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Let's talk Mountaineer Defense

burg_eer

burg_eer

All-Conference
Dec 23, 2016
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The Offense will be formidable. WVU will score points. Aside from the usual markers like turnovers, special teams play, etc..., success will hinge on the play of the Defense.

I author this in hopes of generating some decent conversation on an area of major concern. I have reservations about the D and I'd like to read yours if you have them.

Let's take a look at what potentially could be:

D line

DE- Rose/Dante Stills
NT- Bigelow/Darius Stills/Thrift
DT- Robinson/Donahue

Bigelow is coming off 2 ACL tears and is an unknown. WVU needs him to play at a high level in the middle. Does Stills play as a true Freshman? Does Robinson start over Donahue? Does Thrift(PSU transfer) provide help?

Linebackers

SAM- Benton
MIKE- Tonkery
WILL- Long

WVU is thin at LB. The two deep includes Qualls, Sandwich, etc. They had better stay healthy. I wish we had three David Longs.

Corners

Pitts/Washington
Bailey/Fisher

Pitts is an unknown. Fisher is an unknown. Lots of questions here as we are alarmingly thin.

FS- Robinson
Bandit- Avery
Spur- Henry

Robinson has shown flashes and we've got to hope that Dravon has a better 2018 then he did a 2017. Hopefully, the move will help him.


The D has been a sore spot during DH's tenure. In the 7 years that he's been in charge, WVU's average finish in total defense has been 79.4. Gibson was hired 4 years ago. Since he's been the coordinator, WVU's average finish in total defense has been 77.25. The last time WVU finished inside the top 50 in Total Defense was 2010 when they were #3 in total defense. Since 2011, WVU has finished worse than 100th in total defense, three times. Considering there are 129 teams, that's beyond alarming. WVU was 107th in total defense in 2017.

In a nutshell.... The D terrifies me.

What are your thoughts?
 
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The defense will improve from last year. It may not be the greatest improvement. The D just needs to hold teams to 30 points or less and have no injuries.

Did you know WVU was -7 in the turnover battle last year? I think the offense needs to stay out of the greasy fried chicken. Perhaps they can hang onto the ball and not get the defense exhausted. Perhaps the offense can improve on those 3 and outs. Just because there is a possible great offense doesn't mean they will produce.
 
WVUALLEN said:
The defense will improve from last year. It may not be the greatest improvement. The D just needs to hold teams to 30 points or less and have no injuries.

Did you know WVU was -7 in the turnover battle last year? I think the offense needs to stay out of the greasy fried chicken. Perhaps they can hang onto the ball and not get the defense exhausted. Perhaps the offense can improve on those 3 and outs. Just because there is a possible great offense doesn't mean they will produce.
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I sure as hell hope they improve. They finished 107th in the country last year. There's nowhere to go BUT up.
 
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I looked at the defensive average points per game stats from sports-reference.com and the average for WVU is as follows:

2012 - 38.1ppg (117th out of 124)
2013 - 33.3ppg (101st out of 125)
2014 - 27.6ppg (75th out of 128)
2015 - 24.6ppg (44th out of 128)
2016 - 24.0ppg (22nd out of 128)
2017 - 31.5ppg (90th out of 130)

There are probably much better stats/metrics which show the competence level of the defense (3rd down %, TOP, yards per game/per play etc.) but I was pleased that 2015 and 2016's ppg numbers were so low. Obviously other factors are in play such as different personnel and that we seemed to run the ball a lot more during those years but it does give me hope that Gibby can have a bounce back year and get us in the 40-60 range. If he can, WVU could win 11+ if the bounces go their way.
 
Thread about MLB attendance: 165 replies

Thread about the 2018 WVU defense: 4 replies

@Vernon is there any conversation about WVU football on the Blue Lot?
 
burg_eer said:
Thread about MLB attendance: 165 replies

Thread about the 2018 WVU defense: 4 replies

@Vernon is there any conversation about WVU football on the Blue Lot?
Click to expand...
Yep going pretty strong over there. Don't take this the wrong way but if people are not willing to pay $8 a month for our content they probably don't have a strong desire to talk WVU sports throughout the summer. Because of that the free board drops off during the summer. For example the Blue Lot is only down 9% in June but this board is down 44%. We have a great (completely free) promo coming up next week if you want to give it a shot, no strings attached. Any of you that want to get started now just let me know and I'll give you access until the promo starts.
 
Vernon said:
Yep going pretty strong over there. Don't take this the wrong way but if people are not willing to pay $8 a month for our content they probably don't have a strong desire to talk WVU sports throughout the summer. Because of that the free board drops off during the summer. For example the Blue Lot is only down 9% in June but this board is down 44%. We have a great (completely free) promo coming up next week if you want to give it a shot, no strings attached. Any of you that want to get started now just let me know and I'll give you access until the promo starts.
Click to expand...

I'm in. What do I need to do?
 
Vernon said:
You and @burg_eer are all set. It may take 30 minutes of so to kick in but at some point you'll have full access to the Blue Lot and all premium content. Thanks!
Click to expand...

Will the site prompt me to pay when the promotion starts? And thanks for the preview of the BL!
 
I just tried again, and it is working now. If you did something, thank you.
 
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burg_eer said:
I sure as hell hope they improve. They finished 107th in the country last year. There's nowhere to go BUT up.
Click to expand...

The one thing on defense I worry about are getting TO's and stopping opponent from scoring more than your offense. OU defense gave up average of 4 TD's a game and were +4 in TO's. WVU gave up 31 a game but was -7. Defense needs to create. Offense needs less TO's and less 3 and outs. This gives a weak depth defense a chance to rest their guys.

