TarHeelIllustrated - AJ: Tar Heels Still Far Away In The Trenches
UNC's barometer game versus Notre Dame revealed the Tar Heels are still far away from Mack Brown's mission statement.
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AJ: Tar Heels Still Far Away In The Trenches
- Thread starter andrew jones
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Yes, the LOS for UNC is weak sauce, even with a whole bunch of highly ranked recruits. Yes, that means that the program is a very long way from Mack's mission statement. But rather than be negative and notice how bewildered Mack looks on the sidelines, focus on the positives. Mack is still not even 75, much less 80. And history show how common it is for coaches who are75 and even 80 to rebuild programs and win championships.
Mack can still do it if we give him and his BFF assistants lifetime contracts. That will prove our unwavering faith.
Mack can still do it if we give him and his BFF assistants lifetime contracts. That will prove our unwavering faith.
It is the biggest problem with this football team. You can give up some passing yards. It's hard not to with today's offenses. But you have to take something away. You can't give up the run like we do. ND ran 85 plays. They ran the ball 50 times for about 6 ypc. Dominated TOS. Can't let that happen.
Go back and watch the game. We get blown up at the LOS and drop into a Cover 2 or Cover 4 shell with middle open coverage. Flats are open. It's there a lot.
Echols got lost in coverage picking up the back out of the backfield. TE wide open. TD. Kelly got sucked up by the run game. Slot wide open. TD. That's not on the corners. That's a LB and a S. People look at the stats and immediately want to blame Dre when that's not always the case.
I don't care who you are. If you're a D1 QB, you've seen this defense in practice, probably hundreds of times, and know how to beat it. Said it last year, if you can't run the ball, and stop the run, you will not win very many games 🤷🏻♂️. That was ND game in a nutshell. Set the tone up front, then work on the secondary.
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DL plays too high which makes it harder for them to get any push and easier to run through. They use improper footwork to set the edge, spill stuff inside, or take on blocks. Can't get upfield. When you are a 4 or 5-star recruit in HS, depending on where you play, you can get away with that a lot using size and athleticism. But at this level, not so much. They have to learn to play differently.
Looks even worse in person. They snap the ball and are almost immediately 3-4 yards backwards. Pretty much the same thing on offense, but we continue to almost exclusively run between tackles.
Yep. To be fair, though, most are learning something new. Bateman ran more 2-gap fronts, so there was less of an emphasis on getting upfield, more take up space, let the linebackers clean up, etc, and that's what we'd recruited and trained for, whereas with Chizik, it's basically here's your gap, get upfield as fast as possible without getting too out of control. Should be more fundamentally sound for sure at this point, but there was always going to be a need to adjust, not just mentally, but physically as well.
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Notre Dame's TE had a field day on us. Players caught out of position in coverage again and again. Lots to work on for the defense.
This is Cross's 4th year at UNC. This means that he has failed big time as a position coach. Mack loves is BFF assistants more than anything except bragging about recruiting.
I said last year that no top DC should take the job under Mack unless Mack gave him full control over the D staff, which means he could fire all Mack's choices and replace them. TOPS has been very open this fall that Bateman made that suggestion to Mack: Mack allow him to replace anybody he wanted replaced. Mack chose to fire Batmena to protect his BFFs.
Chizik was foolish to take the DC job only getting 1 assistant of his choice. That means he was stuck with Cross, Bly, and Thigpen. If the position coaches are incompetent or barely competent, the DC cannot deliver.
Mack's BFs are not worth having. Time to replace Mack.
Two different schemes, though, and Cross wasn't coaching the entire front in prior years.
The D looked better in Batemans's first two years with Fedora's players than his last two years. Strowbridge and Crawford were having to play 100% of the snaps, but remember how the team looked vs Clemson compared to these last few years?
And things have kept regressing since.
Or remember how undermanned but improved that 11-1 D looked under Chizik in 2015 compared to now?
Something is broken in Chapel Hill on the football side.
And things have kept regressing since.
Or remember how undermanned but improved that 11-1 D looked under Chizik in 2015 compared to now?
Something is broken in Chapel Hill on the football side.
Your upperclassmen last year were from Fedora's last class and Mack's first class.
Fed's recruiting was not good, retention bad, development flaky, but did it not get better at all under Cross (Bateman) despite recruiting *s going up?
There was always going to be a bit of a drop there is what I meant. Mack's first class wasn't a full cycle. I think we had one 4-star recruit on defensive side of the ball (Asante). It did get better, but last year, most of those guys were still pretty young and green. Keep in mind too that Cross wasn't coaching the whole front. Dewitt had OLB/Edge.
It's really pathetic. I don't wanna blame any one particular person/group/coach/players, whatever. I don't think I've ever seen UNC's defense play as bad as it has played this season.
Yeah lol, it's pretty bad. Being a Carolina football fan..Sometimes you just gotta laugh.
Strength and conditioning we get pushed around and dominated all the time
When you see the guys (defense) fighting with EACH OTHER, somewhat frequently, on the field... that is not a good sign!
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