Looks like Withers has made the decision to scrap his original plan.
The 4-2-5 was the base defense yesterday and was more effective than the disastrous 3-4. Occasionally the Dukes lined up with 5 on the line and that certainly helped pressure the QB.

The 2 long TD'S were back breaking and changed what would have been considered a good defensive day into another let down.

At least Marlowe is back playing safety where he can be an impact player. He is a difference maker playing where he can read and react with the play in front of him.

Yeah, DE coach said that JMU played a lot more four down than he expected and that Harold was very impressive. If you're going to play 3-4, you have to recruit to that system and I'd be curious to know what percentage of college programs play that alignment.

Yep, it was definitely a 4-2-5 the majority of the time. I think Stallings was out so I don't know if that had something to do with it but that is a better system for us right now. I don't have a problem with a 3-4 but you need a couple years to recruit to that. This front works better for us right now. I couldn't agree more about Marlowe. I think I've beaten the horse to death at this point but putting him in man coverage in the slot is not only a waste of a good player but he's not even good at it. We've been taking arguably our best defensive player and putting him out of his position for the first 4 weeks. I can't believe it took that long to finally realize that wasn't working. That's not Dean's game.

There was one Delaware possession that was third and inches. We lined up with a 3 - 4 and our MLB's were very deep. There was a hole to the left of center where my 13 year old daughter could have picked up the first down. Their QB saw it as well and easily made it with a QB sneak. However, it was called back due to some offensive penalty. We got lucky on that one, but we were lined up to give it to them. There are times when I can see conceding a play before the ball is snapped, but this was not the time for that.

(09-29-2014 09:42 AM)BleedingPurple Wrote:  There was one Delaware possession that was third and inches. We lined up with a 3 - 4 and our MLB's were very deep. There was a hole to the left of center where my 13 year old daughter could have picked up the first down. Their QB saw it as well and easily made it with a QB sneak. However, it was called back due to some offensive penalty. We got lucky on that one, but we were lined up to give it to them. There are times when I can see conceding a play before the ball is snapped, but this was not the time for that.

I saw the exact same thing -- we were giving them the first down in that alignment and got bailed out by a penalty.