USF Defense Looked Awful Last Night

Last night was rough, just rough. The biggest issue we saw last night was the defense. While the offense couldn't get anything going with misreads, bad throws, and no protection for Daniels, the defense was a lot worse off.

The USF defense gave up 523 yards of total offense, second time this season they have allowed that. They gave up 32 1st downs, allowing the Pitt Panthers to stay on the field and kept the defense gasping for breath trying to keep up with the up-tempo pace of Pitt (thought we were conditioned for this kind of pace, guess not that well).

The No Fly Zone defense did half-way decent last night, allowing 216 yards passing by Sunseri. They allowed several wide receivers to get open on big routes, but overall played well. This was due to the fact that the run defense and the Pitt strategy took the ball away from Sunseri and into the arms of Ray Graham.

Graham ran around, over, and through the defense, racking up 229 yards rushing on the night (Pitt had 307 total in the game on the ground).

So what went wrong on defense? For starters, the defense played back the entire game, letting Pitt come to them. There was no pass rush or blitzes for a awhile on the front line, even though Pitt was missing 3 starters on their offensive line. Snyder wanted more zone, allowing defenders to swarm to the ball and make the stop, but with the speed and schemes of Pitt, it was not working and killed the team.

When the defense did make contact, Graham was able to break through the arm tackles, turn defenders around, and continue to get plenty of solid yards after contact. The Bulls looked as if they were playing prevent defense and making sure nothing got to them on the sidelines, but left huge holes up the middle for the big plays.

Michael Lanaris had 13 tackles, 1 sack (late in the game), Sam Barrington had 10 tackles, DeDe Lattimore had 9 tackles and one sack, and Elkino Watson had 8 tackles and 2 tackles for loss (young man continues to impress).

So what do these numbers tell you? For one, a freshman defensive lineman is making the most tackles on the line right now, showing Giddins, Forte and others are not getting enough pass rush on the opposing quarterback and not finishing the plays. It also shows where the Pitt attack was headed, right at the middle of the field and the linebackers.

The linebackers had to make all the tackles last night for the Bulls, coming up to get Graham and make the stops. They weren't aggressive (goes to the playcalling on the sidelines for that) and played back and let the offense come at them.

This was a rough night. There will be a lot of film to watch from this game, the team will learn from these mistakes, and make the right corrections. But for the next 16 days, everyone will be remembering this game.