Starting RBs next year... thoughts?

[The Jackal]

Agree. Great play. Issue with that game is Mercer had to play a walk-on QB for a half and when they brought their starter/second string in gimpy he brought them back Vs our d in a hurry. It was scary. That and the bowling ball RB they have. Were mashing our D in second half. It became a who can score more west coast game. I hate that. We have to gettt better in pass D. Mercer and WCU torched us if I recall. My recollection is we were doing well v Mercer and they brought in their bad ankle better QB and he changed things. I wonder if we win if he plays whole game. We need to shore up
Pass d !

I think there is valid criticism that Furman's pass defense tended to let up a bit late in games. They did against Mercer, WCU, and ETSU. I think it is also worth noting that Furman was usually pretty good at closing games out.

Some of that, I think, is by design. The defense may have loosened a bit with a lead and hoped the opposing offense would run the clock for us by taking 10 or 11 plays to score. That's a valid strategy and will often work. In all three of those games, Furman held double digit leads in the second half.

I would also note that in two of those games - Mercer and WCU - Furman faced a couple of guys that were just playing out of their minds. Tyray Devezin for Mercer and Tyrie Adams at WCU both had career-type nights against us. Against Mercer, even after Riley entered the game, roughly half of all of Mercer's plays were either a handoff or a pass to Devezin. We couldn't do anything with him.

Agree with both. Glad to see objective criticism that our pass D needs to be better. It does. ETSU we had two issues - one, we couldn't get a first down to run the clock out .. . but also, our D kept allowing first downs ( 5-10 yard pass plays if i recall) and just couldn't stop them - again, with a 'new' QB entering the game in 2nd half. The first half looked like us vs Chatt. ETSU was going nowhere. and we were killing them. Enter QB 2... WHOLE DIFFERENT GAME. We still have a tendency to make opposing QBs look like Joe Montana. That game painfully reminds us how we need to shore up pass D. I do agree that our O was partly to blame as we couldn't get first downs and the D was right back on the field. I hope the new defensive coaches can help with this. I have usually felt our run D was good. Now I would add that we have a good pass rush. We just need that last piece of coverage or we will always have these stressful games

That said, I agree we are much better under CH at closing out games than we were before.

Yes, our defense could be better. In fact, every defense on every team in football can be better. There's always room for improvement.

What I am saying - and have said literally for years - is that some of these "defenses lapses" are by design. Against ETSU, Furman had a three touchdown lead in the 3rd Q. Most competent offenses are going to have 4 drives every quarter. So, up 27-6 midway through the 3rd Q, Furman's defensive staff knows that ETSU is probably going to have to score 3 touchdowns on 6 offensive drives they are likely to get the rest of the game just to tie it. If Furman scores one time during that stretch, game over. To that point, ETSU had notched 2 field goals on their 8 previous offensive drives - odds are good.

In that scenario, the only thing Furman cannot afford to do is (1) allow big chunk plays and (2) not run the clock on offense. We did both.

Furman gave up at least two 50+ yard pass plays after Herink entered the game. I'd be surprised if we gave up a 50+ yard pass play all season, much less two in about 5 minutes of game time. We whiffed on a tackle on a 3rd down pass that led to a big gainer. More than that, our offense did bupkiss the entire fourth quarter.

I don't have any gripe with the game plan at the end of the ETSU game. Our defense loosened up in hopes that ETSU would try and dink and dunk their way down the field and burn clock. It is a sound strategy because the coaching staff could not possibly have anticipated that our offense would just disappear for 12 minutes.

So yes, I have to push back when people criticize our pass defense simply because they gave up yards. Yards don't matter when you are leading by 21 in the 3rd quarter - points do and the clock does. Many times, we give up yards in that scenario because that's what the defense is designed to do - surrender yards and not points. The ETSU game was just a perfect storm of poor execution on both sides of the ball.

What? Did you run out of TD's against Mercer to post?

