What happened to House and this defense in one year?

He was never that great to begin with. In 2022, he got bailed out by Perkins a lot. The games we lost in 2022 were primarily because they couldn’t get timely stops in various situations.

This year it was just amplified because the talent was lacking.

Gave up:
40 to Tennessee
38 to 8&4
50 to Georgia

And all of those could’ve been worse honestly.

He had players that were coached by previous staffs, whether it be LSU or elsewhere. This year, he had no secondary that had any experience to note other than Chestnut who was just a runt and looked like a middle schooler playing corner. But House’s play calling and scheme was terrible. LB play was as bad as any LSU team I’ve seen in a long long time.

I think talent dropped in the secondary especially and pass rush and House choked.

We lost some important pieces that were not replaced by nearlly as good of players.

Gardner and Bernard-Converse were huge losses. We failed at getting adequate replacements and had to try guys who just were not ready. We lost Brooks and that hurt.

We also lost BJ ojulari and I think that had a huge impact. We didn't get the rush we got from him.

I think House got scared by all the issues we had and went so basic and so soft that we got killed. Then as his defense got killed it made the guys on the field look even worse, so he continued to go softer and more basic

House is an NFL guy with an extremely complicated NFL scheme. I don't think House had a chance to fully implement that scheme 2 years ago, and LSU played basic coverages, and once Dr Frankenstein had a chance to fully implement his defense it proved to complicated and it failed miserably.

Perfect storm:

-lost DL coach
-house stopped making quality 2nd half adjustments
-other def position coaches not up to snuff (lack of technique & fundamentals)
-none of our secondary transfers worked out (except Zy, hurt)
-difficult schedule
-failed to maximize hp4 (and other teams schemed around)
-lost too much experience from last year
-overall level of talent not up to LSU standards

House was lucky that he had veteran players from prior LSU regimes and from hitting home runs in the transfer portal that year, especially the secondary. Guys like Baskerville, Olujari, Gay, Ward and Roy and then Bernard Converse, Garner, Foucha, and Brooks in the transfer portal.

Like most coordinators, House’s scheme and play calls can work when he’s got good veteran talent that fit within the scheme. The issue that became clear this year is he couldn’t develop that talent himself, either through coaching or talent evaluation, and/or he couldn’t adjust his scheme and playcalling to account for the limitations of his roster. Good coordinators can do at least one of those things if not both

quote:

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House is an NFL guy with an extremely complicated NFL scheme

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"You rang?"

~Lou Tepper

We lost Jay Ward, Joe Foucha, Greg Brooks, JBC, and Mekhi Garner and replaced them with 2 Sunbelt level players and 2 players who went AWOL.

I'll get downvote to oblivion here, but the fans who keep blaming House aren't watching the games. Its not like House is calling for safety blitz's on 1st and 10 and getting burnt down the seam. We've played cover 2 and cover 3 for most of the year, and we still have players out of position. Its like our DBs never picked up on zone concepts, and then when we played man, its wasn't any better. It took the entire season for our D Line to have a multi sack game against a quality opponent.

8 defensive players who have never been with the program. 2 of those transfers aren't even with the team anymore. Big swing and a miss on Denver Harris. Maason Smith either not being fully healthy or just out of shape, or just not caring enough.

I dont understand our fans who keep yelling for Perkins to Blitz. Go back and watch the game and just focus in on Perkins. He's getting taken out of the game on almost every single rush. He's not coming untouched like last year, and thats not scheme. Same play calls as last year. I just think we have tape on him, and he doesnt have the size or power to out man SEC OTs. Hell, Ole Miss ran the ball right to him in the 4th quarter because he was just sitting flat footed or rushing wide every play.

Losing the DL coach early was huge...we had very little push up front and that is a difference maker...could Lindsey have made a difference had he been there the entire time???