re: Thoughts about the Defense

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LB look somewhat weak

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Possibly the best LB play we have seen last game Minter and Barrow hav been great.

Last years D was in midseason form for Oregon. This D was breaking in more young guys but is improving every week. The occassional breakdown at safety is my only concern. And these are correctable. I think Reid is trying to do too much. When he trusts the young guys more the secondary will gel. To my eye LB play seems much improved over last year.

Martin wasnt the one to blow the coverage. Just to let you know.

And we still have playmakers

I think this D is not quite as good as last year for 3 reasons. Brockers, Taylor, and Mathieu. Brockers and Mathieu were not just good, they were both players that disrupted what the offense was trying to do. We have good dt's, but none are at the level of Brockers. Mathieu just had an incredible knack for zeroing in on the ball. He made big time plays. Taylor was a very heady athletic safety and Loston is a big drop off. Martin, who I think will be a big time player, is still learning the position. The defense is more solid across the board than last season, with finally getting SEC level linebackers, but we don't have as many players on defense who can just blow up the opponents offense at just the right time as we did last season.

The blown coverage against Idaho was Simons fault.

We are a hyper fast Def. I think the Def. front is better than last season, even if untested. We have a young CB who will take a few lumps, but is probably an up an coming star. We saw what we have backing up at the Safety position...
We have to be honest, we have played nobody, so Auburn will be our first competition... but I am expecting that we will be once again, AMAZING

as stated earlier quick passes help to eliminate sacks but we are still getting good pressure on the QB's and limiting the oppositions running games.

Some of the experienced secondary members are making mistakes they normally wouldn't make trying to help out the inexperenced DB's. That will correct itself in time as they learn to trust the new DB's.

LB's don't have alot of playing time but they are fast and not scarred to hit someone.


Overall we may not be as good on the backend as other years but by years end we will have one of the better front 7's that we have had in along time.

Relax. Coach Chavis has it covered.