Coaching moves I would make

David Bailiff? A HAAAARD Pass. Nice guy, but come on he essentially made all his $$$ based on Barick Nealy getting hot one year. His defenses at Rice sucked almost every year. Ok, he had 1 good season at TCU, but don’t you think that has more to do with Patterson than Bailiff? I don’t see tangible proof of him being a killer recruiter either. Shouldn’t you aim a little younger? I also would like to know where this huge budget for assistants is coming from. If we had this budget last year I would like to think Applewhite could have assembled a better staff unless he just doesn’t have much of a network, which is entirely possible.

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Yeah, I understand that, and you may be right. I said Koenning first, and he would be my first choice. But both he and Bailiff have been successful defensive coordinators (certainly Koenning much more recently, this year, in fact), FBS head coaches, and are a little long in the tooth. Not sure our staff couldn’t use such a figure. JMHO.

This.

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IMHO defense is fine. The o on the other hand.

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I like these proposed moves

Defense is fine. Major needs to hire a solid OC who can help propel this football team to the next level.

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Our defense may become good with the addition of Anderson, Chambers, possibly Jones and a few freshmen, but was mediocre at best this past season.

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I’m not sure I agree. It was definitely above the trash defenses of the Sumlin era. I would say we played slightly above average defense which was pretty good considering what we lost in terms of players. Anyway, I do think we should expect a better group next year.

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defense was an issue…not a big issue, but still an issue

we were bend but dont breat…we were good at keeping teams from entering the endzone…but gave up on ton of yards

IMO great teams arent bend but dont break…

bend but dont break is how you give teams like tulane a chance…they know they cant keep us with us talent wise, so they have extremely long 5-8 min drives. sure we kept them out of the endzone but they kept their defense fresh and gave us only 2 offensive drives a quarter… almost putting us in a position where we have to score every drive… give them 3 and outs and even if the offense struggles they’ll be given more drives to still blow them out

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Tulane is exactly the game I thought of. Sure, the offense was crappy, but all offenses are crappy in some games. Washington State scored 3 against Cal. The defense has to get off the field.

Not only this but with a better offense that doesn’t have a tendency to go 3 downs and out three straight series multiple times a game.

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I don’t have a trained eye for these things, but even to an untrained eye, WR blocking was atrocious this year. How many times did we lose yardage on WR screens? If those screens are to be an extension of the running game, we have to get good enough at blocking so that one CB on an island doesn’t consistently make plays behind the line of scrimmage. If the terrible blocking is an indictment on Guiton (and I don’t know if it is or not), then WR production was not nearly enough to compensate for the screen game and a change should be made.

I’m worried about the WR group next year. We should be faster, but we’re also losing experience and bulk with Bonner and Dunbar graduating. Lark and Corbin have to step up in a big way. I expected to see more out of both of those guys in 2 years. Hopefully we can get Marquez Stevenson healthy and see what Julon Williams can do as a slot receiver. We have some promising young guys coming in, but no experience. Needless to say, landing Lawrence Keys would be huge, but I’m not banking on it at this point.

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It’s kind of hard to run WR screens and block well when the DBs of the opposing team does not respect your WRs speed and jam them on the line at the snap of the ball.

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Almost all defenses handle the formation the say way. Our blocking receivers were doing a terrible job of maintaining the blocks even to the point of pass completion little alone letting the ball handler make a move.

This is true. So the answer is, either figure out how to block for the play, or quit running the play.

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You are both right. So it is about scouting and adapting your playbook to what you are bout to face. You play and Coach to your own Team strength. Are we doing that? So far I will regretfully say no.

I think “bend but don’t break” is way over-used. It’s also code for “bad defense”.

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Agreed.

We weren’t bad on defense tho. Do you guys not remember all the bad defenses we had under Briles and Sumlin?

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Not being horrible doesn’t make you good and we were mediocre at best.

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