They just happened to be the first videos on Furman's twitter feed scrolling backwards (last game of the year) and served as an example of the point I was trying to make - Furman doesn't care if you load the box and, it seems, invites teams to do it.

[FUBeAR]

Agree. Great play. Issue with that game is Mercer had to play a walk-on QB for a half and when they brought their starter/second string in gimpy he brought them back Vs our d in a hurry. It was scary. That and the bowling ball RB they have. Were mashing our D in second half. It became a who can score more west coast game. I hate that. We have to gettt better in pass D. Mercer and WCU torched us if I recall. My recollection is we were doing well v Mercer and they brought in their bad ankle better QB and he changed things. I wonder if we win if he plays whole game. We need to shore up
Pass d !

I think there is valid criticism that Furman's pass defense tended to let up a bit late in games. They did against Mercer, WCU, and ETSU. I think it is also worth noting that Furman was usually pretty good at closing games out.

Some of that, I think, is by design. The defense may have loosened a bit with a lead and hoped the opposing offense would run the clock for us by taking 10 or 11 plays to score. That's a valid strategy and will often work. In all three of those games, Furman held double digit leads in the second half.

I would also note that in two of those games - Mercer and WCU - Furman faced a couple of guys that were just playing out of their minds. Tyray Devezin for Mercer and Tyrie Adams at WCU both had career-type nights against us. Against Mercer, even after Riley entered the game, roughly half of all of Mercer's plays were either a handoff or a pass to Devezin. We couldn't do anything with him.

Agree with both. Glad to see objective criticism that our pass D needs to be better. It does. ETSU we had two issues - one, we couldn't get a first down to run the clock out .. . but also, our D kept allowing first downs ( 5-10 yard pass plays if i recall) and just couldn't stop them - again, with a 'new' QB entering the game in 2nd half. The first half looked like us vs Chatt. ETSU was going nowhere. and we were killing them. Enter QB 2... WHOLE DIFFERENT GAME. We still have a tendency to make opposing QBs look like Joe Montana. That game painfully reminds us how we need to shore up pass D. I do agree that our O was partly to blame as we couldn't get first downs and the D was right back on the field. I hope the new defensive coaches can help with this. I have usually felt our run D was good. Now I would add that we have a good pass rush. We just need that last piece of coverage or we will always have these stressful games

That said, I agree we are much better under CH at closing out games than we were before.

Yes, our defense could be better. In fact, every defense on every team in football can be better. There's always room for improvement.

What I am saying - and have said literally for years - is that some of these "defenses lapses" are by design. Against ETSU, Furman had a three touchdown lead in the 3rd Q. Most competent offenses are going to have 4 drives every quarter. So, up 27-6 midway through the 3rd Q, Furman's defensive staff knows that ETSU is probably going to have to score 3 touchdowns on 6 offensive drives they are likely to get the rest of the game just to tie it. If Furman scores one time during that stretch, game over. To that point, ETSU had notched 2 field goals on their 8 previous offensive drives - odds are good.

In that scenario, the only thing Furman cannot afford to do is (1) allow big chunk plays and (2) not run the clock on offense. We did both.

Furman gave up at least two 50+ yard pass plays after Herink entered the game. I'd be surprised if we gave up a 50+ yard pass play all season, much less two in about 5 minutes of game time. We whiffed on a tackle on a 3rd down pass that led to a big gainer. More than that, our offense did bupkiss the entire fourth quarter.

I don't have any gripe with the game plan at the end of the ETSU game. Our defense loosened up in hopes that ETSU would try and dink and dunk their way down the field and burn clock. It is a sound strategy because the coaching staff could not possibly have anticipated that our offense would just disappear for 12 minutes.

So yes, I have to push back when people criticize our pass defense simply because they gave up yards. Yards don't matter when you are leading by 21 in the 3rd quarter - points do and the clock does. Many times, we give up yards in that scenario because that's what the defense is designed to do - surrender yards and not points. The ETSU game was just a perfect storm of poor execution on both sides of the ball.

