Another thing that bothers me about our D-Line is the lack of rotation. We have some absolute beasts that are getting minimal and no playing time. Shouldn't we be using those guys a bit more? Not only to get these guys a breather, but to help them gain more experience. We have got a ton of promising freshman at D-line, do we really need to redshirt all of them? Did anyone noticed what happened when we did blitz? Havoc. :crystal::LSU231:
Seems to me that most of our sacks have been coverage sacks, not quick, overpowering penetration. We've of course also had some blitzing sacks as well. As for our safeties not being as good, Landry was obviously good but Steltz has had a pretty fantastic year. I wonder if it doesn't have more to do with Pelini's desire to shut down the run by controlling penetration and stuffing the gaps. I'm betting that Tyson Jackson and Pittman could penetrate a lot more than they have. Dorsey couldn't because he's had two or three guys on him all year long.
I agree that Steltz is good, but just as a run stopper and tackler...He struggles in coverage and because of his cheating towards the line of scrimmage he is easily burned with play action passes.
Sorry - I guess I'm watching a different Steltz. He may not be a good cornerback...but then, he's not a cornerback. He's broken up a TON of passes this year. He's all over the field. Like I said, not quite Landry, but there are few better at safety. Personally, if I had to pick a weak link in the secondary, I'd point to Zenon. He played well under last year's talented umbrella, but has struggled a lot in one-on-one this year. And McCray and Jones are inconsistent due to youth.
Pelini's thought process (to my understanding) is that a college QB should not be able to consistently beat us when we block lanes & play zone coverage. It should result in a high number of interceptions due to mistakes by the QB. The results have been so-so (tough to complain about our final ranking the past few years). Issues with this train of thought include mobile QB's who often do not rely on passing lanes, and very good QBs who can pick apart weak parts of a zone defense. As for weaknesses in our defense, there are several. Zenon is not very physical & is often picked on by opposing offenses in both man & zone coverage. McCray is a young safety playing nickelback in a defense that requires our nickelback to be more of a CB. Our LB's are not good at covering TE's or RB's. I'm not sure why this is. They have the speed. It could be technique, but I think it's more-so a weakness of the defensive scheme. Steltz is not a weakness.
