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Post by WesternFan on Sept 23, 2018 6:41:09 GMT -5
Given what I saw yesterday, I'm not sure that Western Carolina or VMI is fielding a defensive unit this season. Were it not for a couple of stupid decisions made by the VMI coaching staff, Saturday's game would have been in the loss column, and probably should have been a loss.
Wachenheim showed a total disrespect for the WCU defensive unit on a couple 4th down plays the Keydets attempted.
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Post by mjecat1971 on Sept 23, 2018 17:17:44 GMT -5
Sad to say but I can logically understand his lack of respect.
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Post by tenNesseeCat on Sept 23, 2018 18:37:42 GMT -5
Yesterday, I found myself excited about our D half of the time, and blowing a gasket because of them the other half. There is a spark there, they just have to figure out how to catch fire.
I will say that I saw one of our players "saluting" the VMI sidelines repeatedly. Maybe they (coaches) didn't see it, but they will. I'd make a good example outta him for the rest of the team. As stated before, I'd run them all till they puked, end practice, and just when they felt like they could finally catch their breath on their way to the locker room, I'd pull them all back out on the field and sprint the length the field and back. multiple reps for every time he made the salute motion. with the video clip on a loop on the video board the whole time. If that didn't have enough impact, I'd move to up and down the stadium stairs. You have to break disrespect, and lack of discipline. That young fella has a lot to learn if he thinks our D needed to do ANYTHING other than focus on the next play.
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Post by FLCATAMOUNT on Sept 23, 2018 19:55:02 GMT -5
Sad to say but I can logically understand his lack of respect. We have good players on defense that are fast and athletic. The only problem is that many of the folks playing were playing in High School last year. I see lots of hustle and fight which you can't teach. They will get better as the season goes on. We just have to hope we can outscore some teams until the defense learns. I still really think that we can outscore most of the teams we play. We are going to have to if we are going to have a winning season. Furman is down this year though. What we have to worry about with Furman is the faking of injuries on every other play to slow down our offense. Furman's defense cannot keep up so they fake injuries to slow us down so we cannot get into a rhythm. Not much we can do about it but take it. Hopefully the coaches will have us ready for that tactic. I think if they start doing that again this year, we should do the same thing when we are on defense. Maybe if the game takes 5 hours the refs will finally do something about it.
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Post by tenNesseeCat on Sept 23, 2018 20:14:00 GMT -5
Sad to say but I can logically understand his lack of respect. We have good players on defense that are fast and athletic. The only problem is that many of the folks playing were playing in High School last year. I see lots of hustle and fight which you can't teach. They will get better as the season goes on. We just have to hope we can outscore some teams until the defense learns. I still really think that we can outscore most of the teams we play. We are going to have to if we are going to have a winning season. Furman is down this year though. What we have to worry about with Furman is the faking of injuries on every other play to slow down our offense. Furman's defense cannot keep up so they fake injuries to slow us down so we cannot get into a rhythm. Not much we can do about it but take it. Hopefully the coaches will have us ready for that tactic. I think if they start doing that again this year, we should do the same thing when we are on defense. Maybe if the game takes 5 hours the refs will finally do something about it. Oh I ruffled some furple feathers making that claim last year. But it happened. I don't necessarily think they were faking, but in no hurry or obvious pain. I was also really pissed in that game from the refs standing over the ball with the chain crew already set. Wondering why they were holding up our Offense.
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Post by wcugrad95 on Sept 23, 2018 20:20:19 GMT -5
I don't think we have been going quite as fast as last year, but this weekend would be a good time to start. If we don't sub - they can't sub. So call 3 plays at a time, sprint to the line, and have Speir in the ref's ear about FU being ready to play.
Their coaches took advantage of the rules - if you aren't ready go down. But as so many teams have now moved to a fast tempo it will be even more obvious now if guys are taking dives to slow the offense down. Don't sub and they can't be slowly jogging a guy off who conveniently lays down.
I don't think it caused us to lose by more than 3 TDs, but clearly it impacted our rhythm which is exactly what they want to do.
