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More mystified than ever at Clawson's evaluation of our defense

BudatWake

Steve Lepore
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After watching the NCSU v. VaTech I am more mystified than ever at Clawson's statements about the defense before the season began. Hopefully, they just had a bad game against NCSU. We made their offense look top 10 and VaTech made it look bottom of the ACC. How could our staff be so off? Were they just blowing smoke and knew we had a problem or did they really think the front 7 was really good? Guess we will see if there is any improvement this coming week. I was hoping the defense would carry us until all the new pieces could fit on the offense--certainly not much reason to have hope after our performance against State and State's performance against VT
 
The front four should be good. The linebackers were somewhat questionable because they were new as starters. The defensive backfield was a bunch of question marks after losing last season's starters.

The surprise has been that the line has not been consistently strong. Lots of experienced guys and guys who performed well last year.
 
Hard to evaluate something that didn't exist.
 
Don’t forget Clemson game.

Safety waving at a wide receiver who luckily dropped the wide open TD.

Tight end running loose in the middle of the field with nobody around.

Trevor Lawrence running shotgun RPO twice and walking into the end zone untouched.

And so on.
 
After watching the NCSU v. VaTech I am more mystified than ever at Clawson's statements about the defense before the season began. Hopefully, they just had a bad game against NCSU. We made their offense look top 10 and VaTech made it look bottom of the ACC. How could our staff be so off? Were they just blowing smoke and knew we had a problem or did they really think the front 7 was really good? Guess we will see if there is any improvement this coming week. I was hoping the defense would carry us until all the new pieces could fit on the offense--certainly not much reason to have hope after our performance against State and State's performance against VT

Even more troubling are that VT had a substitute defensive coordinator in his first game as a salaried coach at a P5 school and a depleted secondary. The Hokies' defense should have been ripe for the picking. Time will tell if State just had a bad day after a very good day. Both games may turn out to be outliers.
 
Outside of our front 4, our defense is historically bad. The linebacker group may be the worst we’ve ever had. We have had plenty of bad secondaries, and our insistence on giving receivers a ten yard cushion is the thing of legends, so it’s hard to tell how bad this group is. After hearing Clawson talk up this group as a strength I was surprised to see state’s scrub QB tear them apart. Now that Va Tech pounded them I’m concerned if we can stop anyone.
 
"The Demon Deacons are surrendering 512 yards per game, the worst in the conference by more than 30 yards" from ACC Power Rankings article.
 
Maybe defense is just bad across college football. 5 completed ACC games and every team scored at least 21. Seven teams scored 30+. We've got to go into every game prepared to score 50. No punting in 4 down territory. No FGs on 4th and short inside the 30.
 
Maybe defense is just bad across college football. 5 completed ACC games and every team scored at least 21. Seven teams scored 30+. We've got to go into every game prepared to score 50. No punting in 4 down territory. No FGs on 4th and short inside the 30.

totally agree with this. We have the O to move the ball. Why not go for it on 4th down more than ever. What do we have to lose. this is the weirdest season in history and there is still no guarantee we will finish it.
 
Maybe defense is just bad across college football. 5 completed ACC games and every team scored at least 21. Seven teams scored 30+. We've got to go into every game prepared to score 50. No punting in 4 down territory. No FGs on 4th and short inside the 30.

College defense has been terrible for awhile now, and honestly it’s ruining the game. Points are meaningless when everyone can score 40+. I’ve always preferred college to the NFL, but that’s changing.
 
This morning before Sunday School, I was talking to a locally well known former High School football coach, multiple State titles, lots of guys who played for him played for the power 5’s and some in the NFL. Anyway, he said the talent is so good now on the offensive side of the ball, the schemes are so complex and the rules are favorable to offense, that is is really hard to stop teams. He said the PI rules and targeting rules make it harder to defend the pass game then it used to be. Heck, one of the best ways to defend the pass game was making receivers pay for going up and making catches, but now you’ve got to be so careful not to get a targeting call it’s taken away the aggressiveness of the secondary. I’m not talking dirty hits, but guys trying to make what used to be good clean football hits run the risk of getting that call. Now, it’s probably a good thing for the safety of the players, but it’s also changed the nature of the game.

I also think that given those things teams are putting their best talent on the offensive side of the ball and recruiting emphases offense more than defense, unless you’re a Clemson and can get top talent on both sides.
 
This morning before Sunday School, I was talking to a locally well known former High School football coach, multiple State titles, lots of guys who played for him played for the power 5’s and some in the NFL. Anyway, he said the talent is so good now on the offensive side of the ball, the schemes are so complex and the rules are favorable to offense, that is is really hard to stop teams. He said the PI rules and targeting rules make it harder to defend the pass game then it used to be. Heck, one of the best ways to defend the pass game was making receivers pay for going up and making catches, but now you’ve got to be so careful not to get a targeting call it’s taken away the aggressiveness of the secondary. I’m not talking dirty hits, but guys trying to make what used to be good clean football hits run the risk of getting that call. Now, it’s probably a good thing for the safety of the players, but it’s also changed the nature of the game.

I also think that given those things teams are putting their best talent on the offensive side of the ball and recruiting emphases offense more than defense, unless you’re a Clemson and can get top talent on both sides.

All this makes sense.
Sounds like our recruiting strategy for football be similar to Forbes strategy for basketball........Recruit offense and teach defense.
 
Clawson seems to have always put more emphasis on the offense side of the ball — You won’t here him say this in a press conference, but I think when the offense gets two shots to score with less than six minutes to play and down three points like at NC State, he fully expects to win the game, regardless of not getting fourth quarter stops.
 
Clawson still needs to be more aggressive in the middle of the field and 4th and short inside the 30.
 
I keep waiting for some radical new defense to catch up with the current offense.

5 DL - 1LB - 5DB or 3DL - 5 LB - 3DB

I think us Wake fans have seen the most effective way to stop the RPO is to blow it up before it gets started. It seems like most teams try to stop it by adding more fast people on the back end. The problem with that is you just stop someone for an 8 yard gain instead of 15. I would like to see 4 DTs and a DE on the field side. 1 LB to spy the QB or cover the RB. 2 CB and 3 safety/rovers.

I’m sure some crazy person at the D3 level would give it a shot.
 
I tell ya one thing they could do, never happen I don’t think, but go to three downs instead of 4 like the Canadian league. That would slow down the scoring. I’m no historian on Canadian football, but I would think the 3 downs is because of the huge Canadian field the defense has to cover and 4 downs would make it almost impossible on the defense. Well, in a way maybe talent and rules favorable to the offense have made the American football “larger” and it’s very hard for defenses to be successful. Like I said, never happen and not sure I’d want it to.
 
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