Obviously, the offense is and should be the focus of last night. But, there are a million other threads about the offense's performance so I won't rehash any of that here...
So, what are your thoughts on the performance of our defense and Godwin?
Regarding Godwin:
So, what are your thoughts on the performance of our defense and Godwin?
Regarding Godwin:
- I think overall he called a good game (granted I'm not an expert), but the last couple of drives of the 1st half and the first couple of drives of the 2nd half saw GT have some success moving the ball through the air and running Sims on designed runs and scrambles. Godwin's aggressiveness and blitzing allowed GT to utilize "blitz beating" quick passes and screens with some success (luckily Simpson and Carter are so damn fast at LB that some of the screens were snuffed out quickly). With our DL, it seems to me that you wouldn't need to blitz as much and put unnecessary pressure on your secondary. Godwin has been described as an aggressive DC, but I'm worried that more talented teams (who have more talented QBs) will see GT's strategy and use it to more success.
- What probably isn't discussed is that GT made A LOT of mistakes with both penalties and drops that absolutely killed many of their drives. Also, Geoff essentially started rolling over when they decided to run the clock down at the end of the half with three timeouts left. Also, Chip Long didn't seem to stick with what was working later in the 2nd half. While the outcome wouldn't have been different, if GT wasn't shooting themselves in the foot constantly and they stayed aggressive, the score of the game could've been much different. We won't have the benefit of a lack of aggressiveness or a multitude of stupid mistakes with other teams on our schedule.
- Obviously, the DL is just monstrous, so not much to say there. It looked like Godwin was rotating early and often on the DL, which is totally fine in this type of game and with the depth we have on the DL. It also seemed like Godwin made it a point to play Swint at DE specifically (sounds like Murphy got dinged up?) and I was less than impressed. We need to bring along Swint, Denehoff, and Patterson quickly for next season.
- Simpson and Carter at LB are an unbelievable duo. Have we ever had this type of speed at LB before outside of Isaiah Simmons? Behind those two, the other LBs seemed significantly slower, but I thought Trotter and Mcquire were solid and in good position most of the night.
- The secondary is where most of the notable issues were found last night. Sheridan Jones seemed to be out of position a couple of times and Fred Davis showed some poor tackling and aggressiveness. Mukuba got beat on the 4th down slant and the TD to the corner of the endzone on the same drive (he looked very small next to that GT WR...). Nate Wiggins was probably the bright spot, he needs to play more.
- I know Sims is a big, mobile QB, but some of the tackling efforts on him were poor. Hopefully, we get our tackling overall cleaned up.
