re: 2023 NCAA Total Defense Leaders and their defensive coordinators…

Kentucky has the #6 defense in the country 2018....with Matt house as DC

At least look at a 3 year period or something

One year snapshots are not a good indicator of anything unless you are a head coach that knows what you're look at, or hire a group to help you in the search.


When Aranda was at Wisconsin, I used a 3 year snapshot of his defenses. I looked at his position, LBs, and how they faced actually, at minimum, decent offenses, not just overall.

That's why I wanted Pete Kwiatkowski when we were looking for a DC after firing Pelini. I remember just how good those defenses were at Washington. Now Texas has him, and they have improved every year.


I also wanted Jim Knowles when Kelly was looking for a DC. I paid attention to his time at Oklahoma St. When idiot Ohio St fans were mad at him last year, I said to just be patient. Even with giving up 30 to Michigan, they held them to 340 yards and 4.1 yards per carry. They only gave up 3 TDs to a team that was averaging 38 points a game. Two costly ints gave them 2 extra possessions to grind out clock. Either way, they also played 3 other decent offenses in ND, Maryland, and Penn St, and held them to 17, 14, and 12 points respectively.







So, using my personal criteria again, my first option would be Adam Fuller from FSU. Adam Fuller is the DC and LB coach for FSU and has improved their defense every year since he got there He had spent only 2 years at DC at the FBS level before going to the hard task over taking over a bad defense in the covid year with a first year power 5 head coach. Of course Fuller was Norvell's DC for a year at Memphis before he came over. He took a Mephis defense that was giving up 32 points per game, and in one year made them jump up to giving up only 26.4 points per game. That's almost a TD difference in one year.

His first year at FSU was bad. They were an entire new staff to a FSU squad that was just horrific, poorly recruited to, and no great retention of players. Slowly, but surely they improved. In 2021 they went from 105 to 67, giving up 26.5 points per game from 36. The next year they went to 20th giving up 20.6 ppg, almost a TD difference. This past year they went to 6th giving up 15.9 an almost 4.5 ppg difference. His 3 LBs led the team in tackles. His best LB had 10.5 TFL and 7 sacks despite having Jared Verse (12.0 TFL 9 sacks) and Patrick Payton (13.5 TFL 6 sacks) eating on the DL. Dude had 5 players with 5+ sacks. And FSU finished 3rd in the country in sacks.

Make Adam Fuller the highest paid DC. The fact that FSU was able to bring in so many great defensive players from the portal and are now recruiting elite defensive players from high school is a testament to what he built for 4 years. Sure money is involved, but don't act like LSU wasn't going after the same guys with money. If I were Kelly, I would be on the phone with him right now. They are out of the playoffs. You can bring him in before the ESD for recruits, and he now has Florida ties.

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I swear to God if LSU hires Manny fricking Diaz, y'all will want to fire his arse after 1 year. He's terrible.

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In fairness, LSU fans want to fire everyone at all times

Picking a DC who has the benefit of excellent team time of possession is a mistake


Case in point, Manny Diaz is one of the most overrated coaches I've ever seen the media pump up - because his dad is a politico probably

You have to correlate total defense with scoring defense. Top scoring defense below

1 Michigan
2 Ohio St.
3 Penn St.
4 Iowa
5 Ohio
6 Florida St.
7 Miami (OH)
8 Notre Dame
9 Georgia
10 Troy
11 Oregon
12 SMU
13 Texas
14 Air Force
15 UCLA
16 Nebraska
17 Alabama
18 Wisconsin
19 Tulane
20 Louisville

I would like to get Greg gasparto from Troy on the staff at lsu