Bakers defense does not travel that is for sure.

When you lose eight road conference games in a row I’d say it’s safe to say the defense “ain’t traveling”.

I’m disappointed in Lane for trusting Baker to get a stop under 2 minutes left. He’s shown no ability to stop teams in 2 minute situations at Ole Miss or in this game. Everything is soft coverage allowing 10-15 yard completions at will with no one even contesting the receiver. Mind boggling that he won’t play aggressive and make the opponent beat you. Playing not to lose instead of playing to win is Blake Baker.

Shape up or ship out Baker. Fraud.

Believe it or not, Baker had the leading sacker in the nation dropping into coverage in a wide zone where there was not even a receiver. Totally taking our top rusher completely out of the game. He might as well have been on the bench and LSU playing D with 10 guys in that final drive. And he is paid 3.5 million for that level of brilliance.

Ole Miss - TD with 5 seconds in 1st half, lose by 8 points
UK - TD to close 1st half, marched to kick FG with 12 seconds left, lose by 1 point

He doesn’t close out halves and it’s also apparent he can’t stop a 2 point conversion

At least there is a good chance he will take a HC job after this year. He is a good but not a championship caliber DC. Certainly isn’t deserving to be the highest paid DC in CFB

Our LBs played pretty bad and that 2pt conversion defensive call was horrible and indefensible. Other than that, our defense wasn't that bad. Not counting OT, we gave up two touchdowns. That punt return TD was bad. I'm very upset about the game but not close to thinking Baker needs to go

Blake does a great job of teaching defensive schemes. He is just not a great play caller at times. Especially in 2-4 minute situations. But he actually has very good schemes and techniques that he teaches. I rewatched the game and we played significantly less man than I would have expected on 3rd downs. Idk if he was afraid of Darby or their tight end but we played a lot of zone and I have never been a fan of Cover 2 in 3rd and long situations. If you want to play Cover 2 it needs to be tampa 2. It leaves the deep middle wide open.

Cooley either needs to be a deep Safety or we need to bring Jakeem in more to play more man. Keys and Cooley struggled at different points. Cooley was asked to play near the LOS at times and thats not his game. 3rd and longs we need to allow Ty to play the linebacker spot next to Dottery and let Jakeem play the slot with Jhase and Cooley playing the safeties. Zone coverage was picked up by the 2 good QBs we have faced.

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In the two away games allowed over 30 points per

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To be clear, Bakers D gave up 27. 20 in regulation. And the TD at the end of the half was bullshite and shouldn’t have counted, but yeah his D let them drive down to be in position for that to happen so ok.

Our rushers were also being held constantly, but I get that’s something he has to account for.

The drives at the end of the halves were tough for sure. Hard to play defense in those scenarios but you have to do that to be called elite, and he has proven repeatedly his defenses are particularly bad in those moments.


But outside of those two drives I’d say the defense played well, honestly. Exceptionally well in the second half, particularly the 3rd quarter.


Bakers bandits, as you called them, gave the offense the ball back over and over in the second half and the offense couldn’t put them away. The stop after the turnover on own our 13 yard line was elite level scheme and execution that should have been enough to seal the game.


The 2 pt conversion was god awful but apparently someone missed the switch in assignment when they went empty backfield. Sucks, but it happens.

While the coach definitely takes some blame when players don’t make the right reads, everyone saying the “call was horrible” are not making the correct analysis of what happened.


I know his history comes into play when these games go down like that, and that’s fair. One can question his overall performance as DC without saying he and the defense had no plan and lost the game for us because I really don’t see it that way at all.

I don't understand how you line up leaving a huge hole in the middle of the field.

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With no pass rush, passing against a 2 high zone is the easiest situation a QB with decent receivers could ever play against.

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If you're going to play Cover-2 it needs to be Tampa 2 to take away the deep middle. I still hate it but its better than the Cover 2 Blake is employing because it takes away that downfield option.

Blake also plays a lot of Cover 3 which leaves a lot of holes in the seams and flats to the tight ends. Earlier in the season we played a lot of combo coverages with man and quarters and I have seen less of that lately and not sure why.