DC question

[NoogaHog]

I have a question about our defense this past year and next year. Sorry I didn't go back through the 274.3 Mike Norvell threads to find out who, but someone was concerned that Norvell, being a young coach, if he came here, wouldn't be able to get good assistants due to lack of connections.

I know our defense was awful this year and last, but why? Was it scheme? Depth? Conditioning? Effort? Coaching? I tend to think it was mostly a talent deficiency save 2-3 players.

I know Coach Rhoads was a hot DC when he was at Auburn. Did he forget how to coach?

My question is would his defense look better under a different HC? Would Norvell keep him around (if Graham doesn't come with him)?

Would he stay? If your reputation as a DC has been damaged, I'm not sure staying to coach for a HC whose offense has a 26 minute time of possession is going to make you look better.

Just what I was wondering. Hoping for more thought out answers than "throw the bums out!"

[longtimeHogfan]

I'm not as thrilled with our DC at the end of season as I was at the start.  Our performance never did live up to its billing.  Was it what he had to work with?  Maybe trying to accomplish what CBB wanted took him out of his comfort zone? Whatever the reason we gave up 700 yards and 35 1st downs to Mizzu.   Clean house!

[PorkRinds]

I have a question about our defense this past year and next year. Sorry I didn't go back through the 274.3 Mike Norvell threads to find out who, but someone was concerned that Norvell, being a young coach, if he came here, wouldn't be able to get good assistants due to lack of connections.

I know our defense was awful this year and last, but why? Was it scheme? Depth? Conditioning? Effort? Coaching? I tend to think it was mostly a talent deficiency save 2-3 players.

I know Coach Rhoads was a hot DC when he was at Auburn. Did he forget how to coach?

My question is would his defense look better under a different HC? Would Norvell keep him around (if Graham doesn't come with him)?

Would he stay? If your reputation as a DC has been damaged, I'm not sure staying to coach for a HC whose offense has a 26 minute time of possession is going to make you look better.

Just what I was wondering. Hoping for more thought out answers than "throw the bums out!"

Hot DC? Didn't he do one year there when Chizik got canned?

[NoogaHog]

Hot DC? Didn't he do one year there when Chizik got canned?

No, TT's last year. Defense was #15 in the country. Gave up 18 pts per game. Went 5-7 because the offense only scored 17 per game. Parlayed that into the ISU job when Chizik came to Auburn from ISU.

[zuko]

Reading a lot from all of these knowledgeable members but I notice that there hasn't been a lot of time spent  discussing the DC, which to me is the number 1 reason for the failure of the Razorbacks. Simple math; It looks like we played 3 games against opponents that I understand are invited to come to lose for pay. Two of them were handled according to the book and  were held to 14 total points. That's two games. Now take the other ten games and add up the total scored against the Razorbacks and divide by 10 and the answer is about 38 pits per game. Actually the points scored against the Razorbacks was a pretty consistent number so, a teams  of the same caliber coming in can expect to be able to score 38 points. That means that the offense has to play on scoring 39 points per game and we just didn't have the guns to do it.  That's not a good job by a DC and he knew very early on what he had and it looks like he didn't do too much about it. Hey, maybe he couldn't

[PorkSoda]

prolly trying to install a new defense in a make or break year wasn't the answer.

[LRHawg]

Losing Pulley sucked. Curl has potential but him and Tolliver were taken advantage of, most games.

[Großer Kriegschwein]

If I were Rhoades, and someone asked me to install a 3-4, I'd have moved on.

[King Kong]

Losing Pulley sucked. Curl has potential but him and Tolliver were taken advantage of, most games.

Curl should play boundary DB or Safety. Calloway looked better at field against Mizz than Curl did at any point last year

[jvanhorn]

Well in a perfect world we could hire Norvell to be HC and run the offense and hire Venebles to run the defense.  But, of course, why would Venebles leave Clemson for essentially the same job here, lol.   But it certainly would be interesting, lol.

[Razorback2010]

Switching to the 3-4 in a make or break year made things tough. Losing Pulley really hurt.  And I think the offense let the defense down a lot this year.  It's tough to keep defending when you're offense can't sustain any drives, ever.  Yeah, we gave up a lot to Mizzou, but a lot of those yards came on long pass plays that weren't defendable.  Yeah, our corner got burned but several of those passes were put where only the receiver could catch it.  I'm probably in the minority, but I think our defense was improved from last year.  We had an actual pass rush.  We blitzed.  We had a better run defense. Our safety's had a clue. We can definitely be better, though. It will be nice having Pulley back next year.

[LRHawg]

Curl should play boundary DB or Safety. Calloway looked better at field against Mizz than Curl did at any point last year

He could. I saw a lot of coachable issues at corner. Biting fakes bad, not looking back for the ball, looking too early for the ball, caught watching Dline jump offsides then beat deep. Nothing that can't be overcome.

[thebignasty]

He could. I saw a lot of coachable issues at corner. Biting fakes bad, not looking back for the ball, looking too early for the ball, caught watching Dline jump offsides then beat deep. Nothing that can't be overcome.

Here is what Curl, Calloway and Pulley all have in common that we haven't seen much of at DB recently- they physically look like they can hang with SEC receivers.

[Wooderson]

prolly trying to install a new defense in a make or break year wasn't the answer.

It was a head scratcher from the start.