Ok I usually take summers off because it just gets too damn hot in my surveillance van. However, I have to chime in on this one because I see too many uniformed opinions. Did our safeties play well last year? Nope. That being said, they did not play as bad as many here think. Although he is not completely correct on all issues, PR does have this one figured out more than most of you.
Reasons for bad safety play or the appearance of bad safety play last season include.
-A very solid front 7 that pretty much shut down MOST teams run games, led to a higher percentage of passes.
-A first year DC who is still learning and lost 9 starters including 2 NFL draft guys.
-A safety coach who quite frankly was just too old to effectively coach/communicate.
-A lack of shut down corners who could help the safeties out.
-Injuries
-An offense who was ineffective at best.
-A lack of safety depth to provide both rest and more importantly competition to push the safety play to be better.
Things that will be changed and I think will help turn around safety play next year.
-A DC and a complete secondary with another year of experience under their belt.
-JJ IS BACK. This one is more important than many people realize. The best defense is a good offense. Simply put, the O did not do a good enough job of putting long drives together and keeping the D off the field. I joke that nobody is more happy to have JJ back than coach G.
-We will be playing more “press” coverage with our corners this year. This was evident in the spring and should make you “corners are 10 yards deep every play” guys happy.
-A young and knowledgeable safety coach who will demand the most from his players.
-look for a more aggressive year on D. More pressures with a man free type coverage. This requires both a D front who can get home and a D secondary who can cover. Coach G feels like this is going to be the case this year and I would not be surprised to see it result in more aggressive play calling.
Now to address some completely inaccurate statements. The corners did not line up 10 yards deep every play. Sometimes they did. Coaches had issues getting the young corners who lacked confidence to scoot up, but it was definitely not every play. For those who think we only played cover 2 or 3 last year. I suggest you watch some game film. Well over 1/3 of the D plays called were man or zone pressures. In fact, it was most often aggressive pressure calls that relied too heavily on our DB’s that led to big plays. Also, those claiming it was easy to tell that we were in cover 2 or 3 obviously have only limited high school football knowledge. Little to no division one college football teams run basic cover 2 or 3. The griz certainly do not. There may be a base 2 or 3 initial call (it is usually 4 or simply zone for the griz), but the field is then broken in half and a combination of the initial call and the offensive formation dictate what coverage is played to that side (very often the D may be running say cover 2 on one half of the field and say cover 3 on the other). If you want to see evidence of this just watch the safety/corner/linebacker on one side of the field communicate through hand signals what the coverage is as the O comes to the line.
As painful as it is to some of you, PR is actually pretty correct on this one. Secondary play at this level is not as simple as you think. It was comical to get on this board during/after the game and listen to many posters call a certain player out for a long pass completion simply because they were close to the play. When in fact, a completely different player was responsible for the mistake. I imagine that 95% of posters on this board would be completely lost in a D meeting discussing secondary scheme. The posters claiming it is simply basic cover 2, 3, or man are a perfect example. This simply is not the case. Lastly, for those who though the solution was to play different players you were also misinformed. There simply was not anyone who was better than the starters (I know it is hard to believe for some of you, but it was the case).
Whew. I wish I could have said all that in less words. But it simply is not cut and dry like so many of you think, so I felt it deserved a detailed explanation. Safety play WAS NOT good enough last year, but it was also not as bad as some though (it was often a combination of factors listed above in addition to the actual play of the safeties). I look for there to be some good improvement this year.
uke: You can look that up also...but it would be a waste of your sanguine surveillance seconds... Your long, boring post did not deal with the problem...ATHLETICISM. The thresh hold for pr.....g up again like this is miniscule...trust me. I haven't seen Whited play, but I can assure you if he's all that, he'll be getting his shot. :egriz:
