BYU inside linebackers, what is the problem?
Teams are taking advantage of our teams lack of sideline to sideline speed. Personally I think we are OK up the middle, but when our linebackers are in space is when they struggle.
The “Mike” and the “Backer” are the two players on the team that should be counted on to make the most plays –more specifically the Mick. The defense is schemed around the Mick linebacker. He has the most opportunities to blitz and also has D-linemen in front of him so he is free to make plays in the running game.
In recent years that Mick spot has been filled with an experienced player with proven play making abilities. This year Bauman has been shouldering the responsibility of replacing two very visible past players –Cameron Jensen and Kelly Poppinga. All three players played different and where good for different reasons. Matt Bauman hasn’t developed his own identity quite yet. Matt plays exceptionally hard and puts himself in good positions to make plays, but he hasn’t proven himself as someone who is going to make the “big play.”
Matt Ahyou and Doman are in the same boat. They are learning and developing, but we are all becoming impatient.
Hooks was the most physical out of the bunch and I have high hopes for Pritchard. The simple fact is our defense is still inexperienced. They aren’t paying attention to the finer points of the game. They haven’t developed into the players they can be. It’s a problem of understanding the X’s and O’x well enough so they can than focus on formations, personal and tendency. Carmeron, Kelly, Markell and Wagner all had a deep enough understand of the defense, which freed their mind up to concentrate of other aspects of playing their postion. In short they mastered their positions, but it didn’t happen over night. They had time.
For me the jury is still out. I have seem both Matt Bauman, Shawn Doman, Matt Ahyou and Hooks play well. But when was the last time you saw a huge hit or a crucial sack from these guys? I can’t remember. Are they turning into solid players that can stop the run and be counted on in coverage? Or should we abandon players that are in their first real year as starters and need more chances to prove themselves?
This group has only lost one game. That means they are doing something right. I would say we need to trust the coaching staff that they are going to put the best players on the field.
Matt Bauman is #35 and we sometimes called him “Little General”. Let’s hope he can continue to develop into another good BYU linebacker.
The defensive back post is coming next, I am putting the final touches on it!!!
Wow, an actual voice of reason on this matter. Thanks, Quinn. I don’t appreciate having “fans” throw out slurs against some of our players on defense, calling them things like “worthless” and such. Of course, none of them could perform under such circumstances, but a few are happy to pile on from the comfort of their living rooms. ]
I appreciate the efforts being made by Baumann, Doman, and others who have been affected by inexperience and injuries to teammates. Are they playing great? No, but they are making some plays, and they are getting there. We obviously need to get better, but I’m not sure that constant criticism is the route that leads to where we want to go.
I promised my self after some TCU comments that I was not going to say anything too bad about #35. I still like Doman, but his role in this defense is not the same as #35. I personally liked the hit Pritchard put on the UNLV quarterback. He made up a hugh amount of ground quickly and without hesitation to hit the quarterback right after he released the ball. In my opinion it may have been helmet to helmet, but it was not terrible late. What I liked was his effort and speed to make a play. I noticed that during part of the game Pritchard got put in after #35 was playing like #35. Unfortunately, Pritchard looked lost on the few plays he was in and #35 came back. When #35 even blitzed it didn’t appear he was taking the right gap a few times.
After watching Dulan in the middle of the line maybe it is time to switch to a 4-3 defense and use Dulan as a one gap DT. It appears to me that this would be putting our best 11 on the field. Probably hard to do 8 games in?
Also, I think Jorgensen is either injured or lost it. In the last two years I have never seen him get dominated so much by a OT one on one all game long. I watched him a lot this game and he was not getting off his guy and beating one on one blocking. It wasn’t really even close.
Max Hall looked great this game. He got rid of the ball quickly and was not hesitant or staring down receivers all game long. Take away a couple throws and decisions and he was near perfect. I wanted to say that after what I said about him following the TCU game also.
Keep this in mind:
This year our defense is young and for the most part untested. What have they done? They played great defense 5 out of the 8 games this year. They have have played average defense another two games (Washington, UNLV) but the key to those games is that when the game was on the line, they came up with the play to win it (FG block is just the defensive unit).
