Secondary Exposed?

Look, the Cover 3 zones just don’t work against decent receivers and a good QB. They’ll pick you apart and make your secondary look like a joke. Let’s face it — I’m pretty sure we were all a bit flustered watching Iowa/USC pick apart our secondary while they continued to play 5 to 10 yards off the receivers every down.

While I think Bradley’s scheme’s were definitely part of the problem during the USC game (i.e., they’re destroying your zone — try something new), you can’t help but notice how horribly the secondary got fooled on a few of those TD passes. They simply were outright fooled and never had a shot.

So, to answer your question, I think the play calling and just the overall talent of USC’s receivers (and QB) did us in. Sanchez picked us apart because all his throws were that easy.

Maybe the DBs aren’t good enough to run anything but Cover 3? I’d love to know, but I’m not an insider at FOS.

Its the scheme. I’m tired of hearing about the players not being that good. Why did Brady Quinn look like a future hall of famer against us 3 years ago and Todd Beckman against us last year! Its because we play 10 yards off the ball on EVERY play. I was watching the game and a friend of mine who is a USC fan wondered why we were making it so easy for them. The worst thing is the torched us in the first half and we came out in the second and didn’t change shit in the scheme with our DB’s. It a shame because we had the talent to win that game, but again it goes back to coaching. I remember reading earlier this season about the players even begging the coaches to let them play man more often, but obviously that didn’t happen. Its not that we don’t have the players, it’s they are playing to not give up the big play and that is a shitty excuse. We will always loss the big games to teams with a decent qb and receivers. Can anyone really say they believe that we would have beaten OSU this year if Beckman was the starter? I don’t. We make ok QB’s look good and good QB’s look great. Just look Sanchez put up career numbers against us.

Aside from a few games this season, the secondary relied on the DL playing lights out and never giving the QB time to make his reads. This allowed them to sit back and play center field a bit more. Obviously SC has a better line and we weren’t able to get a good 4 man rush going to pressure their QB. What I can’t understand is why we didn’t just drop 7 and give their QB some different zone looks to confuse them. We could have allowed them to run and throw the underneath stuff but I just don’t think that Sales and Hull are that good in coverage.

I think the scheme and athletes of our corners played a major part as well. The last time I can remember PSU DB’s going man and playing more physical with WRS was 2005. Of course, in the infamous UM game, they got burned playing soft on a slant but overall, those DB’s I think were much more talented than what we’ve had.

I think that Davis and Wallace were the most capable at going man to man with WRs but seldom allowed to.

If an 11-year old and 9-year old can see it, couldn’t the coaches? Try something different. Change. Adapt. Don’t let them keep catching the damn ball! This is the most frustrating thing about Penn State football – our D against a good passing QB. Ugh, don’t get me started…

Came to PSU as SHUTDOWN corners out of high school, and over the past few years we haven’t seen their real potential. Whether it was injury or Joe’s dog house. We take this talented corners and stick them in a cover 3 all day long, then when they go back to man they get burned (King last year). I really think Scrap needs to just let the corners play. Not saying the outcome would be any different but run a nickle with AJ in there and PRESS their wideouts. Big receivers (a la Randy Moss) hate getting jammed and I bet it would be the same thing with USC’s big boys, but we sat back in that zone and well….

sucked yesterday.

Defensive scheme = huge, catastrophic FAIL.

i am constantly frusterated by the cover 3. we have a good and fast secondary…they can do man more. yes, the cover works inside the big10 where it is a primarily run offense, but when we start playing teams that can pass, we need to do man more.

i also think we should have blitzed more often. i saw very few of real attempts. it is crazy.

all in all it was very frusterating…but i’m proud of our guys for not giving up.

This has been going on for years. The cover 3 has lost us some big games. How could they not change anything defensivley in that 2nd Quarter? do something different for gods sake. Give the kids a chance.

No matter the defense, Scirotto and Rubin were not good in coverage all year. Josh Hull still stinks and we better not see him on the field next year.

I’ve always felt that this was the middle ground for the defense. The front 7 have always been a strong point for the Lions, so the secondary didn’t have to be the best players. And lets face it – they haven’t always been the best athletes back there. Not horrible, but by no means have we had All-Americans lined up year after year.

At the same time, I don’t think they’re so bad that we need to protect them in this infamous 7-yard cushion, cover-3 system. There has to be a happy medium somewhere.