Defense - I'm going to keep it real simple

they are only paying him 2.5 Million a year, what do you expect?

Ohio state and Clemson play offensive juggernauts each week.

Ohio St - 1st in Scoring Defense - 9.8 ppg
Clemson - 3rd in Scoring Defense - 10.7 ppg

I wonder where LSU would be ranked against either of those schedules?

Only issue is that you disagree with his coaching philosophy.

Clearly he and O have decided to play bend, don’t break and keep everything in front of you. With this O and the inexperience on D (including a weak line), why not do that? I would play the odds too if I were them.

Their job is to win games, not play lights out D that exposes the D and puts them under a ton of pressure.

But I’m sure YOU know better than professional coaches.

How is it coaching when it’s the personnel that’s changed and not the coach? We have 6/7 starters injured, playing hurt or not even on the team anymore. The discrepancy in yards per play from 2017 to this year is the same between 2016 and 2017 yet nobody noticed back then, why is that? It’s because of the big plays, we give up big plays in the run game because we’re a very slow defense. Our LBs are average at best and 3 or 4 secondary players can’t run because of injury. And we can’t replace those guys because there’s no depth. Joseph, Divinity, Thomas, Harris were all starters and rotation guys and are all gone. We give up big plays in the passing game because we have no pass rushers. The team leaders in sacks last season were Divinity and Delpit, we also had Anthony who flashed at times. Divinity is gone Anthony doesn’t play, Delpit is playing center field so we can’t use him to blitz like we used to. Take any LSU defense then take away their top 4-5 pass rushers and ask yourself what that would look like. Aranda didn’t forget how to coach.

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In terms of talent

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It's easy to name the leader of the O and it's weapons.

Name the leader of this D and it's weapons.

Tired of the finger pointing, there's enough blame to go around for the staff and more so with the players.

Just a judgement call here but, this is a very uninspired defense across the board.

I've enjoyed the ride thus far.

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Just for reference, the other 3 teams in the CFP top 4 rank in scoring defense:

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You make a great point, no doubt.

LSU has played more offensively talented teams too though. It’s been a season to be thankful for nonetheless.

The Aranda apologists will tell you we don't have any players, which is insane. It's about SCHEME. Like maybe bringing more pressure and don't play a damn rush 3 and drop 8 scheme 90% of the time. Aranda is a bust. Oh, since we don't have players, doesn't he have a say in recruiting defensive players? Asking for some that don't think giving up over FIVE HUNDRED YARDS OF OFFENSE a game is very good.

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In terms of talent, where would this defense rank? Top 10? Top 15 at least right?

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No.

Forget stars, aside from Fulton and Stingley and Shelvin, not one of these players is playing well enough to say they are the most talented,

We are not seeing anyone step up and just out athlete anyone. As unpopular as this will be, it is the truth. You cant just say that they are talented, they have to prove it. Our DL is laughable. ZERO disruption ever in the run or pass game, all pressure is on the back half of our defense. This is year 3 of this crap.

It's never just one thing.

I've never loved Aranda's 3-4 scheme, but it has had relatively good success. A big problem is LSU simply doesn't have any great pass rushers at the DL/OLB spots. That hurts the pass defense. No matter how great your DB's are, they can't cover forever. Plus, Delpit hasn't been anywhere close to the same player he was in year's 1 and 2 for whatever reason.

Then, we see just how big of a loss D. White was. In addition to being a tremendous athlete, he was a very instinctive football player. The current ILB's are inconsistent in their reads and often get out of position (we saw that Sat. where they allowed huge cutback lanes). Take all of that and combine it with the fact that offenses are having to throw the ball often to try to keep up with LSU, and the numbers look bad (relative to past LSU defenses).

I don't think this is a good defense. But I don't think it is bad either. It is inconsistent, and teams have seemingly been able to adjust during the game while LSU hasn't (except for maybe the Fla. game). LSU did fine shutting down Texas, Alabama, Ole Miss in the first half.