We have one loss, that is better than any defense in a long time. So what if we have to rely on our offense to score points, it happens, that is why you play both sides of the ball. When one side is struggling the other side has to take control. When both perform well you get 59-0, when both don’t execute you lose 32-7.
Let’s stick with these guys, this same unit will garner all your praises next year when our offense re-loads…be the fan who can say, I stuck with out Defense when…
Staff,
I agree and I am willing to be that fan that sticks by the defense. And let’s all not forget that we have one loss. That’s one. I have heard arguments that we have played mediocre teams. Sure, maybe, but let’s look at this season’s start and compare it to years previous when the conference has materially been the same or very near it. We are doing good but with a lot of room for improvement. I agree with Staff’s “C” grade for this last game. It won’t be long before we are playing “A” grade defense.
I stuck with our defense when BSU was blowing us out of the water in Provo in 2003.
There’s so much that goes into this game. I honestly had these concerns before the season started and I’m very impressed how the defense has played when looking at the season rather than just one game.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. After the experience garnered by the starters down to the 3rd guy on D this season, we should see a great unit next year.
If all the offensive firepower can come back next year it’s going to be amazing as well. Sure we’ll greatly miss Fui and that Oline, but we get Matt Reynolds back and I’m sure Coach Weber will have the new guys ready to go by the time we kickoff 2009.
Looking at the glass half full, BYU defense is 16th in the nation in points allowed (16/game).
We may not be the fastest…but we’re smart and that defense will improve. You watch.
Again, Bauman leads the team in tackles. He leads the team (tied) for unassisted tackles. To say he’s not making plays is to say you’re not watching the games…or at least not paying very close attention.
Would another option at ILB have performed better than him? I doubt there’s one that could on this year’s D. He’s definitely not as good as what we’ve seen the last few years, but he’s got the potential.
I haven’t seen Jorgensen get one-on-one matchups much this year. Mendenhall says he’s playing better than he was last year, and I’ll have to say I trust his judgement more than pretty much anyone else’s.
Brandon,
Great comment. The defense is designed for the Mike LB to make all the tackles, and Bauman is doing that. I think what were are looking for from him is the BIG plays, not just tackles.
The stat I want to see is how many of his TFLs are on blitzes and how many are on aggressive run fits. I don’t know what that answer is, but that would tell us more about the run D than just TFLs, The Mike will tend to blitz more also.
Can’t agree more with the Jorgensen comments.
The Mike should lead the team in tackles. He should also lead the team in sacks and pressures. He isn’t making the big plays. He is a good player and I think as he continues to develop we will see him making more of the big plays. The big plays are what we need right now. Knocking a ball down in coverage, sacks, fumbles etc. We need that Mike backer to be that kind of player. Matt is close.
Fair enough. I agree that I haven’t seen “the big play” from him like I expected (He may have had more “Big Plays” last year than he has thus far this year). I’m not going to spend the time reviewing my recordings of the games to try to figure out what situations Bauman’s collecting his TFL’s (I’ve got WAY better things to do with my time at home, as opposed to my time at work:D)…
Still, I will point out (and yes, I’m a bit of a stat geek):
* With 2 sacks on 8 TFL, it appears B’s had 6 TFL’s v. Running Backs.
* Poppinga led last year’s team with 113 tackles, 46 solo, and was credited with 7.5 TFL, ZERO sacks, 1 int, 5 pass breakups, 3 QB Hurries, and 1 Forced Fumble in 13 games.
* Bauman’s pace, in 13 games, would put him at: 110.5 tackles, 50.4 Solo, 13 TFL, 3 Sacks, 0 int, 2 pass Breakups, 2 QB Hurries, 2 Forced Fumbles.
To me, statistically those are pretty comparable. It says to me that Bauman may be (VERY!!) marginally stronger than Pop in run support & pass rush, while Pop was significantly better in coverage.
