re: Hawkins vs. Eugene

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He INT two in the Auburn game, almost had three.

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And one of the interceptions was one 4th down. His interception was the equivalent of an Auburn punt. Because of Hawk's INT, we got the ball inside the 20 instead of the on 35 yardline.

starting SS.

Not that I know of, but Miles wants him out there because of the promise he showed on special teams, so they decided to put him at SS opposit Jones, dude is a hard hitter despite his size.

tha coaching was horrible last year, totally lost control of the team, I don't think you will see that this year, at least I hope so.

Yeah, I agree. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if Curtis Taylor ends up a decent player in the NFL, when he lost his starting role for us last year. There was so much confusion out there it was ridiculous.

Bad coaching makes your secondary look bad. There was a lot of confusion out there. That shouldn't be a problem any more.

...And yeah, PP is gonna be a beast!

Flordia's Ahmad Black of similar size did really well at the SS position. Ron Brooks seemed to make plays everytime he was on the field, so I have high hopes for him. If the staff is as persistant as they say on no subsitutions, he could be a major part covering the slot guys in man.

I watched some of the games over recently, and as painful as it was, Hawkins was much better than I remembered. In the Arky game he was pretty bad, but he still made a hell of an INT that got called back by a bullshite PI. If he can continue to work on his double moves, he could be a very good player for the secondary this year.

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Hawkins is extremely athletic but he has literally no physicality in his game and it hurt us way more than Jai did last year. Jai got burned on about two or three MAJOR plays last year. Hawkins routinely missed tackles, couldn't get off blocks, little run support and was inconsistent in coverage. He got burned way more than Jai.

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I didn't think Hawkins was too bad but I've thought all along that Eugene is the better corner.

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yeah, he got roasted pretty frickin bad

even shitty teams roasted him

I know our defensive scheme was shite last year and we didn't get great coaching -- but that doesn't excuse the number of times Hawkins was engaged in man coverage and just got embarrassed by opposing WRs

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What was that number? I watched every game last year and I certainly did not come away with any impression that Hawkins was particularly any weaker in coverage than any of our other DBs except Peterson. How many passes were thrown with Hawkins in the game, how many of those were thrown to his man, and how many of those were completed? And how many times did he cover a receiver on a play where there was no pass thrown to his man? And where did you get the film that showed him and his man on every defensive snap of the season? And what would the above numbers be for Eugene?

I ask these questions for the very simple reason that no one that does not have these answers can actually pose a validated opinion on the matters upon which you so vividly speculated. I also ask these questions because they are precisely the kinds of questions that people like the coaching staff would most likely be able to answer (or have been able to answer when they were deciding things like our starting CBs).

There is a whole shitload going on in every football season for every team that no fan ever even has a clue has happened. And that includes a lot of stuff that actually takes place on the field in games. Fans have the luxury of settling for their first impressions because it really doesn't matter if they are right or wrong about these things. But when you have to dig deeper, those first impressions can very often be totally off base.

For the record, I have no clue what they answers to those questions are, either, nor do I have any idea whether Jai or Hawkins will start. I just know that the kind of absolutist and blanket generalizations you were making about Hawkins have essentially zero chance of being founded on sound analysis of all the relevant facts.

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If I was Chad Jones I would take my first step towards Hawkins' side of the field on damn near every passing situation because he is likley to get picked on...PP can hold his own on the other side

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Please see Alabama game clinching throw to JJ against Peterson, See multiple blown coverages against ole miss and arkansas. Peterson may turn out to be a All-SEC but it wasn't like he was a shut down corner last year.