Honest Question

[purplehorse]

In the last game of year in 2017 Sammy manhandled our lines. Twice we were inside the 5 and could not score TD’s.

Two weeks later in the playoffs Wofford did the same thing.

Ditto yesterday.

Why with CCH being an offensive lineman guru and having been here 3 years are we still getting dominated on the LOS by Wofford and Citadel.

Furman teams of old always had a great run defense and a “soft” pass defense. Largely yesterday our run D was “swiss-cheese”.

I do not see how this could be explained by youth. Does Wofford just have better athletes on the lines?

[Davemeister]

A valid question, purplehorse. It will be interesting to hear how CCH addresses some of these points in his presser tomorrow.

[Bootie]

I have similar questions... if these two teams played again next week, is it likely the line play would be any different? I mean, are the problems from Saturday an attitude/energy/enthusiasm thing, or are they fixable in practice with different scheming/coaching, or is it something else?

[apaladin]

Good questions. Our OL is decent size but still small at a couple of positions. When we rotate sometimes we get smaller and we rotate a lot. Our defense DL is really small. Who in D1 is as small as FU on the DL? 250-270 lbs? We also are missing Dillon Vann a lot. This could be a small part of the problem or it could be a major contributor. I don't know.

[fu77fan]

I know nothing about the details of run defense etc. But I find it interesting that when you play a run oriented offense, and you know that they are going to run on most plays, that you cannot defend the run any better than we were able to against the Citadel and Wofford. If we do not figure out how to defend the option / the run ...... then we will continue to struggle and not reach our season goals this season as well as in future seasons.
Wofford had a 1st and 25 as well as a 1st and 15 and was able run effectively in order to obtain 1st Downs. Unbelievable that we could not stop them .

[cavedweller2]

Wooffy put hat on man and left other mans running free to grasp at air. In other words they were blowing holes you could drive a truck through. Like FU old school. We must not allow that.

[purplehorse]

A valid question, purplehorse. It will be interesting to hear how CCH addresses some of these points in his presser tomorrow.

Is the presser at 11 AM and what is the link? What is the difference including format between that and the Monday night show. Help me out here. Thanks.

[gofurman]

I know nothing about the details of run defense etc. But I find it interesting that when you play a run oriented offense, and you know that they are going to run on most plays, that you cannot defend the run any better than we were able to against the Citadel and Wofford. If we do not figure out how to defend the option / the run ...... then we will continue to struggle and not reach our season goals this season as well as in future seasons.
Wofford had a 1st and 25 as well as a 1st and 15 and was able run effectively in order to obtain 1st Downs. Unbelievable that we could not stop them .

Our DL is small - Paladindeuce and AP called this out early in year and while beating on CSU and Mercer it was glossed over. The more physical OL are blowing holes in our DL.

As Jasper noted - to his credit - we miss Staggs on run D. We do. I have said it before and I'll say it again. Citadel a few years back was awesome and beat USC in Columbia. Staggs with Charleston Southern level talent beat that same Citadel team TWICE. TWICE. think about that - that is amazing.. He did at CSU what SEC level USC could not. Then w Staggs we beat Citadel both years he was here (56-20 and 28-17 last year) and beat up on Wofford last year 34-14. It's hard to lose your OC and DC in consecutive years. Cronic is killing it in D2 (11-0 maybe? ) and then Staggs is the option / run D master. Granted, Staggs D were not as good vs the pass as our current D. I am objective. Our current D is better vs the pass . Right now we are faster but smaller.

Problem is that we will face Woff and Citadel every year in SoCon. That's a fact. It's also a fact that CH believes in running and stopping the run as the 2 basics to winning. Odd to me that yesterday after about 10 tries to run the ball up the middle we kept trying it.. and kept failing. and kept trying .. and kept ... eventually try the edge or something a little more. On those two fourth and goals Woff had 2 or 3 more guys in the middle than we could block. Yet we ran right into the middle anyway.

I'll admit we have a QB in his second start in November which is very odd. I wonder if he cannot call audibles yet? Which I would understand. I saw on one play we ran right into 9 Wofford guys with our 6 or 7 blockers. Thats a recipe for disaster and we need to audible out of that where we had a huge advantage on the edge.

[Bootie]

A valid question, purplehorse. It will be interesting to hear how CCH addresses some of these points in his presser tomorrow.

Is the presser at 11 AM and what is the link? What is the difference including format between that and the Monday night show. Help me out here. Thanks.

