SWC75
Bored Historian
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- Aug 26, 2011
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- In 2010, we had an important comeback year from the disaster of the G-Rob years, going 8-5 and beating Kansas State in the Pinstripe Bowl and out-scoring our opponents 288-251. The next year we fell to 5-7 and were outscored 290-342. A big factor in that was that in 2010, our four-man front had a bunch of senior defensive tackles. I looked them up: Andrew Lewis, Anthony Perkins, Bud Tribby and Ollie Haney. Those aren’t famous names but they did have one consistent quality among them, in addition to maturity and experience, they were all about 300 pounds. The next year they were replaced by Jay Bromley, (269), Cory Boatman (274), Haney, (who must have been redshirted by fell from 292 to 279), and Deon Goggins (280). Bromley turned out to be better than any of these guys but the drop from 290-300 pounders to 2270-280 pounders mattered: we had a hard time controlling teams with a power running game.
In 2018, we had a great defensive line with 309 pound Chris Slayton and 295 Bear Williams in the middle, flanked by Kendall Coleman (266) and Alton Robinson (249). Slayton and Williams took on the power runs and tied up blockers so Coleman and Robinson and the linebackers could make plays. When we switched from the 4-3-4 look to the 3-3-5 under Tony White, I wondered what sort of player we needed at the three front positions. Would the middle guy be the 300 pounder or would all three of them be 300 pounders, playing the Slayton-Williams roles while the linebacker and D-backs would come up to make the big plays and do the gang tackling.
Like a lot of fans I was kind of dismayed to look at this years roster and see that the heaviest defensive lineman on the two-deep was 270 pound Terry Lockett, who is now injured and out for the season. This seemed to leave us wide open to getting dominated by 320 pound offensive lines, (like our own), especially if they had big, hard-hitting running backs running behind them.
Going into the Clemson game, it seemed to be no problem. Through our 6-0 beginning to the season, White’s defense had given up 570 yards rushing, 95 per game. Then Clemson, down 7-21, went to their power running game and rolled up 293 yards rushing and scored 20 unanswered points. Early on, in todays’ game, I saw Notre Dame doing the same thing with its big line and it’s stable of big backs. Their line would move the line of scrimmage back 5 yards and their back would them take on 3-4 tacklers and push them back further and always fall forward. It didn’t appear that we could stop them. It was like a colony of ants trying to stop a herd of elephants. I was surprised that at the end, Notre Dame only had 246 yards rushing at the end of the game. I thought they might wind up with 300 or 400 yards. It didn’t matter, as they wound up with 41 points and we didn’t, but our inability to stop their rushing attack has now been the biggest factor in two straight losses and the teams on the rest of our schedule have seen that. That 2011 team was 5-2 at one point and wound up 5-7.
- To beat a team like this, you need your offense to run at high efficiency. Ours did the opposite. Robert Anae made sure to get the ball to Sean Tucker more and Notre Dame made a point of getting to Sean Tucker as well. he got 20 touches, as he should but it only produced 92 yards and one score.
- Meanwhile Garrett Shrader, playing hurt, simply broke down. He came in nursing a leg injury and got hit just before the half and hurt his other leg and suffered an apparent concussion, getting up and collapsing down again, to be helped off by his teammates. He was standing on the sidelines to start the second half, still in uniform but with his helmet off. Even before he got the big hit, his performance was bad, close to pathetic. He couldn’t run the ball at all, taking away a major weapon, (he did try it once and squirted through for 9 yards). He couldn’t scramble against the Notre Dame pass rush. I think it also affected his throwing motion. The opening pick 6 was just a bad decision. The play may have been designed to throw to a spot and Shrader didn’t bother to look at the coverage. (The receiver also seemed disinterested). But other passes were short or off. One long pass, (that wasn’t long enough) to a receiver who was breaking away from his defender was a flat line drive. Shrader was unable to get the ball up in the air and let his man run under it. Garrett was 5 for 14 for a measly 35 yards, one score and that pick 6.
- Our receivers didn’t help. Both Shrader and Del Rio-Wilson suffered several drops, even by the red-hot Oronde Gadsden. In their defense there weren’t a lot of easy catches between Shraders’s wounded ducks and DR-W’s lasers but there enough that they got their hands on that, if the catch had been made, the game might have had a different result. The worst was from Umari Hatcher, who had beaten his man far down the sideline and DR-W had laid the ball right in his hands only to have the ball fall through Umari’s fingers. Hatcher is on of those talent wide-outs we are waiting to make their presence felt and I still think he’s got great potential but that was a terrible drop and he knew it, judging from his body language.
- The play calling was strange. There was the end around on second and 1 that lost 5 yards. But the one that bothered me the most was the long sideline through to Courtney Jackson who was effectively screened and forced out of bounds by the defender on a big third down. The play was right opposite to where I sit and 6-6 Damien Alford and 6-5 Oronde Gadsden were out on my side, covered by one guy each.
- Coming into the game, we were +6 on turnovers and Notre Dame -6. So we throw two huge interceptions to their one, which didn’t turn out to be huge because, just as against Clemson, we did nothing with it. One stat I didn’t bother looking at when I did my comparison of ND’s stats and ours was blocking kicks. The Irish have blocked more kicks than they’ve gotten turnovers. They put this game away with a block on James Williams, which had replaced the suddenly inconsistent Max Von Marburg that set up the shot TD run that put them up by three touchdowns.