The offense needs to do their job. When it comes to poor defense you need to look at all the issues of offense as well. Like the 33% 3rd conversion for 111th ranking. The defense was ranked 25th in 3rd down stoppage at 33%.

WVU rezone defense was ranked 79th giving up allowing %85 scoring. Redzone offense was 86% ranked 44th. Both sides need to greatly improve in this area.

Rush defense and offense both need to improve.

Passing offense 13th. With poor rdz I would say these passes were deep throws.

Passing Defense 90th (it's the Big 12)

With a lack of depth for the defense to improve then offense needs to improve.
 
WVUALLEN said:
The one thing on defense I worry about are getting TO's and stopping opponent from scoring more than your offense. OU defense gave up average of 4 TD's a game and were +4 in TO's. WVU gave up 31 a game but was -7. Defense needs to create. Offense needs less TO's and less 3 and outs. This gives a weak depth defense a chance to rest their guys.

The offense needs to do their job. When it comes to poor defense you need to look at all the issues of offense as well. Like the 33% 3rd conversion for 111th ranking. The defense was ranked 25th in 3rd down stoppage at 33%.

WVU rezone defense was ranked 79th giving up allowing %85 scoring. Redzone offense was 86% ranked 44th. Both sides need to greatly improve in this area.

Rush defense and offense both need to improve.

Passing offense 13th. With poor rdz I would say these passes were deep throws.

Passing Defense 90th (it's the Big 12)

With a lack of depth for the defense to improve then offense needs to improve.
Click to expand...

It's hardly fair to blame the defense for a score if the offense turns over the ball inside the red zone of the opponent. When the offense turns the ball over on WVU's half of the field shouldn't the offense share the blame for the score? Many times the defense held the opponent to a field goal. So you penalize the defense for that instead of giving it credit for preventing the TD with a short field the offense gave it?
 
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Against Virginia Tech, for example, the WVU defense made the Hokies punt FIVE times without getting a first down on the series before the WVU offense gave VT the ball at the WVU 47 WITH A FAIR CATCH. That led to the first Tech TD.

Special teams, with a penalty, gave Tech the ball on the WVU 32. Another Hokie TD. Blame the defense entirely?

A Grier pass one yard short of a first down gave Tech the ball on its own 46. Another Hokie TD. Blame the defense entirely?

A defense that made VT punt EIGHT times?

I think there's enough blame to go around, not just looking at the defensive numbers for giving up points. Offense and special teams played a harmful, critical role. Just as guilty or more guilty than the defense. When WVU defense is creating 3-and-outs time after time, the offense and special teams should shoulder the blame for not scoring.
 
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WVUALLEN said:
The defense will improve from last year. It may not be the greatest improvement. The D just needs to hold teams to 30 points or less and have no injuries.

Did you know WVU was -7 in the turnover battle last year? I think the offense needs to stay out of the greasy fried chicken. Perhaps they can hang onto the ball and not get the defense exhausted. Perhaps the offense can improve on those 3 and outs. Just because there is a possible great offense doesn't mean they will produce.
Click to expand...
Awwwww the VOLS are coming!
 
WVUALLEN said: ↑
I think the offense needs to stay out of the greasy fried chicken. Perhaps they can hang onto the ball and not get the defense exhausted.

My point exactly. The offense made the defense look bad, if you want by the numbers. But not if you watched the games intelligently. So many short fields when the defense did NOT give up a TD, and sometimes not even a FG.

That's incredible.

If Grier and Sills and friends can move the ball consistently on offense and at least put the opponent in the shadow of WVU's goal line when the WVU offense turns the ball over, the defense will handle the rest.
 
My hope is that by adding a bit more complexity, creativity, and less predictability to the Offense, with a vastly improved O Line and Running Game, we can get back closer to the Average TimeofPos we had in 2015/2016, with less turnovers, less three and outs, reduced reliability on long bombs, a much more consistent Offense, That in and of itself would make a drastic improvement to Defensive Metrics + Performamce.. I was very disappointed with the level of creativity and consistency I saw last year, even with Grier.. Hopefully implementing the TE more into the schemes will give us a bit more versatility/flexibility, because the formations and concepts we ran last yr was not impressive.. I think Tevin Bush is someone else who can add flexibility with home run threat..

I also think the Def will be better as a unit this yr, an older more experienced group is always a good thing. We as fans, need to focus on doing all we can to help our staff recruit and attract top end talent.. Simple things like say hello to on Twitter to all the targets, send them a welcome message and compliment their game.... Donate/Contribute, so we can always be in a stage of facility improvement.. Offer your businesses services(if applicable).... WV is a small and relatively speaking a lower income state, if we use traditional method of raising Capital, we will never be ahead of the curve..
 
Vernon said:
Yep going pretty strong over there. Don't take this the wrong way but if people are not willing to pay $8 a month for our content they probably don't have a strong desire to talk WVU sports throughout the summer. Because of that the free board drops off during the summer. For example the Blue Lot is only down 9% in June but this board is down 44%. We have a great (completely free) promo coming up next week if you want to give it a shot, no strings attached. Any of you that want to get started now just let me know and I'll give you access until the promo starts.
Click to expand...

Is the promo still going on? Thanks
 
I think the Defense will improve quite a bit. A deeper and better defensive front should make a big difference. I think we're good at db and lb.. it may take a few games to gel together but i think we'll improve overall.
 
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