TJ Barnes.....

I thought Barnes was "a doughnut shy of 350" and not 325 or whatever ya'll were saying.

I am not worried about the defense for 2 reason: a lot of good folks back and the best defense is a solid offense...
 
We'll need our back 7 to be awesome, because I think our DL will drop off a bit next year.
I see the starting 4 as being:
DE-Morgan
DT-Barnes
DT*Jason Peters
DE-Big Bob Hall

We were deep at DL this year, but an injury or two will hurt us a lot next season. MJ's freakish skills can't be replaced. We'll need to blitz more and hope our coverage can hold.
I also see JC Lanier to get some playing time at NT. That is the 350 lb mountain we're looking for. I expect our DT's with Barnes and Lanier to be our Brace and Raji in years to come.
*If he moves inside. If not, I see Anderson or JC getting that spot.
 
GTBandit22 said:
I also see JC Lanier to get some playing time at NT. That is the 350 lb mountain we're looking for. I expect our DT's with Barnes and Lanier to be our Brace and Raji in years to come.
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Maybe, but CPJ loves the automatic redshirt. To paraphrase: because they'll be better in their 5th year than in their first.
 
GTBandit

JC does not weigh 340 to 350 anymore...thank goodness.

He has worked extremely hard to get in shape and change his body as he carried lots of fat last summer. He said that he was closer to 300 lbs. now after losing 40 lbs.
 
We're going to hurt from youth on our DL next year, and some depth, but not from a lack of talent. We've recruited well on D lately - arguably better than O.

We have some talented LB's this year, but they were young and that hurt us at times. The same will be true at DL, to a lesser degree. We played a lot of players along the DL this year, and return a 2-year starter in Morgan. Peters, Hall and Anderson all got good PT this year, and Walls and Egbuniwe also got time. That is far better than our LB situation heading into this year, where we essentially only played 4 guys last year and two of those graduated and one got hurt.
 
Plus, if Barnes turns into a lovable huge guy star I remember a jingle for TJ Swann that could probably be adapted for him...


Go all the way with TJ, TJ Swann (Barnes)...


C'mon big guy, it's more important than you realize
 
there is no doubt we had some GREAT players on our DL last year. Morgan was a beast last year and will be back. He will, like most of u said, get a lot of double teams. I have confidence in Hall and Peters. Hall had 11 tackles and 1.5 for a loss. Peters had 5 tackles, 2 of which were sacks. Both achieved this in limited action. from what im hearing from yall and others Barnes will be a force to be reckoned with, a natural disaster, a Hulk, a mammoth... im going to go out on a branch and say we will be better next year on defense as a whole and possibly on the line.
 
B-rockGT said:
there is no doubt we had some GREAT players on our DL last year. Morgan was a beast last year and will be back. He will, like most of u said, get a lot of double teams. I have confidence in Hall and Peters. Hall had 11 tackles and 1.5 for a loss. Peters had 5 tackles, 2 of which were sacks. Both achieved this in limited action. from what im hearing from yall and others Barnes will be a force to be reckoned with, a natural disaster, a Hulk, a mammoth... im going to go out on a branch and say we will be better next year on defense as a whole and possibly on the line.
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I can't go that far.

I watched a few practices this summer and you just couldn't help but notice a few guys:
Morgan Burnett
MJ
Walker
Morgan
TJ Barnes

Barnes was a monster on the inside, HOWEVER, he was not in the body shape that you'd expect him to play every series. I think this is the most serious issue with him; Can he last a game?

I think our secondary is as strong as I can remember going into next season. We have some young capable guys.

But our LB corps has lots of room for growth. They're all coming back, minus Bowen, so here's hoping they're healthy and can get at it.

But to say we'll be better without the most dominant DL we may have ever had? I don't know about that.
 
The few practices I have gotten to the last two years, I've watched L. Walls quite a bit since I'm from the N. Ga mtn area. He came out of D'ville highly recruited with offers from ugag, etc...Just watching him in practice you could tell that he matured so much from a true freshman to this redshirt year, I can't help but think if this type of improvment continues over the next three yrs he has the potential to be very good..He also broke his leg his senior year playing soccer(athletic), so that slowed down his progress some...:fingersx:
 
Jason Peters is a rock.

He doesn't have that BIG PLAY potential MJ brought to the table week in and week out but I have a feeling we'll be VERY stout against the run in 09'.
 
I expect everybody to be better to much improved next year barring any injuries. How they compare to this year's team remains to be seen. Long ways to go to September and these are growing young athletes.

In theory we could fall off if you compare fielding 1st and 2nd strings from this year but this years 2nd string won't be the same come next year. They will have grown and most likely gotten better. The competition will have changed as well.

You can just imagine CPJ's team awareness. I imagine the weight room and conditioning will be addressed pretty seriously this off-season. :twocents:
 
Our DL will probably take a step down next year, but the scheme will change since our backs will be better.

