re: next years defense really concerns me

He needs to worry about fixing prevent defense calls before he worries about someone else's unit

Bad news macllin injuried his knee this week. Not sure how serious

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What have you heard??? Allen was doing well, before injury, and Maclin has been off the radar...How are they doing???

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Exactly that, Jordan Allen was making waves before his ACL injury and nothing much has been said about Maclin.

A few thoughts...

1. Rasco is a star in the making. This would be a lot more obvious if he hadn't had to play behind Montgomery, Mingo and Edwards the last couple of years. He's going to be the breakout player on the defense next year.

2. We need somebody out of this recruiting class to be an impact guy. Doesn't matter who - Patterson, Neal, Herron, Beckwith, whichever one of them can come in and make plays will work. Just somebody. Because while Hunter should be pretty good and it's hard to believe we can't at least get OK contributions from Allen or Maclin, we don't have as much depth at DE as we'd like. A freshman could fix that. I will say that I'm somewhat optimistic about the fact the staff hasn't made a JUCO defensive end a priority; they've done that in the past when they felt insecure about what they've had there (Kendrick Adams being a prime example).

3. We probably won't get the pass rush out of the DE's we got this year. That said, there are ways to compensate for that. What if our third down package, say, included Lamin Barrow moving down as a stand-up pass rusher and we used Debo Jones and Kwon Alexander as outside linebackers? You blitz Jones and Alexander, and with that kind of speed going into the pass rush you will produce sacks. In the past we've been pretty scary pass-rush wise when we blitzed a lot rather than relying on the front four for the pass rush.

4. We'll be able to blitz a GREAT deal next year, for three reasons.

First, we'll be good at it because we can run the fastest linebackers at the QB that we've run in memory.

Second, we'll be in a very good position to risk a blitz because we'll have Simon, Mills and Collins available to match up receivers in man-to-man. Simon didn't have all that good a junior year and Mills and Collins were freshmen, but all in all their work product was pretty solid for a group which was replacing Claiborne, Honey Badger and Ron Brooks (LSU has never had three cornerbacks that good playing at the same time other than maybe in the previous year; if you disagree feel free to come up with an example). Bring all three back for another year and then add somebody like Tredavious White or Rashad Robinson as an impact guy, and we'll be able to take some chances and bring heat.

And third, the offense will score points. When you have an offense which can score points - and especially an offense which can beat people down at the line of scrimmage and break a game open with great running backs - bringing blitz and getting a turnover or a drive-killing sack could be the "killer app" for next year's team. You get a touchdown from the offense, then a sack and a fumble and another quick score, and you might well find us separating some scores and killing teams early like we did last year.

In other words, you can mask some perceived weaknesses on a defense by making use of strategy and some complementary strengths. After all, if opposing offenses do find that our new DE's don't hold the edge as well as the guys who are leaving, it might not mean all of a sudden that they can run outside on us - it might just mean that Loston shines in run support or that Alexander, Barrow and Jones are making lots of big plays in space.

LBs & DBs are going to be fine. It's only the front 4 that we have any reason to be concerned.

I know we'd all love to think that Mingo (or Sonic) will return, but it won't happen. Tons of people have Mingo as the top DE or at least top 3 with him going in the top 10. He's at least a first rd lock barring a poor combine, and I just can't see him returning and potentially giving up being a 1st rounder.

The interior line should be alright. The ends are going to be trouble.

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and our best cover corner

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I've got news for the orginal poster, Jalen can't go pro he is a freshman.

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macaoidh

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damn fine post sir.

Man I think our D will be great. If minter comes back think about it. We'll have anthony johnson in the middle with ego and possibly logan. Rasco and maclin/hunter etc on the end (I'm excited to see this cause I'm sorry but mingo/montgomery way overrated). Alexander and Barrow at LB's with crazy talent behind them. Loston and Martin at safety (can only improve on what we got from reid this year). Mills and Collins with another year. I'm pumped. Simon and Reid had a bad year. Mingo/montgomery had like one sack combined and mingo was a liability again against the run. We need to get back to at least one DE with size like Tyson Jackson was. Anyway with that said 2013 D will be great. 5