I believe the presser is at 11am Monday and is streamed on facebook live at the Furman Paladins page. It will last maybe 15-20 minutes. That's pretty much just press asking questions to CH. Monday night will also be on facebook live and is Dan Scott with coach. That's a full hour and will take questions from viewers.

[purplehorse]

"We aren't as good as we think we are when we win.. we aren't as bad as we think we are when we lose"
[/quote]


This is my response to GoFurman but I did not want to post in the “expert thread” where specific experts were asked for their opinions.

Samford game 2017
Wofford game 2017
Citadel game 2019
Wofford game 2019

I think your quote deals with a single game.

Stout lines are whipping us so we may be as bad as we think. We are not talking about single games but a trend. Remember we are not playing Marshall and App State and Ga Southern every year. We were dominated in the trenches yesterday and I don’t see any coach-speak or fan-speak or silly repeated quote changing that. It is just a game but in this game of football they dominated us. Based on games above are we really bigger, faster and stronger and what criteria are we using during the games to determine that? Maybe it takes 4 years and not 3. All food for thought. Back to the experts. I admit I am a fan who knows very little. I still have great confidence in CCH just puzzled as yesterday was Deja vu all over again. I do know that with all their recent playoff experience Wofford knows how to calmly win the big game and we do not. And with that I am taking my posting privileges away until we are IN the playoffs next Sunday!

[apaladin]

Good points. With all that has been said about the defense we did "hold" WC to its lowest point total and lowest yardage total minus Clempson since their Sammy game. Holding WC to 24 points put us in a position to win but when the offense is a no show 24 points is plenty. The offense could have helped the defense a lot.

[gofurman]

"We aren't as good as we think we are when we win.. we aren't as bad as we think we are when we lose"

This is my response to GoFurman but I did not want to post in the “expert thread” where specific experts were asked for their opinions.

Samford game 2017
Wofford game 2017
Citadel game 2019
Wofford game 2019

I think your quote deals with a single game.

Stout lines are whipping us so we may be as bad as we think. We are not talking about single games but a trend. Remember we are not playing Marshall and App State and Ga Southern every year. We were dominated in the trenches yesterday and I don’t see any coach-speak or fan-speak or silly repeated quote changing that. It is just a game but in this game of football they dominated us. Based on games above are we really bigger, faster and stronger and what criteria are we using during the games to determine that? Maybe it takes 4 years and not 3. All food for thought. Back to the experts. I admit I am a fan who knows very little. I still have great confidence in CCH just puzzled as yesterday was Deja vu all over again. I do know that with all their recent playoff experience Wofford knows how to calmly win the big game and we do not. And with that I am taking my posting privileges away until we are IN the playoffs next Sunday!
[/quote]


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Purplehorse, That is a good and fair response.

I sat w former DL at game and he agreed w/ something you may notice above.

Where is 2018? W Staggs (and Jaylan Reid to be fair) we started to get the DL rolling in 2018. We beat Citadel with a backup QB (coming off an off week) 28-17 on road... and beat Woff 34-14 as they were ranked top 5! We have lost our OC Cronic in year one (who is KILLING it I heard though I have not looked) .. and our run-stopping DC Staggs in year two. I do think we are better at stopping the pass now w these current coordinators. But, to quote the player "we better get our crap together vs the run".

He was pointing out particular runs at Wofford and I learned some things. He was showing the blocking schemes etc. But mainly they were just shoving us around. He thinks we are faster but a little small right now on DL. As for OL he was baffled. These are senior and junior OL with plenty of size. No size excuse there. Also he mentioned that he could live with our D somewhat as , as several mentioned, our O wasn't helping us any. If our O stays on field to score 20 our D probably holds Woff to 17 or so. Really can't ask much more than that though he did about explode when Woff ran for three rushing plays to get the 1st and 25. I thought he was gonna blow a gasket for a moment . He also felt our 'back 7 LBs and safetiues' on D (same as the other player has mentioned to me) aren't getting up-field fast enough to help on D.. and that they were more decisive under Staggs tutelage. Still he was most frustrated at our OL as they have more experience and that is CH specialty.

[apaladin]

A valid question, purplehorse. It will be interesting to hear how CCH addresses some of these points in his presser tomorrow.

Is the presser at 11 AM and what is the link? What is the difference including format between that and the Monday night show. Help me out here. Thanks.

Here is a link for you. A new pop will show up usually right at 11 or a couple of minutes before.

https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q= ... SEARCH_BOX