Defensive stats from 2009

Its good. Not great. We need it to be great with our shitty offense.

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The YPG is very concerning to me.

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Yeah the D was in "bend don't break" mode last year. Lots of yards given up but few TDs.

They need to be able to stop long drives to give the offense more chances. Run D and pass rush have to improve for use to be successful.

Considering how bad the offense was at moving the chains, and how bad the talent on the defensive line was, I'd say that was motherfricking spectacular coaching job.

I do want to see some overall improvement for 2010 though, and it all starts with the D-line. For Chavis to earn his salary, he's going to need to piece together a LB corp that will be better than last year. Considering how experimental everything was with LBs in the spring of 2009, I have a good bit of confidence that he will.

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Considering how bad the offense was at moving the chains, and how bad the talent on the defensive line was, I'd say that was motherfricking spectacular coaching job.

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Couldn't agree more. The defense had to be exhausted as shite every game. They showed a lot of heart in red zone and goal line situations. If our d-line can improve and get a LITTLE push, I think it will do wonders for our defense. If the offense would stay on the field for more than 3 plays it wouldn't hurt either.

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Considering how bad the offense was at moving the chains, and how bad the talent on the defensive line was, I'd say that was motherfricking spectacular coaching job.

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This. It's amazing we can still keep the td's down with the amount of time the D was on the field.

We didn't have a very good complimentary team last year. I fear this year won't be too much better.

While the offense certainly didn't help, the defense didn't do itself any favors either. We had a bad offense last season, and that's putting it nicely.

The defense was on the field so much because they couldn't get off of it. We constantly lost field position, and let the other teams convert at will.

One example I can think of to sum up all of last season, was a point in the Capital One Bowl. We punt the ball down to the 1 yard line. Finally we have excellent field position. Penn St. then proceeds to drive about 60 yards, eating up clock, and then punts it in the endzone. The defense got a stop, but gave up 79 yards of field position. Now you have a bad offense needing to drive 80 yards to get a TD.

It seems like this was the case all year. The defense needs to step up more this year and get opposing offenses off the damn field. I was not pleased with the defense last season fwiw.

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Considering how bad the offense was at moving the chains, and how bad the talent on the defensive line was,

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Agree. Looking just at play within the SEC:

LSU's D was tied for 3rd in conference (behind only Bama and UF) in yards per play on D. However they were 5th in yards per game (0.1 ypg behind USCe). But the were 9th in fewest plays faced, which means they were on the field a lot. Some of that was the third down conversion rate, which wasn't great, but still...

The offense had less plays than any SEC team except UGA (which turned the ball over a lot). In case someone thinks this is a "chicken or the egg" argument about why the D faced so many plays and the O had so few - the offense was 10th in yard per play and 11th in yards per game.

The good yard per play of the D, and the bad yard per play of the O, tells me that if the O can control the ball a little more this year it will help out our D a lot. More so than the other way around.

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The defense was on the field so much because they couldn't get off of it. We constantly lost field position, and let the other teams convert at will.

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This simply isn't supported by the evidence.

LSU was ranked 38th in defensive 3rd down conversion rate which on it's own isn't horrible(That's in the top 3rd, better than 80 other teams). Yet it was ranked 112th in number of 3rd downs faced (lowest to highest). Only 8 teams faced more 3rd downs.

Additionally, I think a reasonable person would agree that a defense that is on the field too long (ranked 107th in Time of Possession) will have an inferior 3rd down conversion rate due to fatigue.

The defense held this team together last year. And, the limited success we did have was due to the defensive side of the ball.

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Is this good enough?

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no

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Will we improve?

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yes I'm calling 11-2 right now with the two loses being Bama and maybe UF

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The YPG is very concerning to me.

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that's always been the big concern for me as well.

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The YPG is very concerning to me.


that's always been the big concern for me as well.

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Why would being ranked 26th be a big concern...especially with the inordinate amount of plays we had defensively. We were 15th in yards per play.