Through some bumps and bruises, maybe we finally found our secondary tonight

The secondary played well at times, especially in the first half, and looked totally lost at others. Considering the difficulty of this offensive scheme and how good WKU is at running it, I'm surprised we held them as well as we did.

I know we had White out tonight, and had to play guys like Paris and Jackson more than we normally would. It seemed to me that this game separated the contenders from the pretenders. It looks like Rickey Jefferson finally messed up enough to lose his spot to Thompson and Jackson.

Next up is Ed Paris. Yikes. He doesn't look good at all at corner right now, and will probably head back to the bench, along with Jefferson.

Dontae Jackson stepped up when called upon tonight. He did make a couple of mistakes in coverage, but his dynamic athleticism was evident on the overturned fumble. Even if it is in a reserve roll behind Thompson, he's going to be getting meaningful snaps going forward.

Mills is the big enigma at this point. He made a couple of plays out there tonight, but he is obviously still limited.

Thomas is still hit and miss. He played better last week, but was kind of meh again this week. Hopefully him moving back to Dime/Blitz back will get him in the groove again. He has this going for him- for all his shakiness, he's still a hell of a lot better than Paris.


I think the lineup for the stretch run looks like this.

CB:
White and Toliver (pretty obvious)

Safety
Adams, Thompson, Battle, and Jackson (Mills may play some here when we go 4-3, as well)

Nickel
Mills

Dime
Thomas or Jackson

If Mills can get fully healthy and Thompson and Jackson can man the fort at safety, then maybe we can be good enough to make defensive improvements down the stretch.