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Post by FLCATAMOUNT on Sept 24, 2018 5:02:07 GMT -5
We have good players on defense that are fast and athletic. The only problem is that many of the folks playing were playing in High School last year. I see lots of hustle and fight which you can't teach. They will get better as the season goes on. We just have to hope we can outscore some teams until the defense learns. I still really think that we can outscore most of the teams we play. We are going to have to if we are going to have a winning season. Furman is down this year though. What we have to worry about with Furman is the faking of injuries on every other play to slow down our offense. Furman's defense cannot keep up so they fake injuries to slow us down so we cannot get into a rhythm. Not much we can do about it but take it. Hopefully the coaches will have us ready for that tactic. I think if they start doing that again this year, we should do the same thing when we are on defense. Maybe if the game takes 5 hours the refs will finally do something about it. Oh I ruffled some furple feathers making that claim last year. But it happened. I don't necessarily think they were faking, but in no hurry or obvious pain. I was also really pissed in that game from the refs standing over the ball with the chain crew already set. Wondering why they were holding up our Offense. They will do it again because they found out last year that it disrupts our offense and gets us out of rhythm. I agree it did not cause us to lose by 3 touchdowns, but if we could have gotten into a rhythm, the game would have been closer. They are not 3 TDs better than us. Karma is catching up with them this year though so who knows. If we could possibly start fast and get ahead of them by a couple of scores, we could probably break their will because they are not having much success this year.
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Post by catamount87 on Sept 24, 2018 8:25:54 GMT -5
Something that I just don't understand is how we continually allow players to make hits but then get yards. Clearly we aren't wrapping up and tackling. Watch how our defensive players, mainly the DBs don't make tackles just hits. This has to be coaching and game strategy. Against VMI we had many a receiver or RB caught for minimal gain only to not make a solid tackle and the offensive player make great yards by continuing to drive forward. Why, because they could and could get away from the defender.
It's high time we start making tackles and not just hits.
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Post by wcugrad95 on Sept 24, 2018 9:26:14 GMT -5
Poor tackling is at an epidemic-level across all of football - not just Western. The difference is other teams seem to get to the ball with more than one guy, and plays are happening in front of the defense. Because many of these plays are downfield or out in space against WCU, when we miss the tackle it is that much worse (and that much more visible). As some others mentioned, we actually look like a serviceable D when we get pressure on the QB - we had 10 sacks coming in and got 6 against VMI. But because we are feast or famine with our rush, when we don't get there we get exposed badly. That is also a big reason we can't seem to consistently get off the field on 3rd (and 4th) down, and that is often because of an inability to get pressure -OR- a breakdown in our secondary -OR- the aforementioned poor tackling letting a 6 yard play turn into 15 or 20. It also feels like we allow lots of big plays (I didn't look up how many 20+ yard gains we have given up - but it seems like quite a few). Poor tackling and fundamentals (I know - they are young) sounds like a recipe for disaster against teams like Furman, Citadel and Wofford. Lack of pressure and breakdowns in the secondary sounds like another scary proposition against Samford and Mercer (whenever their QB comes back, he will be coming off back-to-back 300+ yard passing games).
It will be very interesting this week. Furman simply mauled us running the ball straight up the gut last year, and I certainly don't expect them to veer from that strategy on Saturday until we prove we can stop them. We better be ready to tackle, as I expect a big dose of a large human being (the FU fullback Dirks) play after play after play. I expect them to also take a few shots as we try to load the box and leave our secondary in man coverage - I particularly expect them to once again try and slip the TE out for a big gain (or two).
And FWIW - there is nothing we are saying on a message board that Wiley and Speir aren't acutely aware of. The D has to get better every week, and we will need probably 35+ points per game to stay competitive until they do.
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Post by wcatradio75 on Sept 24, 2018 10:17:21 GMT -5
There is good news this week if you believe in statistics. The Cats are in the top 3 in most offensive stats, and number one in scoring offense and total offense. Furman on the other hand is at the bottom on both of those categories. Additionally, they are below us (around 7th) in most defensive stats while we sit in the middle of the pack believe it or not. On the other hand, they have faced much tougher competition than we have in their 3 games with Clemson, Elon, and a tough fight with ETSU.
I think we are in a good position to win this one as well, but we need a better defensive plan/execution.
Go Cats!
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