The Realists' Thread (Defense, QB's, etc.)

Well, I said last week we would lose by 10 and I called the UF game too. I could see from the MSU game and the USC game that the defense was just woeful, especially the secondary. When the QB's have time they will tear the secondary up. The secondary has shown that they can only cover for 2-3 seconds and at that point the WR's make their breaks and it's all over or at least it seems.

They look lost out there. You could have 3 secondary guys in one area and a WR with nobody around him for 10 yards. Well we all see that have stated that....no sense in repeating it all.

-co-def coord aren't working. Obviously these guys are good position coaches as past years have proven. But the added responsibility of DC is too much and they have not been coaching the kids enough in practice or something. Les needs to hire a legitimate DC that will instill discipline into these kids. He can keep the two coaches if he wants to loyal because I think they are good position coaches.

-Lee looked bad. I'm willing to give him a couple picks each game because he is young but the pick 6's have to stop and doing it twice in two games with the same WR screen is ridiculous. Obviously UGA saw that in the Auburn game and was waiting for that play. That really shifted the momentum in that 1st qtr. I think we can give Lee some slack, because JR and MF made bonehead mistakes too, but Lee has made some really big mistakes and 2 of them have been identical mistakes. The difference was with JR and MF is that we had a defense that could usually hold the opponent and get the ball back and minimize the damage. We don't have that anymore.

It's bad when the opponent gets the ball and you assume that they will score. And this chest beating and dancing around that goes on after making a good play after you just got torched 2 plays earlier make this defense look even more stupid. I don't know how many times I saw a DB or saftey get lit up on a big play and two plays later they make a decent tackle or hit and they jump up like some bad@ss dancing around. Just stupid.

Bama will light us up unless we put big pressure on JPW. But we couldn't get pressure on MS with a piece meal OL of UGA. Even when we blitzed he had time enough to find a WR. If JPW gets 3 seconds of time he will find a WR because our secondary is only good for the first 2.5 seconds, it seems.

We will have at least 3 losses. I didn't expect a 1 loss season, we had 2 losses last year with a much better defense and solid QB. I guess I just better accept it now. I said at the start of the season a 2 loss season would be great. I am worried about the QB play for next year though. You see guys like McCoy, Daniels, and Bradford excell when they were very young and inexperienced, you somewhat expect top recruits to learn quickly, but Lee hasn't done it as quick as we would like.

 

Realitic
1. We are scoring enough points to win.

2. Our secondary is very inexperienced and In my opinion, not coached as well as last year. We lost some good people a Great DC and some key players.

3. Our offense shows glimpses of greatness but is hampered by mistakes. TOO many procedure calls etc.

4. QB inexperience is a big one. so he makes some mistakes, its to be expected, BUT our the coaches calling plays to minimize that?

5. NO, Lee reminds me of JMarc without the ability to get himself back out of trouble. Poor decisions. throwing into double coverage anyway..... instead of just running it himself. Or hook sliding.

6. So can the play calling help him? Yes it could but apparently Crowton doesnt like this idea.

7 Namely LES SAYs they are going to feature our RB's more, but In my Opinion, they go there, but get quickly back to the pass. Throwing on first down when your backs are ripping off 8 -12 yards a carry is NUTS.
Just to mix it up???? It doesnt matter how far you are down, if a back is breaking tackles left and right, it doesnt take long to score. the clock isnt an issue.

8. Its great to get up on the podium and say how much confidence you have in a young QB in front of the publ;ic BUT behind closed doors Les needs to convey to Crowton that a few more hand offs might win us a game.

9. ALL that being said..... the biggest problem is the lack of secondary, the offense thing would probably not hurt us IF we could hold other GOOD temas to under 20 points. We are missing Steltz big time right now.

so what do we do?
Continue to support our boys and hope Les corrects things. I thought after the FLorida game, he kind of said he was going to feature the running game more, but I havent seen it yet. Ive seen glimpses.

Go with our strength, Our O line, run the ball. build J Lee's confidance SLOWLY.
Our D line is pretty dahm good, we need to recruit for the secondary.
We need to SERIOUSLY address the secondary issues. What that will take, I don't know but these guys arent bad players, they just dont seem to know WHERE to be. IS there another good DC out there looking for a job???

as a side note, I am reminded that Derick Pegues ALMOST went to LSU ( he is great on a nothing team MSU ) he'd be playing lock down secondary for us now if Saban had not jumped to the pro's. Hind sight is 20/20 I dont blame Les, he is a very fine coach, but I do think Saban hurt us a bit when he decided to hit the trail. You just never realize these things until a few years later and even then its all just conjecture. What if's.

:helmet::helmet::helmet::helmet::helmet:

 

this may be so but it isnt exactly the best idea when you cant throw well and you're making huge gains running the ball. it doesnt take long to score when your backs are ripping huge chucks of real estate off.

 

It seemed like the coaches simply didn't believe what they were seeing and were convinced they couldn't keep running. Does not compute.

 

Everyone is quick to blame Lee, but he is what he is, YOUNG.

I blame the play calling. Miles said they thought they fixed Lee. He said in the Interview, with easy passes. Lee would be fine if you take away the give aways. A few dropped passes and Incompletes we can handle, 9 INT's and a buncha points given away is a killer. this reminds me so much of J marc. Everyone criticized me for saying he was a poor decision maker. but what is he doing now? time bears all things to truth. I remember tirk saying I was crazy for criticizing J marc. Looks like I hit the nail on the head. I finally just quit posting here over BS like that.

the OC and Miles could TRY to help Lee by going to the run a little more especially when it works so well, but what do I know. Miles says he fixed it. maybe... we'll see.