What? Did you run out of TD's against Mercer to post?

They just happened to be the first videos on Furman's twitter feed scrolling backwards (last game of the year) and served as an example of the point I was trying to make - Furman doesn't care if you load the box and, it seems, invites teams to do it.

Except Mercer is in their base 3-4 front in both clips...

[The Jackal]

Agree. Great play. Issue with that game is Mercer had to play a walk-on QB for a half and when they brought their starter/second string in gimpy he brought them back Vs our d in a hurry. It was scary. That and the bowling ball RB they have. Were mashing our D in second half. It became a who can score more west coast game. I hate that. We have to gettt better in pass D. Mercer and WCU torched us if I recall. My recollection is we were doing well v Mercer and they brought in their bad ankle better QB and he changed things. I wonder if we win if he plays whole game. We need to shore up
Pass d !

I think there is valid criticism that Furman's pass defense tended to let up a bit late in games. They did against Mercer, WCU, and ETSU. I think it is also worth noting that Furman was usually pretty good at closing games out.

Some of that, I think, is by design. The defense may have loosened a bit with a lead and hoped the opposing offense would run the clock for us by taking 10 or 11 plays to score. That's a valid strategy and will often work. In all three of those games, Furman held double digit leads in the second half.

I would also note that in two of those games - Mercer and WCU - Furman faced a couple of guys that were just playing out of their minds. Tyray Devezin for Mercer and Tyrie Adams at WCU both had career-type nights against us. Against Mercer, even after Riley entered the game, roughly half of all of Mercer's plays were either a handoff or a pass to Devezin. We couldn't do anything with him.

Agree with both. Glad to see objective criticism that our pass D needs to be better. It does. ETSU we had two issues - one, we couldn't get a first down to run the clock out .. . but also, our D kept allowing first downs ( 5-10 yard pass plays if i recall) and just couldn't stop them - again, with a 'new' QB entering the game in 2nd half. The first half looked like us vs Chatt. ETSU was going nowhere. and we were killing them. Enter QB 2... WHOLE DIFFERENT GAME. We still have a tendency to make opposing QBs look like Joe Montana. That game painfully reminds us how we need to shore up pass D. I do agree that our O was partly to blame as we couldn't get first downs and the D was right back on the field. I hope the new defensive coaches can help with this. I have usually felt our run D was good. Now I would add that we have a good pass rush. We just need that last piece of coverage or we will always have these stressful games

That said, I agree we are much better under CH at closing out games than we were before.

Yes, our defense could be better. In fact, every defense on every team in football can be better. There's always room for improvement.

What I am saying - and have said literally for years - is that some of these "defenses lapses" are by design. Against ETSU, Furman had a three touchdown lead in the 3rd Q. Most competent offenses are going to have 4 drives every quarter. So, up 27-6 midway through the 3rd Q, Furman's defensive staff knows that ETSU is probably going to have to score 3 touchdowns on 6 offensive drives they are likely to get the rest of the game just to tie it. If Furman scores one time during that stretch, game over. To that point, ETSU had notched 2 field goals on their 8 previous offensive drives - odds are good.

In that scenario, the only thing Furman cannot afford to do is (1) allow big chunk plays and (2) not run the clock on offense. We did both.

Furman gave up at least two 50+ yard pass plays after Herink entered the game. I'd be surprised if we gave up a 50+ yard pass play all season, much less two in about 5 minutes of game time. We whiffed on a tackle on a 3rd down pass that led to a big gainer. More than that, our offense did bupkiss the entire fourth quarter.

I don't have any gripe with the game plan at the end of the ETSU game. Our defense loosened up in hopes that ETSU would try and dink and dunk their way down the field and burn clock. It is a sound strategy because the coaching staff could not possibly have anticipated that our offense would just disappear for 12 minutes.

