3rd Down | Syracusefan.com

3rd Down

anomander

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I admit I haven't looked at the comparable stats, but it seems our 3rd down conversion rate on defense and offense has taken a drastic hit? What gives? Here are my thoughts:

Offense - Dungey was great at picking up a few yards out of nothing. Where TD is more likely to extend the play and look to pass, ED would take off after 1st glance. That tended to keep us ahead of our on the down. Seemed like we were always in 3rd and 3/4 last year, while this year is always seeming to by 3rd and long.. So losing ED's ability for those junk yards has effected us more than i would have thought. This can be fixed with better OL play, or keeping TD healthy while duplicating his play last game as far as it goes to called qb plays and improvised plays. The last point brings everything full circle. If TD is able to duplicate his ground game vs WMU and ED throughout his career, we are also increasing the likelihood be picks up an injury, like Dungey was year 1-3, plus games last year. I think it's safe to say if TD goes down, so does our season, so is it smart to have him run as much? Sure we loved what ED gave us on the ground, but all the games he was forced to miss, killed those seasons. As good as ED was when he played, him missing all that time was actually worse for the program. If you can't stay healthy you hurt the team. This decision on how to play can really have a huge effect on the course of the season.


Defense - I really can't explain what's going on here? I knew we were best in country good last year on 3rd down %. This year we have seemingly been lit up, with an abnormally high conversation rate on 3rd and long. There had to be 3 or 4 along on Saturday. Only thing I can think of is that we are confident with Coleman and Robinson, so only rushing 4. It seems we blitzed much more, especially on 3rd down , last season. We always seem to do better when we blitz.

I wonder if this is something we can improve on?
 
I admit I haven't looked at the comparable stats, but it seems our 3rd down conversion rate on defense and offense has taken a drastic hit? What gives? Here are my thoughts:

Offense - Dungey was great at picking up a few yards out of nothing. Where TD is more likely to extend the play and look to pass, ED would take off after 1st glance. That tended to keep us ahead of our on the down. Seemed like we were always in 3rd and 3/4 last year, while this year is always seeming to by 3rd and long.. So losing ED's ability for those junk yards has effected us more than i would have thought. This can be fixed with better OL play, or keeping TD healthy while duplicating his play last game as far as it goes to called qb plays and improvised plays. The last point brings everything full circle. If TD is able to duplicate his ground game vs WMU and ED throughout his career, we are also increasing the likelihood be picks up an injury, like Dungey was year 1-3, plus games last year. I think it's safe to say if TD goes down, so does our season, so is it smart to have him run as much? Sure we loved what ED gave us on the ground, but all the games he was forced to miss, killed those seasons. As good as ED was when he played, him missing all that time was actually worse for the program. If you can't stay healthy you hurt the team. This decision on how to play can really have a huge effect on the course of the season.


Defense - I really can't explain what's going on here? I knew we were best in country good last year on 3rd down %. This year we have seemingly been lit up, with an abnormally high conversation rate on 3rd and long. There had to be 3 or 4 along on Saturday. Only thing I can think of is that we are confident with Coleman and Robinson, so only rushing 4. It seems we blitzed much more, especially on 3rd down , last season. We always seem to do better when we blitz.

I wonder if this is something we can improve on?

Offensively we’ve gone down 2%. Defensively its gone up 15%.
 
My guess is opponents are in 3rd and short more often.
 
My guess is opponents are in 3rd and short more often.
I’m not sure about that. There seemed to be a few third and long situations that WMU converted. Looking at it live it looked like a too-soft zone. Can’t drop back to 20 yards on third and 10.
 
Yeah the soft zone coverage is a killer for our defense. Of course we’re giving up so many yards it might be easier and quicker to look at what is going right. I don’t know what that is
 
Yeah the soft zone coverage is a killer for our defense. Of course we’re giving up so many yards it might be easier and quicker to look at what is going right. I don’t know what that is
I hate soft zone.
 
Yeah the soft zone coverage is a killer for our defense. Of course we’re giving up so many yards it might be easier and quicker to look at what is going right. I don’t know what that is

That soft zone on 3rd and long got us a really nice % each of the last three years. Sacks and TO’s too.

People notice it when it doesn’t work.
 
Yeah, 3rd down defensively was kinda magical last season.
 
Our 3rd down defense the past couple years was not sustainable based on how good our defense really was.
 
Our 3rd down defense the past couple years was not sustainable based on how good our defense really was.

It was for three straight seasons. That’s not an random occurrence. It’s something that happens by design.

I’d bet a lot that it has to do bad tackling and we’ll see it steadily improve to a number that is similar to years past.
 
it has more to do with LBs being better in their drop zones.. it would be easier to tell if we had better video to watch. our soft slot cover guy is getting abused no matter who it is in almost every coverage we try.. thats the thing we need to figure out the most.. you can live with the corners getting beat on occasion trying to play man up
 

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