A Sea Of Red

From Chris in his LU Notebook:

Third-down blues

Liberty is by far the Big South's worst team when it comes to third-down defense. Opponents are converting nearly half the time in third down situations (48-for-97), meaning Liberty is struggling to get off the field in crucial moments.

Toledo converted 12 of 15 third downs Saturday, a big key in the Rockets' 35-34 come-from-behind victory.

More worrisome for Rocco is Liberty's inability to get stops in the red zone. Opponents are 19-for-19 when they get inside Liberty's 20, with 16 touchdowns and three field goals.

No other conference team is allowing more than a 76.9 percent red-zone conversion rate.

"It's almost like you couldn't do that if you tried," Rocco said. "Somewhere along the way, someone would miss a field goal or fumble a ball or something. That just hasn't happened in our situation."

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I haven't been paying much attention to this specific aspect but how many times are we blitzing on obvious passing downs, specifically on 3rd down? We've got to get to the quarterback and cause some disruption in the backfield.

A high conversion rate in third-down situations means that you're giving up too many yards during first and second downs.

In our case, we're giving up a lot of 3rd and 5 and 3rd and 6.

yeah...this is the reason why our defense is out there so long, we can't stop them on 3rd down. I know people point to the offense as to why our defense is stuck out there so long, but they haven't helped themselves much either. Just another issue to work on during the off week.

That red-zone stat is extremely scary.

Just another stat showing the ineptness of the defense this year. As stated before, I am very dissapointed in this unit. I thought we would have a top 20 if not top 10 defense nationally this year.

Liberty third and long defense, with third and long being defined as third and 7 or longer:

In the three wins, opponents are 5-for-27 on third and long.
In the three losses, opponents are 8-for-13 on third and long (really, it's 8-for-12 ... the last third and long in the Toledo game was UT taking a knee to run out the clock).

hmm. Interesting.

that tells me that when we're ahead, and playing well- we stay aggressive on D.

when behind, or playing poorly- we sit in that soft cover 2 and get picked apart.

maybe.