Am I allowed to start a positive post?

[ChinaDogSunflower]

Call me crazy but I am excited about these two new defensive coaching hires, and our defense next year.

When a Croom-coached team went to a bowl it was heavily on the shoulders of the defense, if not completely. David Turner was our defensive line coach, and when Dan Mullen came to town with a new staff, one of the coaches he retained was Turner. I am very eager to see what Turner can do with all the talent we have on the line. Autry, Evans, James, Jones (Who?! CHRIS JONES!!!) with PJ, Eulls, Harrison-Gay, Brown and hopefully Toby Johnson getting in on the mix.

I don't know how well Townsend can coach since he is inexperienced, but at the same time I like that he is young. He will be able to relate to the players. Being from South Panola doesn't hurt either.

We have a pretty good amount of talent and only more coming in.

Rome was not built in a day.

Eight wins is a good thing on paper in ten years, regardless of who we beat. Just like everyone else I hope that we play the SEC teams much closer next season and I think our defensive line will be much improved and lead to more output by the defense overall.

 

[archidawg]

Agree 100%. Defense will be stout, especially with Chris Jones!

 

[engie]

Right there with you.

I think we see tremendous improvement up front next year -- and that makes up for our inexperience at CB. We'll be tremendous at LB with Wells and the Brown boys getting a ton of time. The "slow" defense you saw this year will be a thing of the past IMO...

 

[lasher8]

Engie - check PMs

 

[studentdawg87]

With the exception of McKinney, who had a great freshman year, what have any of our LBs done to make you believe we will be "tremendous" at LB? Mullen is building more depth than we have ever had, but we still don't pass the proverbial "eye" test. Having a lot of LBs isn't the same as having great ones.

I think the DL will be improved next year, and it is going to have to be. Our CBs are going to be problematic all year. Love, while a burner, is better suited to being the nickel back, Calhoun is a career backup who will get more playing time than he should due to recruiting misses, and Redmond is a great athlete who is probably better suited for safety. Jiles is the best corner on the roster already, and he has only played a handful of snaps.

 

[SignalToNoise]

Meh. I'm trying to be optimistic, but after what I saw in the Egg Bowl and Gator Bowl I have just lost faith.

I hope like hell the staff changes on the defensive side of the football have an immediate impact because right now the offense would have to improve just to be mediocre.

 

[patdog]

To paraphrase a former governer of ours, Only Negative Mississippi State Spoken Here.

 

[Railin Jemmye]

Deonte Skinner and Matt Wells have played pretty well, and in my opinion are just waiting to break out. I knew Wells was going to be a beast for us at some point after watching him in the 2011 spring game. Just a matter of time.

I think many are counting on the 2 Browns to be good too, but I, like you, need to see it first.

Where is Dee Arrington in all this? I figured by now he'd be moved to LB. We have plenty of DB candidates and will have even more after this current class gets on campus. If they don't flip, that is.

 

[RougeDawg]

Defense was leaps and bounds better in Gator Bowl compared to EB....

Meh. I'm trying to be optimistic, but after what I saw in the Egg Bowl and Gator Bowl I have just lost faith.

I hope like hell the staff changes on the defensive side of the football have an immediate impact because right now the offense would have to improve just to be mediocre.

Did you even pay attention to either game? Play calling was much improved in GB and that was a result of Wilson being shown the door. Defense was not the problem in the GB. The problem was Mullen continuing to trot Russell back out there after he'd clearly shown that he needed to be holdin a clipboard the second half.

I am certain we will see a huge upgrade at LB just from the graduation of Cam. We get rid of a guy who had 75% of his tackles as group tackles. That's not normally a stat you want from your elder and most relied on LB. It shows he wasnt exactly the best at making things happen. We need LB's who play downhill and make solo plays.

 

[Hump4Hoops]

Our defense was stellar in the Gator Bowl

as was our running game. It took Russell having the worst game of his career (by a large margin) to lose that game the way we did.

 

[engie]

With the exception of McKinney, who had a great freshman year, what have any of our LBs done to make you believe we will be "tremendous" at LB? Mullen is building more depth than we have ever had, but we still don't pass the proverbial "eye" test. Having a lot of LBs isn't the same as having great ones.

What had KJ Wright proven before he got here? How about Chris White? Unlike many positions, quality LBs are generally fairly easy to evaluate -- at least on the tangible side. You don't hear much about 4* LBs flaming out -- and we've got 2 of them that have yet to see a snap that were absolutely dominant in bowl practices...

The reason we couldn't defend spread teams last year is because we had crap for sideline to sideline speed at the linebacker position(on top of the joke of a DL getting no pressure). The reason we defended it well in 2010 was because of great sideline to sideline speed at the position. Remember Chris White running down RB and WR from behind? Richie Brown has that kind of speed and instincts. That's why he racked up something like 800 tackles in highschool.

The 3 guys I mentioned all run 4.5 or better from the position. Those are burners for their size. How they stuff the run is yet to be seen. But I'm very confident that they will be able to slow down the spread...

 

[ckDOG]

And a massive amount of stubbornness on part of the playcallers on offense

nm

 

[SignalToNoise]

Yes, I did pay attention to the game. Forgive me if I'm not sold after watching the defense play one game against NW. Yes, the Russel was by and large Northwestern's best player that day but the play-calling is still fairly predictable and ineffective in my opinion. If Russel has a good day we might beat NW but I don't see that as a good baseline for performance standards.

 

[Railin Jemmye]

This is a big reason why we will win the Egg Bowl this year. To put it simply, our offense and already maligned defense played their most terrible game of the year in Oxford.

Our defense SHOULD improve from last year (based on intangible differences seen in the Gator Bowl). The offense will also be better based on the maturity of the OL and QB. Those two neutralize what happened in Oxford. Add to that it's at home, and we win.

I also realize that Ole Miss will likely improve next year too. But remember, they were just a 6-6 team.

 

[SkullCandy.sixpack]

I'll have to wait to see how the season progresses before I can call the last regular season game. OM was 6-6, but except for Arkansas (which was a home game for us and away for them) they beat or played every common opponent better than us--and some much better. We had a better record than them, but they didn't lose to anyone we beat, so I don't think the records meant much.