you love you some multiquote....
look, its really hard to argue against the guys i got in my top 10 (they are pretty good company) and keep in mind, guys like petrino and gundy were left out. all that to say, i think gus being on the outside looking in to the top 10 is a fairly reasonable statement. you may disagree and we can split hairs over a plethora of statistics, but when its all said and done, it a gut feeling. i think malzahn is easily in the top 20 of "offensive minds", but in my estimation, he hasnt done enough to qualify for top 10, although this year, he is making some big strides toward that goal.
as far as 3rd down conversion being my only argument, i know you at least read what i have posted in the past and surely you dont believe that. dont forget that ive been accused multiple times of having too many "irrelevant stats", so lets not pretend that ive only been banging a 3rd down drum, when in reality, ive consistently said ppg and ypg have also been bad. that was my original trifecta of bad stats under collins. have we improved on 3rd downs in the last few games? yes, but that stat is also a bit misleading in the fact that teams often dont require 3rd downs to go the full length of the field against our defense. look at the sc game....they had 1 of 11 3rd down conversions, yet had 2 drives over 70 yards (71 and 86 yards)and a 54 yard drive along with a few minor drives....again, they had ONE 3rd down conversion, and that was late in the 4th quarter if i remember correctly. he improved on getting off the field, something i concede i have always knocked him on, but that hasnt been my only knock on him by a LONG shot. again, you know this already, but the defense if far from being where any msu fan should want the defense to be.
and as a general comment not directed at you, but the whole board, the comparison to wilson only served to illustrate that the defense is going in the wrong direction. the data backs that up. i could have compared collins to torbush or diaz, but those are the least applicable because the circumstances (read: players) were so drastically different. we lost primarily banks and slay, yes, those do have an impact on the performance of the defense as a whole, but when you look at how poorly those guys were utilized under wilson, is it THAT big of a drop-off? normally, when you have two high draft picks at corner in your secondary, you wouldnt expect that defense to rank 51st in passing defense (2012 we gave up 227 passing ypg)....currently, we are giving up 243 passing ypg (good for 77th), so you can view that in two ways...wilson was vastly underutilizing banks and slay (which would be the truth), or collins is getting our defensive secondary performing at a high level....and i dont think anyone is making that argument. all that to say, the impact of banks and slay on wilsons defense is overstated simply because they were so poorly utilized in that scheme, so when someone points to the loss of those two, that loss isnt as significant as you might believe in regards to production under wilson. they DO have an impact, but it damn sure isnt worth the 41 spots that currently separate us from where we stack amongst our ncaa peers from 2012 (36th) to 2013 (77th).