Defense vs Miss St --> Looking forward to Auburn (long)

Glad we get them in consecutive weeks. They run similar offensive schemes and their personnel is somewhat similar as well, though they aren't exact carbon copies of each other. . But the more you see that power run out of spread / read option type of offense, the better you get at defending it and recognizing certain plays. Our D should have a leg up on being prepared this week, 2nd week in a row game planning for similar offenses

First off, I wasn't too thrilled when we hired Steele as our DC. We obviously had a lot of returning talent on D, but really has no clue what to expect with Steele. But I absolutely loved what I saw from him and our D in terms of play calls and our game plan.

Loved the creative blitzing and different schemes we used vs Miss St. We ran a lot of twists and with a lot of different positions as well. We had the tradition DE + DT twist, but we also ran twists with our LB + DE, and saw a few DT + LB twists, sometimes wth the RLB twisting with the left DT (Debo had a kill shot on Dak with this one). Hell, we even had a fake blitz from Debo and Ricky Jefferson that ended up as a sack for Lewis Neal.

And I was pumped to see us line up in multiple defensive fronts. Once we hired Steele, everyone was wondering if we would be sticking with the 4-3, switch to the 3-4, or a bit of both? Well the answer is none of those(so far). We ran a 4-2-5 for pretty much the entire game with some 3-2-6 mixed in there. And loved how we used our personnel when we switched it up as well. When we would go to the 3-2-6, Godchaux and Key were the DEs with Lac in the middle. And Beckwith would often play almost like a stand up DE and would blitz a good bit (will help his draft stock a lot). And it was clear that it didn't matter what scheme we were in, our personnel wouldn't change that much. Which is good. And Arden Key is a special player.

We should be able to rattle and confuse Jeremy Johnson back there with all those different blitzes and schemes we ran vs Miss St. Do that, we will force him to make dumb throws(doesn't seem to be to hard do that either ) and get INT after INT.

Our DBs will be going up against another big WR in Duke Williams. He's not as athletic as De'Runnya is, but he's more physical, knows how to use his body to shield the bl from the defender and can really do some damage in the middle of the field on seams, posts, etc. I would like for Tre White to be on Duke a good bit, but don't think he needs to shadow him like he did vs Wilson. And that's due to Duke Williams skill set, the play of KT, and Ricardo Louis, their WR2. I would be comfortable with KT matching up on Duke Williams every few series or so. And even though Duke Williams is a beast and 1 of the top WRs in the country, Ricardo Louis is the 1 that worries me. He's 6'2, 210lbs and can fly. He's a big play guy waiting to happen, similar to Sammie Coates who torched us. They have a better WR group than Miss St, but it's nice for our DBs to have just gone up against a premier talent at WR in De'Runnya Wilson and keep him in check most of the game. I think Tre White is an elite CB, arguably the best in the nation, and if we want him to shadow Duke, I'm fine with that. But I'm already confident in KT and would be comfortable if he was on Duke at some point. Especially if Louis makes a few plays.

Besides Duke Williams and Ricardo Louis, the other guy that worries me is Auburns RB, Peyton Barber. This is where they are different than Miss St. Barber is a damn good RB who has really impressed me so far (and that's saying something because I loathe Auburn). He's pretty much the key for that offense and is the sole reason why they are 2-0 and not 0-2. He's a strong, physical RB who runs with a lot of determination, effort and heart. He does not go down easy. We need to make sure we wrap him up because he will bust through arm tackles with ease.

Stop Barber --> force Auburn to throw a lot--> get after Jeremy Johnson and confuse him --> INTs --> Win --> 2-0.

Can't wait to put it on Auburn