Was the Iowa defense as lost as we were last night vs ASU when ya'll played them last year? I was reminded tonight that they spanked ya'll 44-7. Your D evolved into one of the best units in the country last year. How did it respond and what changes were made for that transition to occur? I know Keller wasn't the QB last year, but I'm beginning to think that wasn't a step down for the Devils. Thanks!
If it was a step down, it was a baby step, because Keller is accurate and smart. I hear ASU pulled a lot of starters after they went up 44, so I'd assume their D was hammered hard too To be fair, we held them for about half the game, they only started moving it almost at will in the 3rd and 4th quarters, we stepped up on the last 4 plays of the game.
Interesting that you mentioned that... the answer is yes. I actually looked at our stats this afternoon... as the two games were very similar, the difference being we had zero offense that day. ASU had 29 first downs, 76 yds rushing, 435 passing and 511 total against us. Against LSU they had 23 first downs, 99 yds rushing, 461 passing and 560 total. very similar. As you know, Iowa plays very soft on the corners to keep everything in front of us. We rely on the d line to get penetration and pressure. We seldom play man. We are all about pressure. This is similar to what Pellini historically has done as he's moved around. I'll bet ASU was thinking, "hmm, Pellini was trained at Iowa, uses the soft zone, only blitzes on occasion... hell, we'll just use the same gameplan we had against Iowa". The secret to beating ASU is to disregard the run and come at the QB constantly and from all angles. He may score some points early, but he won't be able to walk by the third quarter, either. We never applied that kind of pressure and you didn't either. How did we change after our drubbing? We brought a lot more pressure against Michigan State and Purdue... the only real passing teams in the conference... and our offense was doing a much better job of keeping possession. Hey, ASU has been pretty good the last few years. Didn't they only lose to Cal, USC and to Arizona (I think) last year? They can put up big numbers against a lot of people. You just gotta out score 'em... which you did!! Your defense is going to be fine.
Excellent points Chaos and Hawker. I suspect there's a bit of culture shock for us watching a soft zone, after a few years of man defense.
I need to see the soft zone work if that is possible. I have zero confidence in our defense as of now and that is a huge change from thinking that we can stop any offense. I thought, while watching the game, that Tepper would make adjustments at the half but things just got worse in the second half. We need a scheme that matches our talent. Great Safeties? Disguise coverage Unproven Corners? Coach 'em to jam wr's and disrupt the route timing. We only need to cover them for 3 seconds because with our front 7 there will be no chance to take a 5-7 step drop and go deep. Our linebackers actually improved from series to series and by the end of the game I thought that they were our best unit on defense. Highsmith, Spadoni, Vaughn all had opportunities early and really came on strong at the end.
A side by side comparison of how ASU did against Iowa last year and LSU this year. Code: Arizona State's game vs IOWA vs LSU FIRST DOWNS................... 23 29 Rushing..................... 6 5 Passing..................... 15 21 Penalty..................... 2 3 NET YARDS RUSHING............. 76 99 Rushing Attempts............ 34 25 Average Per Rush............ 2.2 4.0 Yards Gained Rushing........ 92 106 Yards Lost Rushing.......... 16 7 NET YARDS PASSING............. 435 461 Completions-Attempts-Int.... 33-46-1 35-56-0 Average Per Attempt......... 9.5 8.2 Average Per Completion...... 13.2 13.2 TOTAL OFFENSE YARDS........... 511 560 Total offense plays......... 80 81 Average Gain Per Play....... 6.4 6.9 Fumbles: Number-Lost.......... 1-0 2-1 Penalties: Number-Yards....... 7-70 6-31 PUNTS-YARDS................... 3-154 3-101 Average Yards Per Punt...... 51.3 33.7 Net Yards Per Punt.......... 3.7 20.3 Inside 20................... 1 2 50+ Yards................... 2 1 Touchbacks.................. 0 0 Fair catch.................. 0 0 KICKOFFS-YARDS................ 9-606 6-418 Average Yards Per Kickoff... 67.3 69.7 Net Yards Per Kickoff....... 60.2 51.5 Touchbacks.................. 6 5 Punt returns: Number-Yards-TD. 4-24-0 2-14-0 Average Per Return.......... 6.0 7.0 Kickoff returns: Number-Yds-TD 2-31-0 0-0-0 Average Per Return.......... 15.5 0.0 Interceptions: Number-Yds-TD.. 1-31-0 0-0-0 Fumble Returns: Number-Yds-TD. 0-0-0 1-4-0 Miscellaneous Yards........... 0 0 Possession Time............... 36:55 27:39 1st Quarter................. 9:23 4:12 2nd Quarter................. 9:54 5:14 3rd Quarter................. 9:11 9:39 4th Quarter................. 8:27 8:34 Third-Down Conversions........ 13 of 19 9 of 17 Fourth-Down Conversions....... 1 of 1 1 of 2 Red-Zone Scores-Chances....... 7-7 3-4 Sacks By: Number-Yards........ 4-25 4-39 PAT Kicks..................... 5-5 4-4 Field Goals................... 3-3 1-2