- The injuries keep piling up. It was a bad day for the Garretts. Garrett Williams tried to go but wound up on crutches. It might be the end of his season and maybe his career here. Garrett Shrader may have lost his job, at least temporarily. It’s not that we lack depth. It’s that we are having to use it and there’s not much, at least in terms of experience but also size and strength, behind them. As Dino pointed out, we can’t alternate people the way a team like Notre Dame can.
In 2018, we had a great defensive line with 309 pound Chris Slayton and 295 Bear Williams in the middle, flanked by Kendall Coleman (266) and Alton Robinson (249). Slayton and Williams took on the power runs and tied up blockers so Coleman and Robinson and the linebackers could make plays. When we switched from the 4-3-4 look to the 3-3-5 under Tony White, I wondered what sort of player we needed at the three front positions. Would the middle guy be the 300 pounder or would all three of them be 300 pounders, playing the Slayton-Williams roles while the linebacker and D-backs would come up to make the big plays and do the gang tackling.
Like a lot of fans I was kind of dismayed to look at this years roster and see that the heaviest defensive lineman on the two-deep was 270 pound Terry Lockett, who is now injured and out for the season. This seemed to leave us wide open to getting dominated by 320 pound offensive lines, (like our own), especially if they had big, hard-hitting running backs running behind them.
Going into the Clemson game, it seemed to be no problem. Through our 6-0 beginning to the season, White’s defense had given up 570 yards rushing, 95 per game. Then Clemson, down 7-21, went to their power running game and rolled up 293 yards rushing and scored 20 unanswered points. Early on, in todays’ game, I saw Notre Dame doing the same thing with its big line and it’s stable of big backs. Their line would move the line of scrimmage back 5 yards and their back would them take on 3-4 tacklers and push them back further and always fall forward. It didn’t appear that we could stop them. It was like a colony of ants trying to stop a herd of elephants. I was surprised that at the end, Notre Dame only had 246 yards rushing at the end of the game. I thought they might wind up with 300 or 400 yards. It didn’t matter, as they wound up with 41 points and we didn’t, but our inability to stop their rushing attack has now been the biggest factor in two straight losses and the teams on the rest of our schedule have seen that. That 2011 team was 5-2 at one point and wound up 5-7.
- To beat a team like this, you need your offense to run at high efficiency. Ours did the opposite. Robert Anae made sure to get the ball to Sean Tucker more and Notre Dame made a point of getting to Sean Tucker as well. he got 20 touches, as he should but it only produced 92 yards and one score.
- Meanwhile Garrett Shrader, playing hurt, simply broke down. He came in nursing a leg injury and got hit just before the half and hurt his other leg and suffered an apparent concussion, getting up and collapsing down again, to be helped off by his teammates. He was standing on the sidelines to start the second half, still in uniform but with his helmet off. Even before he got the big hit, his performance was bad, close to pathetic. He couldn’t run the ball at all, taking away a major weapon, (he did try it once and squirted through for 9 yards). He couldn’t scramble against the Notre Dame pass rush. I think it also affected his throwing motion. The opening pick 6 was just a bad decision. The play may have been designed to throw to a spot and Shrader didn’t bother to look at the coverage. (The receiver also seemed disinterested). But other passes were short or off. One long pass, (that wasn’t long enough) to a receiver who was breaking away from his defender was a flat line drive. Shrader was unable to get the ball up in the air and let his man run under it. Garrett was 5 for 14 for a measly 35 yards, one score and that pick 6.
- Our receivers didn’t help. Both Shrader and Del Rio-Wilson suffered several drops, even by the red-hot Oronde Gadsden. In their defense there weren’t a lot of easy catches between Shraders’s wounded ducks and DR-W’s lasers but there enough that they got their hands on that, if the catch had been made, the game might have had a different result. The worst was from Umari Hatcher, who had beaten his man far down the sideline and DR-W had laid the ball right in his hands only to have the ball fall through Umari’s fingers. Hatcher is on of those talent wide-outs we are waiting to make their presence felt and I still think he’s got great potential but that was a terrible drop and he knew it, judging from his body language.
- The play calling was strange. There was the end around on second and 1 that lost 5 yards. But the one that bothered me the most was the long sideline through to Courtney Jackson who was effectively screened and forced out of bounds by the defender on a big third down. The play was right opposite to where I sit and 6-6 Damien Alford and 6-5 Oronde Gadsden were out on my side, covered by one guy each.
- Coming into the game, we were +6 on turnovers and Notre Dame -6. So we throw two huge interceptions to their one, which didn’t turn out to be huge because, just as against Clemson, we did nothing with it. One stat I didn’t bother looking at when I did my comparison of ND’s stats and ours was blocking kicks. The Irish have blocked more kicks than they’ve gotten turnovers. They put this game away with a block on James Williams, which had replaced the suddenly inconsistent Max Von Marburg that set up the shot TD run that put them up by three touchdowns.
- The injuries keep piling up. It was a bad day for the Garretts. Garrett Williams tried to go but wound up on crutches. It might be the end of his season and maybe his career here. Garrett Shrader may have lost his job, at least temporarily. It’s not that we lack depth. It’s that we are having to use it and there’s not much, at least in terms of experience but also size and strength, behind them. As Dino pointed out, we can’t alternate people the way a team like Notre Dame can.