So yes, I have to push back when people criticize our pass defense simply because they gave up yards. Yards don't matter when you are leading by 21 in the 3rd quarter - points do and the clock does. Many times, we give up yards in that scenario because that's what the defense is designed to do - surrender yards and not points. The ETSU game was just a perfect storm of poor execution on both sides of the ball.

What? Did you run out of TD's against Mercer to post?

They just happened to be the first videos on Furman's twitter feed scrolling backwards (last game of the year) and served as an example of the point I was trying to make - Furman doesn't care if you load the box and, it seems, invites teams to do it.

Except Mercer is in their base 3-4 front in both clips...

I do not believe I said Mercer ever loaded the box. Maybe I did. Certainly not in the second video.

[FUBeAR]

Agree. Great play. Issue with that game is Mercer had to play a walk-on QB for a half and when they brought their starter/second string in gimpy he brought them back Vs our d in a hurry. It was scary. That and the bowling ball RB they have. Were mashing our D in second half. It became a who can score more west coast game. I hate that. We have to gettt better in pass D. Mercer and WCU torched us if I recall. My recollection is we were doing well v Mercer and they brought in their bad ankle better QB and he changed things. I wonder if we win if he plays whole game. We need to shore up
Pass d !

I think there is valid criticism that Furman's pass defense tended to let up a bit late in games. They did against Mercer, WCU, and ETSU. I think it is also worth noting that Furman was usually pretty good at closing games out.

Some of that, I think, is by design. The defense may have loosened a bit with a lead and hoped the opposing offense would run the clock for us by taking 10 or 11 plays to score. That's a valid strategy and will often work. In all three of those games, Furman held double digit leads in the second half.

I would also note that in two of those games - Mercer and WCU - Furman faced a couple of guys that were just playing out of their minds. Tyray Devezin for Mercer and Tyrie Adams at WCU both had career-type nights against us. Against Mercer, even after Riley entered the game, roughly half of all of Mercer's plays were either a handoff or a pass to Devezin. We couldn't do anything with him.

Agree with both. Glad to see objective criticism that our pass D needs to be better. It does. ETSU we had two issues - one, we couldn't get a first down to run the clock out .. . but also, our D kept allowing first downs ( 5-10 yard pass plays if i recall) and just couldn't stop them - again, with a 'new' QB entering the game in 2nd half. The first half looked like us vs Chatt. ETSU was going nowhere. and we were killing them. Enter QB 2... WHOLE DIFFERENT GAME. We still have a tendency to make opposing QBs look like Joe Montana. That game painfully reminds us how we need to shore up pass D. I do agree that our O was partly to blame as we couldn't get first downs and the D was right back on the field. I hope the new defensive coaches can help with this. I have usually felt our run D was good. Now I would add that we have a good pass rush. We just need that last piece of coverage or we will always have these stressful games

That said, I agree we are much better under CH at closing out games than we were before.

Yes, our defense could be better. In fact, every defense on every team in football can be better. There's always room for improvement.

What I am saying - and have said literally for years - is that some of these "defenses lapses" are by design. Against ETSU, Furman had a three touchdown lead in the 3rd Q. Most competent offenses are going to have 4 drives every quarter. So, up 27-6 midway through the 3rd Q, Furman's defensive staff knows that ETSU is probably going to have to score 3 touchdowns on 6 offensive drives they are likely to get the rest of the game just to tie it. If Furman scores one time during that stretch, game over. To that point, ETSU had notched 2 field goals on their 8 previous offensive drives - odds are good.

In that scenario, the only thing Furman cannot afford to do is (1) allow big chunk plays and (2) not run the clock on offense. We did both.

Furman gave up at least two 50+ yard pass plays after Herink entered the game. I'd be surprised if we gave up a 50+ yard pass play all season, much less two in about 5 minutes of game time. We whiffed on a tackle on a 3rd down pass that led to a big gainer. More than that, our offense did bupkiss the entire fourth quarter.