We might lose two more. I hope not but we could, this isnt a TOP SEC team. realistically.

 

I beg to differ that Jamarcus was the "best" quarterback to ever walk in Tiger Stadium. He may have been the most "talented" quarterback but I don't put him as the best. I would still take a last year Flynn over a last year Jamarcus right now. It is called Quarterback IQ , drive, and passion for the game. Jamarcus did not study the game. I bet that he did not watch half the game film that Flynn did. No question he has a once in a lifetime arm... let's watch see if his arm will make him great in the NFL. It takes more than talent.

As for Jarrett Lee, I was at the game watching from an end zone view and he was certainly making some pretty bad decisions throwing into double coverage, etc. The question is whether Les is willing to lose to 2 to 3 games a year on him for the next 2 years thinking he will develop. Trying to develop Perriloux despite his issues for too long cost Miles valuable backup QB time. He is paying for it now. He needs to pull a Spurrier and open the position back up to every QB we have on the roster... lose now or lose the next 2 to 3 years..

QB is a small thing compared to the Defensive issues that we have. All the talent in the world and NO coordination. I thought I was at a big 12 game.

 

Hm...you know, watching this team, I feel like we are close. We lost by 14 points to a team we gifted 17 points. It's easy to say that if the QBs hadn't given away 14 directly and been responsible for another 3, that the defense would have been able to hold, at least enough to give us an opportunity to win the game late, and that's probably true. It's also easy to point to the 400+ total yards and 200 yards rushing that the defense gave up, and say if they had done their job, the QB mistakes wouldn't have been so game breaking. The bottom line is that there needs to be improvement in both areas.

How much of this is coaching, how much of it is inexperience, and how much of it is lack of execution by the experienced guys? I, for one, am not sold that the Co-DC experiment has been a bust. Do you guys remember the first couple of Saban defenses? They were horrible. The 2000 defense was 46th in the nation, giving up 350+ yards a game. The 2001 defense was 75th in the nation, giving up 396 yards yards a game. We didn't play good defense until 3 years into Saban's vaunted system. And you can make the claim that Saban didn't have the talent, but I'm not buying that either. That 2000 team was made up with the likes of Kendrick Allen, Jarvis Green, excellent LBs in Jeremy Lawrence, Trev Faulk, and Bradie James, along with some pretty good safeties in Norman LeJeune and Ryan Clark. A lot of those guys made NFL teams, and several of them are still in the league. The biggest weakness of that defense was at the CB position. Fred Booker and Demetrius Hookfin just couldn't get it done.

I think we are in a similar situation with this year's defense. We are seeing DBs out of position, what appears to be a lack of discipline in the gaps on the line, etc. Only we seem to have much less patience than we used to. We have a lot of inexperience in the secondary, and it shows. Perhaps the players are still adjusting to a change in philosophy, I don't know.

I think what is alarming to most of us is the fact that we are struggling on both sides of the ball. You have to go all the way back to that 2000 season to find a year in which we were so inexperienced at such critical positions on both offense and defense (CB and QB). One has always been able to carry the other.

I guess my point in all this is that I think it's too early for gloom and doom. This defense still isn't as bad as Saban's first couple, and we have only given our freshman QB 7 games to impress us. Of the 10 CBs we have on the roster, 8 are underclassmen, and 6 are freshmen. Ultimately, the defense may never come together, and Jarrett Lee may never learn to make the proper reads. I'm just not sure our expectations have been tempered the way they probably should be. My heart expects to win every game by 30, but after a tough loss, my head reminds me that I shouldn't have been listening to my heart in the first place.

 

I tend to agree with everything you said except the co DCs. I really think this should be a one man operation. You're right about the blown assignments, out of position players, and inexperience. However, we should be seeing less of this as the season progress because they're gaining experience with each game and should not keep making the same mistakes. But they are and l'm not convinced that neither current DC is right for an elite team such as ours. They should be ok as a position coach or other type of assistance's position, but not the DC.

Other than that, everything else is right on point.

 

And you may very well be right. I am not generally a fan of dual coordinators, either.

I left out Damien James in my first post, too. It's been so long, I can't believe I forgot about the James Gang.

 

Mobile, you make some valid points. I'm not ready to throw in the towel on Lee. He's young and I think he will learn. The pressure escalates upon him exponentially during the UGA and UF games because yes he made a mistake that put LSU in the hole but then the defense continually gives up huge plays and points. This then puts double the pressure on him. JR made some horrible decisions and MF has made some bad decisions....some of which happened in their senior seasons.

Mobile, I will disagree with the Co-DC's. It needs to go. Now obviously these guys can coach positions because we have had good secondary and DL's the past seasons.....Unless Pelini had more to do with position coaching than we think. But this year these guys are out of position, get lost, and are rarely on top of the WR's when they catch the ball.

Now is this because the Co-DC's are spread too thin and aren't teaching fundamentals to these guys in the secondary?

Why aren't the DL's getting pressure on the QB's consistently? Is it the same reason as mentioned above?

Is it because this is a new scheme that the young guys are trying to learn therefore they are not spending as much time on fundamentals?

I don't know the answer obviously except that the secondary gets torched by all levels of SEC teams and the DL isn't getting pressure on the QB's enough. I say the DC's now have more workload and maybe not teaching young secondary on fundamentals.