Defensive staff

[ULGrad@HOU]

Alright crazycajun, I can see you think this staff is making progress and it's not their fault we are bad, but I'm not convinced. Let's just re-evaluate after the next two games and see where we are.

[CrazyCajun]

Alright crazycajun, I can see you think this staff is making progress and it's not their fault we are bad, but I'm not convinced. Let's just re-evaluate after the next two games and see where we are.

Im at least willing to let them get a chance to play with the same lineup for 2 consecutive weeks.

[Just1More]

We had a CB playing safety who gave up 2 touchdowns because he never played safety in his life. We were playing against a QB who just left a memorial fir his re entry murdered father, it was the best game of his life which was 15-39 or something? 2 blown coverages by a guy who should have never been in that position. No TJ worthy, no Crawford, no lightfoot, no posey,no Alexander, no Thomas, Watson just returned from injury only to be shoved in a position he never played before. That's just on the defensive side and half the guys are playing hurt. While tovell has played great since moving inside, you still took him away from the outside. Emtire new staff, system and verbiage...10 games and we haven't started the same 11 yet on defense.

So what you're saying is that next year we'll have everyone back, plus the depth from experience this year, plus the scheme/verbiage taught?

I didn't realize how many guys were missing and patching holes in our defensive backfield.

[CrazyCajun]

So what you're saying is that next year we'll have everyone back, plus the depth from experience this year, plus the scheme/verbiage taught?

I didn't realize how many guys were missing and patching holes in our defensive backfield.

Yes and I didn't quite realize it either until Saturday night and I really started looking at who was out there... Or should I say who wasn't. Then reading a couple articles since Saturday...there were even more missing than I originally thought.

[CrazyCajun]

So what you're saying is that next year we'll have everyone back, plus the depth from experience this year, plus the scheme/verbiage taught?

I didn't realize how many guys were missing and patching holes in our defensive backfield.

HUD also said tonight they are looking at 2 juco safeties to add some talent/depth back there.

[Bigbuf]

They were released because AU brought in a new coordinator who brought in his own assistants. I think if you can't coach it gets out before you spend 20 years in the SEC.

Nor do you win conference championships or coach All American and All SEC performers.

[Turbine]

Yes and I didn't quite realize it either until Saturday night and I really started looking at who was out there... Or should I say who wasn't. Then reading a couple articles since Saturday...there were even more missing than I originally thought.

You got me thinking of "A Beautiful Mind.

The Prof was crazy but he was also a genius. It was him recognizing something wasn't there * that enabled him to overcome his insanity.

I feel better today because you recognized something that wasn't there.

*(His imaginary friends were not getting any older.)

[CajunT]

I think we could have held Lafayette Middle School to under 100 yards. I'm not saying our defense didn't have some good series stops. But when you look at the breakdowns this year against some mediocre offenses, we had some extremely costly failures on defense. If Hud wouldn't have put Haack in 3rd and long so often, we could have perhaps overcome our defensive issues enough to win a couple more games... but Hud wasn't up for that this season.

Matt, I'm not suggesting there are not problems on the defensive side of the football. But if you listen to Otha Peters, the constant changes in personnel do to injuries or other factors like have Simeon Thomas have played a major role in the inconsistent play of the defense at times. He did say there are athletes on the field that should not be playing. So it's clear a number of factors are involved in poor play on both sides of the football.

When you hear coaches and athletes refer to problems with chemistry on this team, that is a huge indicator of problems in the locker room as far as I'm concerned.

[Turbine]

Losing creates lockerroom problems when there otherwise would have been none

Conversely winning can mask a multitude of lockerroom problems.

When I hear "chemistry problems" I hear "players are not on the same page"

[HoustonCajun]

"

We had a CB playing safety who gave up 2 touchdowns because he never played safety in his life. We were playing against a QB who just left a memorial for his recently murdered father, it was the best game of his life which was 15-39 or something? 2 blown coverages by a guy who should have never been in that position. No TJ worthy, no Crawford, no lightfoot, no posey,no Alexander, no Thomas, Watson just returned from injury only to be shoved in a position he never played before. That's just on the defensive side and half the guys are playing hurt. While tovell has played great since moving inside, you still took him away from the outside. Emtire new staff, system and verbiage...10 games and we haven't started the same 11 yet on defense.

As I recall, we started the season with HUD saying we didn't want to practice too hard because we didn't want to risk injuries. Tackling was at a minimum. We never hear anymore about how tough our training camps are anymore. Seems like the harder we trained and practiced, the fewer injuries we had and we were a much better tacking team than this year. Did we go soft in practice and now the injuries are taking their toll? I don't know if that is a valid observation or not. Just asking because we have never been decimated by injuries like we have this year.

[ManAboutTown]

"

As I recall, we started the season with HUD saying we didn't want to practice too hard because we didn't want to risk injuries. Tackling was at a minimum. We never hear anymore about how tough our training camps are anymore. Seems like the harder we trained and practiced, the fewer injuries we had and we were a much better tacking team than this year. Did we go soft in practice and now the injuries are taking their toll? I don't know if that is a valid observation or not. Just asking because we have never been decimated by injuries like we have this year.

We reaching for answers now. The injuries fiasco is just a law of averages catching up to us. While "technique tackling" isn't a huge point of teach at the high school level anymore, it doesn't take a reasonably intelligent player to figure it out once they get to college.

Listen to the interviews. The players are telling you guys what's going on. It's what a handful of guys have been reporting on this site since Akron: chemistry (aka locker room issues).

[CrazyCajun]

"

As I recall, we started the season with HUD saying we didn't want to practice too hard because we didn't want to risk injuries. Tackling was at a minimum. We never hear anymore about how tough our training camps are anymore. Seems like the harder we trained and practiced, the fewer injuries we had and we were a much better tacking team than this year. Did we go soft in practice and now the injuries are taking their toll? I don't know if that is a valid observation or not. Just asking because we have never been decimated by injuries like we have this year.

I think that has something to do with it, some of it is just luck or bad luck. It's easy to say it but when you are watching people drop like flies at practice, it's hard to keep turning up the intensity. Not only that, a lot of guys had offseason surgery and were also recovering from injuries suffered during the season. If you have limited number of bodies at practice, you can't go like you want. It's not a science but I agree it seems what made us tough and finish games was our offseason program. It made us mentally tough and that's how you close out games.