Overall, I expect our defense to be improved next year. Relying so heavily on our DL to get pressure put us at the fickle whims of the ACC refs. There were several games where we couldn't buy a holding call.
 
expect to see a BUNCH of high scoring shoot-outs,there is no way we can replace the quality of those FOUR srs in DL(arguably as good as any in last 18 yrs),too little exp,talent and depth
ironically ,our quick scoring offense may work against us as it puts a tiring DEF back on the field sometimes
 
By no fault of their own our DL was a non-factor over much of the last half of the season because our LBs were so easy to exploit. I believe our LBs can get better, but there probably played as poorly as any LBs we've had at GT in the last 13 years. They were out of position a whole bunch and just weren't making plays. The secondary struggled as well but I think they played a little better and I expect them to be much better in the future. If we didn't have the Dline we had this year, we would have even up a huge amount of points this season and really struggled.

I see talent at LB, they just need to get their assignments down. If they do, I see enough improvement in the overall back 7 to give GT a slightly improved defensive unit in '09.
 
I agree that the LBs haven't played as well, but part of that is due to scheme. In Tenuta's scheme, the linemen funneled the ball carrier to LBs in gap control. In this scheme, the DLs have a lot more freedom.
 
This year was basically the defensive line and everyone else playing a supporting role.

I'm hopeful that next season will see a more balanced overall defense since we played so much depth at LB and DB on top of the DL rotation.

The LBs and DBs will have to step up while the new DL sorts itself out.

Luckily...I think the offense will continue to improve and we'll be capable of outscoring most teams that the defense struggles against....
 
Axe said:
By no fault of their own our DL was a non-factor over much of the last half of the season because our LBs were so easy to exploit. I believe our LBs can get better, but there probably played as poorly as any LBs we've had at GT in the last 13 years. They were out of position a whole bunch and just weren't making plays. The secondary struggled as well but I think they played a little better and I expect them to be much better in the future. If we didn't have the Dline we had this year, we would have even up a huge amount of points this season and really struggled.

I see talent at LB, they just need to get their assignments down. If they do, I see enough improvement in the overall back 7 to give GT a slightly improved defensive unit in '09.
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I'm not so sure I would say a "non-factor", but I get what you're trying to say and I agree somewhat. Defensive coordinators definitely had to scheme against the front 4 all year, but I think as the year went on, opposing offenses knew how young we were in the back 7 and knew if they could get past our big uglies up front, then chances are, they could pick up some yards. Unfortunately, our front 4 carried the defense a lot of the games, and that's why I respect their performance so much more this year. I'm gonna miss these guys. They played with as much heart as any line we've ever had.

CrackerJacket said:
This year was basically the defensive line and everyone else playing a supporting role.

I'm hopeful that next season will see a more balanced overall defense since we played so much depth at LB and DB on top of the DL rotation.

The LBs and DBs will have to step up while the new DL sorts itself out.

Luckily...I think the offense will continue to improve and we'll be capable of outscoring most teams that the defense struggles against....
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See, that's kind of what I'm thinking to and that's why I initially started this thread. Wanted some honest opinions from those that have seen these new guys practice. I think our ends will be good to very good as the year goes on, and they're the week in - week out starters. By default, I think our LBs and DBs get better, not that they were all that bad to begin with, but their youth was very noticeable. If our interior DL grows up quickly, I think we definitely have a shot at being a more balanced defense. Definitely no superstars like the big 3, but who knows, by years end we could see the emergence of a few studs to compliment Morgan and Burnette. Let's hope that's the case. :fingersx:
 
Non-factor was the wrong word, but you guys get my point. With a Defensive line like ours there is no reason we should force what (1 punt?) against UVA. They made plays but it still wasn't enough to get us off the field consistently over the second half of the season. Offensive Coordinators could scheme against us to attack the back 7 and they did plenty of that.

I'm not buying the scheme argument when it comes to our LBs. Both coaches and players have said all season long that we have struggled physically and mentally at the position and the poor play at LB is the reason we played so much Nickel this year.

I believe we should be much much better in the back 7 next year and it will offset the drop off on the DL. I don't blame our back 7 for struggling, most of them were babies and hadn't played a lick.
 
Axe said:
Non-factor was the wrong word, but you guys get my point. With a Defensive line like ours there is no reason we should force what (1 punt?) against UVA. They made plays but it still wasn't enough to get us off the field consistently over the second half of the season. Offensive Coordinators could scheme against us to attack the back 7 and they did plenty of that.

I'm not buying the scheme argument when it comes to our LBs. Both coaches and players have said all season long that we have struggled physically and mentally at the position and the poor play at LB is the reason we played so much Nickel this year.

I believe we should be much much better in the back 7 next year and it will offset the drop off on the DL. I don't blame our back 7 for struggling, most of them were babies and hadn't played a lick.
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Yeah I know what you were getting at. Yeah I think we're much better in our back 7 as well with all of our guys back and having a bowl game, spring practice, and summer camp to get reps.
 
I think if you go back and look at UGA's holding penalties in the 2nd half, you'll see that our D line was definitely a factor in that game. Plus, there were several times Stafford had to flee for his life, which led to drive ending incompletions.

Plus, our D line had a pick 6 in the previous game.

I think it'd be hard to support the idea that our D line was a nonfactor late in the season. They were clearly a factor.
 
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