Why 1A & 1B?

[BeastMan]

This qoute from UT coach Butch Jones sums it up:


JONES: The grind of a long season, the accumulation of reps adds up over time. The amount of repetitions had started to pile up.

MSU is now in the stretch run and the freshness of the defense will allow them to play their best ball on the biggest stage. Look around the league at other defenses. They are walking mash units limping toward the finish. Not MSU's. Playing your best 11 90% of the time in all your games might get better stats but it has a cost to be paid during the last few games...

[Miss. Stake]

This qoute from UT coach Butch Jones sums it up:



MSU is now in the stretch run and the freshness of the defense will allow them to play their best ball on the biggest stage. Look around the league at other defenses. They are walking mash units limping toward the finish. Not MSU's. Playing your best 11 90% of the time in all your games might get better stats but it has a cost to be paid during the last few games...


I'd like to see some sort of statistical analysis with some sort of comparison to how many guys we have played on defense correlating with how many minutes each guy played in SEC games versus other top 5 defenses in SEC and country. That would be interesting.

[MetEdDawg]

I bet our 1st team defense has played somewhere in the neighborhood of 15-20% less snaps than other 1st team units. That's roughly one and a half to two drives less per game which I think is pretty accurate. Add that up to this point and our 1st team has played somewhere around 13-18 fewer drives. That's an entire game our defense will not have on their bodies when they walk into Tuscaloosa Saturday.

After a game like what Alabama played against LSU, that could factor a lot into the game this weekend.