The link is about how much better Marshall played his position last year versus this year. IOW, it's NOT the lack of talent on the defense that is the problem. The Twitter post/link indirectly points to our DC as the problem.
I don’t get how losing a couple of guys to the draft from a horrific defense makes it better. The DBs getting handled by LSU WRs is a talent issue. The DL not winning any one-on-ones is a talent issue. The players missing 21 tackles is a talent issue. Too late to start tackling in practice now as we are trying to stay healthy, but all those tackling drill videos we saw in the off-season didn’t help. I give you that being on the coaches. I agree with you it looks bad. I’m just saying the sample size is too small to jump to conclusions. Let’s see what changes are made during this bye week. Unfortunately, we may not have the bodies to make substantial changes and next game up is against the #1 ranked team.
We want them to play man, but they can’t do that well either. Nobody wants bend, but don’t break, but at our best, it’s what we can do decently. Keep everything in front of us and make the other team earn it…and hopefully they’ll mess up. Not a good look, but better than getting beat deep every time.
I not that the defense should be better than last year, but it's far worse than last year and dead last in the entire nation on third downs. That means that the entire defense somehow is far worse than last year. We also had more returning players on defense than most team in the SEC which in our case was supposed to be good, not bad. That's never really been the case when we return 7 or 8 starters from the previous year. It's never been a detriment... and the defense has never gone backwards because of it... The star gazers know we have talent even if we played badly last year. The coaches basically gave up on them midway through last year. That's when they really played like crap most of the games last year until the FSU game. That loss to Kentucky was when it all started going down hill for our team last year. I noticed the drop-off on defense after that game. Up until that game the defense was at least competent... especially on the back end. But this level of defensive incompetence is NOT because of the lack of talent. Having said that, one player that is playing Safety is NOT a Safety... he's okay as a DB, at least he was his freshman year.
I agree but….maybe when playing a midget walk on that is limited, as we soon are, playing man a couple series and forcing them to beat us deep might be advantageous. Def not while playing a strong arm QB though lol.
Playing man should never leave the DBs alone against a receiver on deep routes, and that is the problem. There is NO Safety help over the top... that in inexplicable to me.
That hurt us on talented depth at the very least and maybe even a starter of two at worst, but yeah, those players leaving were a big loss. Bigger than we might think. But that explains the drop off on the second level. It does NOT explain the drop off on the back end. One more thing, Dean is NOT a safety. But when he was a true freshman he played DB and did well... he seems to have digressed somehow. Maybe he's out of position... definitely out of position.
Losing Dean this year will be addition by subtraction. He never had the hips to really play CB. You’re right though, be definitely isn’t a safety. Without his gaffes…we might have beat UT.
Unless we are playing Cover 3 which we are horrible at, verts will expose that. Yes our safeties are often out of position and I would say our corners don’t do a great job of turning receivers toward the help which isn’t there either.
Wait a minute. Don't we have 3 safeties in cover 3? That means nothing should go over anyone's head. What's happening is in man converge our DBs are left alone with the receiver that often goes long and there is NO Safety help over the top. That's not supposed to happen. Even if the DB is playing man the safety is always supposed to be there for support on long balls, but they have been absent. That happened to Dean in the Tennessee game and they scored at least once on broken coverage.
Yes our safeties are out of position often. One of the corners plays deep in a cover 3. Marshall is horrible at it.
I never thought we'd play a DB as a safety and a DB in a cover 3. That is poorly designed if that what Toney is scheming... there is the problem if that's the clown scheme he's using.
There’s help except the safety chooses to break on the dig route covered by the corner leaving the middle of the field open for the backside post, simply astonishing
Maybe just have Cox rush the passer all the time. Just occasionally put him in for watching the RB. Something good happens everytime he puts pressure on the qb.
Maybe u see it different, but yea I see plenty of evidence that confirms my priors. .it takes more than a couple of good passes per gm to make a Heisman. Doesn't mean he cant be an effective QB tho. As for AR, there seems to be a lot of focus on "head", not sure that is accurate. At some point it's skill set. Using a baseball analogy, plenty of guys can throw a 90+ fastball, but not that many can follow it with an effective changeup. I'm rooting for the young man tho, he has a lot of pressure on him.
