tony (admin)]

Agree. I’d just to see some improvement within the scheme though, like in the LB core and the corners.

[Anonymous]

Well, a 5-2 defense when one of your two linebackers is Cody Barton is not ideal.

[Anonymous]

I didn’t notice the defense defending Arizona better, Arizona was a dumpster fire last year, everyone defended them better. 

What I did notice is the 5-2 defense left the middle of the field wide open and Oregon went at Barton every play the second half. The 5-2 defense is a dumb defense to run at PAC 12 offenses. Try running a 5-2 defense on NCAA football on PlayStation, you’ll get lit up. 

[UteThunder]

No offense, but I don’t think a video game is a good barometer for whether a scheme or play call is going to be effective in real life or not.

[Anonymous]

No offense, but computer football simulations have become very sophisticated, I’d trust a coach who refuses to use them about as much as I’d trust a pilot who refuses to use airplane simulations. The defense during the Oregon game looked like it was led by Max Pruss, pilot of the LZ 129 Hidenburg. 

[RedLine]

At the college level the talent and depth disparity on a team as a whole is very wide. This isn’t thier profession, most will never play again, some are still growing into their full body strength.  I haven’t researched the sophistications of simulations today, but limited data and externalities raise accuracy concerns. 

The amount of NFL drafts on last year on a simulation would indicate that team should be NCAA championship bound.  The reason I like college football over the NFL is the unpredictibility of it accross the board. Also, part of the reason why college coaching is so critical in college. 

[Anonymous]

Given the amount of NFL draft picks we had from last year’s team, only failures in coaching strategy and play-calling would explain why we somehow let Colorado win the division.

[Utah]

Last year’s problem were 100% on the offense. Our defense was fine. Our offense, especially red zone offense, was laughable. 

Nothing wrong with last year’s defense. 

[Anonymous]

Last year’s defense s**t the bed when it mattered most. Giving away a length of the field game winning drive against a terrible Oregon team is inexcusable. Scalley should have been fired immediately for that. 

[Utah]

Oregon gave up 40+ points a game. What did our offense do? If offense was average, we score 35 and blow them out. 

[RedLine]

Agree with you.  Loss against Oregon was fault to our offense.  And even when Oregon was s**t for a season for a season in the W-L category, let there be no misuderstanding that their cupboards were not bare of high level offensive talent. 

[ladyinred]

Yes, that last drive against Oregon was bs. However it was Oregon’s defense that sucked, they were still decent on offense and holding them to 30 points was fine. Not great but fine. Same with Cal, they were unquestionably going to score it was about limiting the damage and being able to produce on offense.

Defense gets a B+ for last season considering the bad position they were constantly put in by offense. Not an A- or A due to poor tackling imo.

[UteThunder]

Airplane simulations and playstation video games are apples and oranges due to the human element in football which can NOT be overstated.

22 players and their coaches acting on a mixture of instinct, gut feeling, emotion, and adrenaline. Then you have the injuries they are playing with and individual player psyche. The list goes on and on. There are so many unknown variables factoring into every single play, it is impossible for a computer to accurately simulate what is going to work in real life.

An airplane simulator, on the other hand, only has to account for known variables, i.e. physics and weather conditions. The only human element is the pilot flying the simulator, and that isn’t actually part of the simulator.

This isn’t to say that video games can’t serve a purpose, because there are examples of coaches using them to help teach players to read defenses. But that is about all they are good for.

The day coaches start basing their playcalls and schemes off of what works all the time on a video game is the day those coaches will be looking for a new line of work. 

[teeme73]

Fotu will get a significant amount of play on the interior DL.