Do we need a Defensive Coordinator?

[bincitysioux]

When Tibesar left and "co-defensive coordinators" were announced, I thought that was kinda funny (not funny ha-ha, funny peculiar). I don't mean any disrespect to either Mannasau or Kelling, but the way that Lennon has delegated coaching duties regarding the defense over the last two years has been at least a bit unorthodox hasn't it? I mean you have one faction of defensive players answering to Mannasau and another faction to Kelling. If UND had a good defense, I wouldn't question it. But over the last two years, I've been watching what I feel are two of the worst Sioux defenses that I can remember.

Am I way off base hear or what?

[SiouxMeNow]

I think we've just been spoiled a bit over the last (15 ) years on D...a mediocre D isn't what unD has been about for a long time.

[UND92,96]

This post is not meant to affix blame to anyone, but the reality is that even last year's defense, which had five first team all-NCC players, and two second teamers, including the defensive lineman of the year and linebacker of the year, wasn't really all that dominating. The playoff game against UNO, in particular, simply wasn't a very good performance. There were several other games in which the defense gave up a lot of big plays. It was still a good defense, but not a great one. This year, the defense is much younger, and lacks the star power of last year's defense, and the results are fairly predictable. Maybe having a dominating defense in this day and age of offensive football just isn't realistic. I don't know. But I would like to think that we can at least get back to being dominant against the run. We have a ways to go in that regard.

[iramurphy]

I think the players are given the opportunity to make the plays and if they don't make them, you can't blame the coach.

We are young, smaller on the D-line, hurt and lack depth this year. We can't afford to miss tackles and we need guys to step up and make plays but when they do that they sometimes will get burned.

UND should have won the game. We missed three open receivers for TD passes and didn't make the fourth and short. We left too many points on the field. The defense played OK considering how many people we had hurt. we gave up a TD when the DB jumped the route and we gave up two big runs. They certainly didn't dominate us despite their big and experienced O-line and mobile athletic QB.

[UND92,96]

I think the players are given the opportunity to make the plays and if they don't make them, you can't blame the coach.

We are young, smaller on the D-line, hurt and lack depth this year. We can't afford to miss tackles and we need guys to step up and make plays but when they do that they sometimes will get burned.

UND should have won the game. We missed three open receivers for TD passes and didn't make the fourth and short. We left too many points on the field. The defense played OK considering how many people we had hurt. we gave up a TD when the DB jumped the route and we gave up two big runs. They certainly didn't dominate us despite their big and experienced O-line and mobile athletic QB.

I agree that the defense did give UND the chance to win on Saturday. I actually expected to give up more points than we did. But I must admit that seeing a UND defense give up 340 yards rushing is disappointing. That would have seemed almost unthinkable not too many years ago, back in the days when even Lamar Gordon and Josh Ranek were held to less than 100 yards.

[Lefty - UNO Fan]

All the defenses in the NCC are down lately. I have not seen a dominant defense in a couple years.

By the way, my definition of being dominated is getting pushed around and having another team imposing it's will on your team. UNO threw 8 passes in the game. Getting receivers open deep does not fit my definition of domination. Some of those passes missed because Freund was under pressure.

[fightingsioux4life]

I have had some of the same thoughts concerning the defense. I am not buying this argument that we are young and therefore will struggle all season long because of it. We have had young defenses before and performed much better than this (1993: 10 out of 11 new starters and our defense carried the team to the NCAA Semifinals). I also find it hard to believe that our recruiting of defensive talent has suddenly gone bad after years of landing top talent. Teams used to fear our defense. Now all they have to do is bide their time and wait for the inevitable big play (run or pass). On Saturday, we were solid 95% of the time, but it was the other 5% that ruined an otherwise solid performance.

I don't think it's a coincidence that as soon as we went to this Co-Defensive Coordinator arrangement that the defense has gotten more vanilla than it used to be. I felt that the gameplan against Mankato was too conservative and too passive against a really good QB and receivers. Rushing three and putting eight into coverage just doesn't work if you have an accurate QB who can move in the pocket and find someone open almost every time.

In football (just like the military), having two leaders at the same position just doesn't work very well. As the Bible verse goes, you can only serve one master. Lennon should pick one of these guys to be defensive coordinator and reassign the other one. I am sure they are doing the best they can, but I just don't think having co-coaches of anything works very well.

[johnsowe]

Defense is not the problem it was the lack for scoring.

[fightingsioux4life]

Defense is not the problem it was the lack for scoring.

On Saturday, it was the offense not cashing in on golden opportunities. But over most of 2007, its been the defense that hasn't lived up to its usual high standards of excellence. If the defense could just cut out the big plays, the numbers would look a lot better.