The talent is there, but the experience is not. This is a very young defense. Have they shown that they are ready to face a high powered offense? Not yet and time is running short, but they should be very good by seasons end. The question is how fast will they come along and will it be fast enough to be ready for the better teams coming soon. There will be growing pains in SEC play.
That bum? That defensive "genius" has had a year and still can't figure out how to stop Johnny Doucheball. Chavis? Had him figured out in a quarter and a half.
Stacey I agree. I really believe that the gumps would have a tough time with Oregon. Those lineman sized linebackers are good at stopping the run inside the tackle box but aren't so great at defending the edges.
Every year we have unbelievable talent ready to explode on defense at damn near every position, however very few of these guys we expect to be great have great seasons. We do always seem to have 2, 3 or 4 players have great seasons but for the most part our defense plays very well because a whole bunch of guys do pretty good. And that goes back to 2003. We have had some damn good defenses even though we've had several with bandaids at the back 7. We've had stars who really didn't follow up a great season with another, we've had safties move to lb and lb's move to safety. But the defenses have played better as a group than as individuals. I think we will see more of that this year.
This is all very true. Fortunately it is true for our opponents as well. Everyone is breaking in new talent. Many rookie mistakes will be made. This year will be interesting. Our offense will not be one dimensional and will combine a power running game with a pro-style passing attack. LSU will score some serious points this year. On the other hand, the defense is a bit of a drop-off and until the new talent gels and gets their errors behind them, opponents are going to score some serious points on LSU. I think we will see more offensive shootouts than defensive struggles this season. Should be fun.
I love the Chief and think he was the best hire Les made (until Cam makes it a tie) but the best D coordinator LSU ever had was Bill Arnsparger. Yes he was HC but he truly ran the D and worked magic.
I agree. I don't see a defense that will dominant causing the opponent to turnover the ball. So we'll have to be great on 3rd down conversions and get the opposing offense off the field. I don't see a single ball hawk on this team.
For those remarking about Georgia's defense, they are in a much worse situation than we are. Alabama, we won't know about because they went from playing one of the worst offenses to playing one of the best offenses. They shined against Vtech and they broke down against A&M. I suspect they are about like us, they will be good to solid, but nothing spectacular or dominating.
I'm thinking by the time November 9th comes around the world will again realize that Ali and Frazier are ready to go again. LSU has done all the dirty work, and Alabama is the team with all the hardware. (For now anyway, thanks Luther). 1 game at a time but both defenses will be battle tested and vastly improved.
I was actually more upset with loosing Bill Arnsparger than Nick Saban. Many have said that Coach Miles is a CEO type coach and with Cam, I'm optimistic that our CEO now has the Board Of Directors in place to be back on top.
