April 9th

What time?

I hope this is the best defense in MAC history, because if not, woof.....

The defense wins every year and they hold the backs o low yards. The huge difference here is they are going against John Carroll level QB's. We will see when we play a team that scores points. Right now, they are able to pin their ears back and they know the plays because they see them everyday. I hope they are very good.

I do predict that, in an era when getting qb pressure is so very important, that we won't get much pressure from our D-linemen and won't present more than the usual rather limited, vanilla package and amount of blitz schemes.

Leading to not a particularly great number or sax or qb hurries and about every experienced qb we faced at least somewhat having his way with us.

Most starters were either held out completely, or didn't play much. The scrimmage primarily showed what we already knew, that there is much better depth on defense than offense. It did show a couple key things, though. One is that there is new depth at linebacker, and that the defensive backs are going to be OK. While it didn't answer any of my offensive questions, it did answer my defensive questions.

Holding out the starters is an interesting strategy. That way the backups got more reps, so perhaps, if there are injuries in the fall, the backups will be more ready to step in.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Yes, the backups got reps. But pretty much we can't tell the quality of our team until they play other schools. I mean if our backup D dominated against our backup O, then was the D great or the O bad or both or were both good but the D better or both bad ??

One offset to that would be video or eye-witness reports of guys who REALLY STOOD OUT DOMINATED during the scrimmage. Haven't seen any such reporting.

LC - do you think the big question at quarterback will have any bearing on the magazines predictions?

I'm curious why you make this statement. Our front seven on defense looks to be the strength of our team. Basham, Laseak, Sayles and Poling who led our team in sacks last year all return. I see no reason to think we shouldn't improve in this category from last years number.

The big key I'm zeroed in on will be our young but talented secondary coming together quickly.

Disclaimers about spring game, starters weren't playing, tough to make assessments, etc....

But our offense had 14 possessions and went 3 and out on 64% of them. A run-based offense cannot do that against any defense and expect to win.

Again, maybe our D is that good. I hope it is. I REALLY hope it is. But if that's all our O can muster? Gonna be a loooooooooong fall, I am afraid.

If the coaches keep all the starters out of this game, AKA A.J., it diminishes the significance of the game in terms of offense and defense results. This game along with this years entire spring practice seemed to be all about the 2nd and 3rd teamers getting more work. Not a bad strategy.
So I do not take much away from this game good or bad.
LC always articulates this team very well. I will only add that if we can keep the injuries down this year our record will respond accordingly as we do have enough pieces in key positions to improve on 2015.



GO BOBCATS

I'm not Optimist, but I'll answer your questions, Monroe.
1. Yes, I've been impressed with the pass rush scheme over the year, with the exception of 2014. 2014 was the year when Ohio had the defensive line focus on sacks instead of contain, and the result was that Ohio was #2 in the MAC in sacks, but gave up a ton of big plays, a poor tradeoff. In most years Ohio has been in the top 4 in the MAC in defense points allowed, but in 2014 they dropped to #6.
2. Yes, of course. That's always the #1 job of a sound defensive line. You can't have a sound defense if the defensive line loses contain very often.
3. It's remarkable to me the number of changes the coaching staff makes. Sometimes I think they make too many. I'm still not sold on the switch to the Cover-4 defense, which resulted in a number of blowout losses the last two years. With the Cover-2 they very, very seldom lost big. Nevertheless, I recognize that it was a change for the long term, and that there would be short term pain, so I am keeping an open mind. A big advantage of the Cover-4 was to attract better recruits, and as the players recruited for that system work into the system, we will learn if it was truly a wise long term choice. A more recent example of a successful change was the change they made in the OL spacing against BG last year, which revitalized the moribund rushing attack, and led to wins down the stretch.