I don't have any gripe with the game plan at the end of the ETSU game. Our defense loosened up in hopes that ETSU would try and dink and dunk their way down the field and burn clock. It is a sound strategy because the coaching staff could not possibly have anticipated that our offense would just disappear for 12 minutes.

So yes, I have to push back when people criticize our pass defense simply because they gave up yards. Yards don't matter when you are leading by 21 in the 3rd quarter - points do and the clock does. Many times, we give up yards in that scenario because that's what the defense is designed to do - surrender yards and not points. The ETSU game was just a perfect storm of poor execution on both sides of the ball.

What? Did you run out of TD's against Mercer to post?

They just happened to be the first videos on Furman's twitter feed scrolling backwards (last game of the year) and served as an example of the point I was trying to make - Furman doesn't care if you load the box and, it seems, invites teams to do it.

Except Mercer is in their base 3-4 front in both clips...

I do not believe I said Mercer ever loaded the box. Maybe I did. Certainly not in the second video.

Both are really well-designed & exceptionally well-executed plays that take advantage of mistakes by Mercer.

In the 1st clip, Mercer is in 3-4 Cover 0 (Man) and with CB's pressing. Motion reveals the coverage and Furman takes advantage of OLB's LeMarkus Bailey's exuberance to chase the ball...it's a beautiful well-designed nekkid boot with good play fakes giving Roberts a clear line of sight to hit the TE, who is running what I call a Turkey route vs. Man on the Safety...very hard to defend that route in Man coverage, which I imagine TE knew because the motion revealed the coverage to him. He may have run a different route vs. Zone. If he doesn't pop open, Roberts could have probably run for the TD or close. If Bailey stays home, that's a much tougher play...why film study and carrying out ball fakes are SO important.

In the 2nd one, Mercer, as you seem to note now, is in the base 3-4 and I'm not sure what coverage they are in....thinking maybe they aren't sure either. Look like they blitzed the ILB on the wide side and everyone is playing Cover 3 zone (from a Cover 2 'look') except the Safety on the wide side who follows the motion man into the flats, but I think should have been 'filling' for the blitzing ILB...the motion man is already covered by the OLB. So, Roberts smartly sees the blitz, sees the Safety screwing up (I think) and throws to the underneath Retriever on the mesh route (AKA rub route...which they perfectly execute...even using the the Umpire as part of the mesh) behind the blitzing LB.

Shoulda looked something like this...

_____C______ S_______ C
OLB_____ILB______S_____ OLB

___________ ILB


Instead...looked something like this...

_____C______ S_______ C
OLB_____ILB_____***_________S_ OLB
________________***
______________ILB

See the 'honeyhole' Roberts found....Good Job Furman QB (and OL, of course)...not so much Mercer DB's.

[The Jackal]

I really like the execution on both of those plays. I tend to miss the nuance in real time, but slowing it down you can really see the beauty in them.

In both instances, I think Furman is able to use the formation to force Mercer to disclose their coverage. In the first clip, Mercer shows press man coverage. That's a lot of information to a QB pre-snap.

That first clip is just really impressive football. Everything about that play sells run. The formation, the motion, the blocking. Furman doesn't even bother to block the most dangerous defender, who is sucked well down into the play. It appears there is only one player going for the pass - Walker - and even he sells run. Beautiful design.

I agree with you on the second clip it looks like Mercer's safety (#7) overcommits on the play. He vacates a big space in the middle of the field where DeLuca just sits down in the zone. I can only imagine that it isn't easy to defend an offense that throws as much "English" into their play design as Furman does. I didn't originally see whether they were in a base defense because I cannot make out the number of the LOLB, who I first thought was a defensive back but now think it is probably LeMarkus Bailey.

I forget the call some defenses give to that coverage ("falcon" maybe), but it looks like cover 3 with the safety (#7) filling the hole created by the pressuring linebacker. Not sure why, but he just appears to overrun the zone.