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DT Luke Fickell (HC Wisconsin Badgers)

Not impressed with Fickell's defensive play calling and his constant refusal to take risks on defense and blitz. Our secondary should be a strength with 3 experienced starters in the secondary but yet gave up at one point 17-19 completions for 203 yards. We still run a rush 3 and drop 8 into coverage, which always seems to burn us because the defense finds holes in the zone. When we blitzed, we rattled the northwestern QB's and their eyes were no longer down the field but focused on avoiding the rush. It takes getting our backs against the wall for Fickell's to even dial up blitzes, I just don't get why he refuses to do it the rest of the time. I know Bryant was hurt but horrible secondary play was still present in the cal and wispy games. I'm tired of people making excuses, it's an obvious scheme problem but it continues to occur.
 
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Not impressed with Fickell's defensive play calling and his constant refusal to take risks on defense and blitz. Our secondary should be a strength with 3 experienced starters in the secondary but yet gave up at one point 17-19 completions for 203 yards. We still run a rush 3 and drop 8 into coverage, which always seems to burn us because the defense finds holes in the zone. When we blitzed, we rattled the northwestern QB's and their eyes were no longer down the field but focused on avoiding the rush. It takes getting our backs against the wall for Fickell's to even dial up blitzes, I just don't get why he refuses to do it the rest of the time. I know Bryant was hurt but horrible secondary play was still present in the cal and wispy games. I'm tired of people making excuses, it's an obvious scheme problem but it continues to occur.

Assuming the playcalling is so bad, why are we #7 in the country in rush defense?

Do these bad playcalls cause our DBs to miss easy tackles, take bad angles, miss assignments, etc?

Are you suggesting that if we blitz every down, our DBs will tackle better, keep their assignments, and improve their vision?
 
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Not to mention that the team of Vrable and Fick seems to be a rather formidable recruiting tandem.
Withers did help in getting Vonn Bell. It may be that once the younger guys get into the system, the defensive backfield will improve. But IMO, people can't blame the lack of fundamentals on "playcalling" - right now none of our DB can really be trusted to make a tackle, so I don't see how anyone can justify not dropping people into coverage
 
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Withers did help in getting Vonn Bell. It may be that once the younger guys get into the system, the defensive backfield will improve. But IMO, people can't blame the lack of fundamentals on "playcalling" - right now none of our DB can really be trusted to make a tackle, so I don't see how anyone can justify not dropping people into coverage
Without a doubt. Maybe Urban is aware of deficiencies in coaching but he believes they make up for them in recruiting prowess. There's just so many variables involved that i find it absurd that so many fans that have zero inside access "know" who is to blame and what changes need to be made despite not being present at a single practice.
 
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Assuming the playcalling is so bad, why are we #7 in the country in rush defense?

Do these bad playcalls cause our DBs to miss easy tackles, take bad angles, miss assignments, etc?

Are you suggesting that if we blitz every down, our DBs will tackle better, keep their assignments, and improve their vision?
I'm not going to point a finger at the facets that we do a great job. Honestly our 76th ranked pass defense was continually exposed by Cal, NW and Wisky. Adjustments were only made in one of the 3 games and that was the 2nd half of the Northwestern game. Part of the reason we are so good against the run is because our offense jumps out to big leads where teams have to pass to come back. Our biggest weakness is our secondaries coverage, when you are senior laden and the secondary is still getting torched then you look at scheme and adjustments. If you have corners who can't cover well in zone or man, you don't sit back all the time and give the QB time to scan the field and find a guy. You don't blitz every time because that is idiotic, you dial it up on suspected passing plays and you vary where it comes from. When's the last time we've blitzed a corner, I remember roby getting a sack a year and a half ago against Cal on one, but other than that I'm drawing a blank. You can still bring a blitz by bringing a LB and overloading a side then dropping a DE, but I just don't see a lot of creativity. The problem is we sit in the same schemes then the opposing offense gets comfortable with what were running and they know where to look to attack us because they know we aren't blitzing. The problem isn't up front, it's on the back end. I would understand we were changing up our schemes and trying different coverages all the time but I've only seen it in one half and that's because we had to make changes. The blame has to fall on someone meyer doesn't call defensive plays only defensive coordinators do. I'm just placing the blame where I continually see it, heck you could hear herbstreit talking about it all game.
 
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