I don’t want to argue because I feel like I come across as not supporting Matt, but let me offer this perspective…Beau Bell (LB UNLV) had something like 18 tackles last year against BYU. Is that because he played a great game? No, we kicked the crap out of UNLV.
Why so many tackles?
1) The defense is designed to funnel plays to him
2) The defense was bad and could not get off the field. The guy played about 90 plays that game.
Poppinga’s defense got off the field a lot faster. We did not have as many 10-15 play drives as we have this year.
Stats are good, but can be skewed without the right perspective.
Brandon,
There is a difference between making a tackle and making a play in my book. Bauman will get tackles by default in the system they run, but he doesn’t seem to be making any of those big stops on 3rd down we could use.
We need Manti Te’o in the biggest way this next year.
Outside of Nixon, I think our backers lack the speed of the previous generation. This lack of quickness and speed puts our backers in situation where instead of hitting people hard creating TFL, we get arm tackles that allow runners to struggle forward for extra yardage.
This lack of speed puts the backers in weak angles of attack and thus we are not as aggressive as we could be. In the last couple of years we’ve been blessed with backs with mad quicks that have helped a ton.
Staff,
I absolutely agree – Stats don’t always tell the whole story. In fact, I prefer to use statistics to confirm my perspective, not as the basis of my perspective. And I wasn’t intending to argue your point – in fact, I made it clear that I agree that we’re missing big plays from the Mike this year.
the stats were intended solely to show that Bauman isn’t nearly as bad as he’s being made out to be in some poster’s comments.
Zak,
I agree, except with the use of the word “any”. “Few” would be more accurate.
Curtis,
Interestingly, the pre-season talk was about the increase in speed among the ILB’s this year compared to previous year’s, accompanied by a decrease in size. Many were questioning the ability of these lighter-but-faster LB’s to stop the run.
IMO, reaction time is FAR more important than outright speed for an ILB. Do this year’s ILB’s lack speed or are they playing “slow” due to inexperience & lack of confidence?
Brandon…
You hit the nail on the head. 40 Speed and Game Day speed are completely different.
Case-in-point: I remember listening to a draft analysis on LBs this year and they were talking about some guy from the south who ran a disgustingly slow 40 at the Combine. The follow up was “Yeah but you know what the scouts say? This guys is always around the ball.”
The LBs are fast this year, but if you can’t slow the game down in your head you will always be a step late. These guys are thinking so much that the game is really moving fast for them. When they settle in, they will gets there reads, trust their instincts and be at the ball in a hurry.
Enough of the “defense is young” stuff. Tafuna has been here for 4 years Fowler just about as long. The linebackers at least 3-4 of them have been here for 3 years. The lineman pretty much all of them have been here for 3 years. The players aren’t young. Now I will agree that a lot of them lack experience. My problem is that either some of them aren’t getting it such as Tafuna or I ask myself why these guys haven’t been getting enough playing time in the past to prepare them? Somewhere you have to play the guys that are making the plays and forget about “assignment sound” when nobody appears to be close to “assignment sound”. Play the talent, get them the experience. Otherwise next year you have the same problem. If the guy has been here for 4 years and he is still not making plays and looking lost you have to play someone else.
They may have been there for a long time, but how many games have they played in? Practicing and games are about as different as driving to the store and racing Nascar. Even though I haven’t done either.
Also, wasn’t Tafuna injured at some point last season? So I believe he hasn’t had exactly 4 complete seasons of experience before this season.
Quinn and Staff,
You guys are doing an amazing job on this Blog. I am a mod on a MWC board, and I often link to articles/blogs that you guys have. If anyone is curious, it’s at http://espnboard.ipbfree.com.
It’s very nice to have past team members help out. Especially since they have actual college experience. They have had the ‘full’ 4-year college experience. Some of us have only had High School experience and/or experience in reading articles over the years. Plus I love catching up with past players. Hope you are able to continue having them contribute and improving the blog – we are constantly trying to improve our forum also. Huge props.
I have always really liked Bauman, but it is becoming increasingly obvious that both he and Doman are just too slooow for the position.
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