re: grade the co DC's so far this season

after seeing them in person, i don't know what the safties are doing half the time

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but it seems that there are too many seams down field when there probably shouldnt be

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especially when we're not blitzing anyone and the CBs are in man

D-. Defense has been vanilla at best. I am seeing a lot of confusion. Prior to the snap during last night's game, Tyson Jackson push one of his own players to the ground due to them lining up incorrectly.

I’ll go with C.

Our new DC’s, was my biggest concern coming into this season and after four games it’s still is. IMO, the talent is top-shelf but we’re still underachieving big time. Haven’t checked statistics but both Auburn and State seemed to have their best offensive performances so far this year against us. Say what you will, (and I’ll say this that Nick is a liar) but Nick’s approach to defense is without peer in college football. With the talent we have we need to get rid of the react mode and go to more of an attack mode on defense.

I don't know enough about the details of scheme and what is causing the problems to give any valid grade to the coordinators. I can only try to grade the defensive performance overall, and let more knowledgeable people sort out the responsibility between the coordinators and the players.

Week-by-week grades:

Appy State: B

They pretty much shut down the Edwards show in the first half while we went up 31-0. One big blown coverage in the second half was disappointing, but not a major problem.

North Texas: B-

Held them to 3 points and fairly low yardage total, but showed significant vulnerability to the pass, particularly short outs and to the back coming out of the backfield.

Auburn: C

Great job to shut down the running game, but let a really awful quarterback hurt us pretty bad in the passing game. Auburn put up more offensive points against us than they did in both of their other SEC games combined.

Mississippi State: D

Looked mediocre in all aspects. Gave up numbers comparable to the Auburn game to an offense far inferior to Auburn's (which isn't any good, either). Wide open receivers, RBs out of the backfield, etc. all night long. State even found some success in the running game for part of the game. Mississippi State scored more points against LSU than they did all three of their other FBS games combined. Only the fact that we won (which was almost solely due to the offense) kept this from being an "F".

These grades aren't good, and even worse, they're trending down, not up. I guess the good news is that, as we get further into the season and teams have played more games, we'll (hopefully) have fewer games in which we allow more points than the team has scored in all its other FBS or SEC games combined.

Cumulative grade for the season so far: C

C+ we are not blitzing as much as we did the last few seasons.

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The issue is when it happens 3 or 4 times a game all the fans remember are those 4 plays and not the 60 other plays.

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If it were only happening 3 or 4 times a game it would not be that bad. It's happening 3 or 4 times per possession.

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It's not by design we let a RB isolate on our LBs - these are things we are actively trying to prevent.

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Exactly, and we're doing a very poor job of it.

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We are trying to get a different package on the field, but sometimes there is no time

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The excuse that something outside of our control makes it impossible to stop these simple plays just doesn't hold water. Using a no-huddle and throwing to the back out of the backfield is not the long-awaited perfect offensive strategy that cannot be stopped by any defense. It's a simple tactic that is as old as the hills and teams have been stopping it for decades. Sure, it works sometimes, but no decent defense lets teams just run it over and over and over and over without EVER stopping it. Mississippi State pretty much walked down the field for two touchdowns doing nothing but just throwing it to a running back coming out of the backfield. And they weren't even going no-huddle.

C-

This is Big-12 defense. A lot of zone. Don't give up the big play. Problem is we are giving up the big play.

Tackling, our secondary is trying to "blow up" receivers instead of wrapping up and tackling. None of them are Landry and he missed alot of tackles.

Our linebackers have stepped up and are playing aggressive, but are still lax in tackling and coverage.

We are extremely predictable and have been since Saban left. We blitz the safeties and that is about it. We play soft on receivers, don't knock them off their routes and even mediocre quarterbacks can see the gaps in the zone.

If we didn't have monsters at the line, we would be terrible.

It just looks like this will be a bend don't break team. Problem is, we do not have the offense to give up that many points.

Also, special teams play has gotten worse (C-), way worse. We have not gotten better in a few years, and our coverage is smothering one game and ridiculous the next. We will get burnt by this like.

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I surely hope people bring up the defense in Miles' talk show this week.

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not on during bye weeks...