Defense is an embarrassment

40-20 last night TOP, 10 yds a play does not eat up a lot of clock
Yikes.

Pretty damning of our defense. Hard to believe we held them to 10 after one half of football.

The Ole Miss quarterback had a career high rushing against us by the way.
 
If we do end up making a change at DC, I see us waiting until the bye week in a couple of weeks just to give extra time to tweak the scheme. Also, if we do end up canning Thacker, who on our staff is capable of stepping up as interim DC? I honestly don’t know of anyone on staff who is up to the task.
 
Starting point for me:

Don't touch the guy with ball = scheme. (we haven't seen the guys running free with no one within 20 yards like we did not too long ago).

Can't tackle the guy with the ball when we touch him is a different problem - someone was in position to make the play (scheme) and didn't.
 
Another thing we haven’t talked about but is pure coaching:

Blitz packages suck. They’re not imaginative. They’re extremely obvious and opposing quarterbacks are adept at throwing to the open guy. We have given up multiple 3rd and longs on poorly disguised and I’ll advised blitzes.
 
A pattern has emerged and it involves second half and 4th qtr play, which is concerning. No GT lead is safe with this D.

I’m just as mad as the next person with our D but Thacker did have more to work with last year and did well once CGC was out. We were in the top 5 in takeaways and were solid on the DL and applied pressure. It’s clear even without injuries we were searching for playmakers and leaders. Clearly we don’t have someone to ‘take charge’ on the field. I questioned why we let David Turner go. A coach who had no less than 20 years experience in the SEC, etc on the DL. I haven’t been impressed so far. The 2nd half gaffes and tackling issues highlighted our lack of depth for sure. We’ve got a solid class coming in next year but they won’t be developed to play. We’ve got to capture lighting in a bottle on the Defensive side of the ball like we did offensively this past year in the portal. SEC 4 and 5* players (QB, WRs) making an instant impact and a true freshman WR that we got ‘right’.
 
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I wish I knew the solution. Hell PJ went through a bunch of DC and could not find the solution. The rules of the game favor offensive output, but I watch a lot of college football and we just rank near the bottom at the most basic principle of defense...TACKLING. That can be preached at practice and an emphasis must be put on this immediately at our next practice. I have to believe our staff does this, but it has to translate to the playing field on gameday or coaching changes are in order.
Yes, the staff does this over and over every day(they wish to remain employed). What you see on Saturdays is very similar to instructing/teaching/coaching a kid to be taller and faster Sunday thru Friday.
 
Yikes.

Pretty damning of our defense. Hard to believe we held them to 10 after one half of football.

The Ole Miss quarterback had a career high rushing against us by the way.
TBH, he had 70 yards on one run.
 
Yikes.

Pretty damning of our defense. Hard to believe we held them to 10 after one half of football.

The Ole Miss quarterback had a career high rushing against us by the way.

Thacker is good at game planning. He just isn’t good at adjustments. Maybe we would be better to have two separate game plans and just switch them at the half.
 
Thacker is good at game planning. He just isn’t good at adjustments. Maybe we would be better to have two separate game plans and just switch them at the half.
Tenuta play call on first down "blitz"
Second down "better bring the heat"
Third down "gotta throw that kitchen sink at them"
Fourth down "need to block that punt"
 
Tenuta play call on first down "blitz"
Second down "better bring the heat"
Third down "gotta throw that kitchen sink at them"
Fourth down "need to block that punt"
There is no 4th down, they scored on 3rd down....often.
 
There is no 4th down, they scored on 3rd down....often.
We had 19 games with Tenuta as or DC where the opposition scored 10 points or less in 6 years (2002-2007). We have had 17 games since then where we have given up 10 or less, and three of those were in 2008 with Gailey recruited defenders (15 years + some change)

In 2004, we gave up 227 points the entire season. I will take some more of that
 
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