back end of defense

[BB30]

Someone with more football knowledge than I? How is our secondary going to look in the new defense. Will we see more man and press on the WR or will we still be 10 yds off the guy. How do we look at CB this year? And do we fill the holes we have up front? How do yall see our D doing this year?

[GTHOM]

Someone with more football knowledge than I? How is our secondary going to look in the new defense. Will we see more man and press on the WR or will we still be 10 yds off the guy. How do we look at CB this year? And do we fill the holes we have up front? How do yall see our D doing this year?

I think our secondary is going to be a lot better than people think. Our safeties are gonna be nasty IMO with McLaurin, Peters, Bryant, and Coman. One of the first 3 will probably be playing a dog safety hybrid spot, thats what Sirmon said at least. As far as alignment Im not sure. We didnt show a lot during spring but I assume we will see a little of both. I dont know if we have a true lockdown corner or not but we have several good ones. Jiles is good when he can stay healthy and Smitherman plus Stamps are gonna be solid. Cleveland cant be any worse than last year

[thf24]

I dont know if we have a true lockdown corner or not but we have several good ones. Jiles is good when he can stay healthy and Smitherman plus Stamps are gonna be solid. Cleveland cant be any worse than last year

More than a few sources have said that Durr is really good. I just hope it's not the classic case of hyping up the new guy just because we need an answer.

[BB30]

Yea, I feel good about our safeties. I think there are still some question marks at corner. I am excited to see a different look from our defense.

[Tbonewannabe]

Any chance Smokey Graham makes a leap. Last year was his first full year at CB.

[Political Hack]

We've got older experience infected with some young talent. Not a bad mix. The S's should help the CBS and if we can get pressure out of the front 7 it'll make us look good at CB. That's the only drop off. We should be better everywhere else in the back 7.

[GTHOM]

Our D is gonna be damn good if Mullen will let Sirmon do his thing

[Homedawg]

Our D is gonna be damn good if Mullen will let Sirmon do his thing

I'm glad you fell good. I'm scared to death about our d line. And beyond scared about our depth there.

[djaymsu5]

I saw where Simmons case got a continuation. We really need him to get on campus and hopefully he can play for us this year. Who knows if Mullen will let it happen or not.

[GTHOM]

I'm glad you fell good. I'm scared to death about our d line. And beyond scared about our depth there.

We've got players there you just dont know the names yet. Fletcher Adams is a monster, Cory Thomas, Will Coleman and Jonathan Calvin really started to pick it up down the stretch last year. Grant Harris, Braxton Hoyett, we're gonna be ok

[Tbonewannabe]

We've got players there you just dont know the names yet. Fletcher Adams is a monster, Cory Thomas, Will Coleman and Jonathan Calvin really started to pick it up down the stretch last year. Grant Harris, Braxton Hoyett, we're gonna be ok

We will miss Chris Jones, Taveze Calhoun, and Will Redmond on defense. I think we will actually be better at LB even losing Bennie and our safety play should be a lot better with those guys getting experience. Ryan Brown and Redmond didn't play down the stretch so we should be as good as we were in the bowl game.

I think our defense will be at least as good as last year with the chance to be better but I am worried about our offense. Losing Bear and Fred Brown on top of Dak is a blow. Dan is definitely going to have to scheme better this year than just letting Dak fling it all over the field.

[Johnson85]

We've got older experience infected with some young talent. Not a bad mix. The S's should help the CBS and if we can get pressure out of the front 7 it'll make us look good at CB. That's the only drop off. We should be better everywhere else in the back 7.

We'll be better at safety, but I don't expect the jump there to be nearly enough to make up for the drop at CB. Also, it seems like we've potentially got great run stopping safeties in Peters, McLauren, and Bryant, but it doesn't look like any of them are built for coverage, although Bryant certainly has the speed for it. Then we have Coman, who seems like a less athletic version of Justin Cox to me; performance simply doesn't match up to athletic ability for whatever reason, and it doesn't seem reasonable to expect a change at this point, although maybe a new coach will help.

[mic]

Everyone Rips on Cleveland.. I agree that he isn't an elite All SEC guy, but he gets a lot of unwarranted criticism.. He will be a solid guy this year for us.
He will be a SR with that played as true freshman. If we can keep Giles healthy and Durr is as good as advertised with all the younger guys the CB will be much better than most think..
And the talent and athletic guys at S will help the backend.. We need a leader to step up and take over that role.. I'm more worried about than anything.. I hope Brandon is ready to take the reigns there..

TBuck, Linguist, Sirmon, Baker are all 4 coaching upgrades IMO...

I'm very excited to see our D this year....

[Irondawg]

Here's my problem. Unless somebody makes a huge leap or Durr is seriously legit, there's not any NFL talent in that secondary. Bryant has measurables but i need to see it translate better although he did play a decent second half. McLaurin is the wildcard, but eveybody else seems like a capable college player, but not a high end playmaker.

I think Peters will be a WR come fall and we'll never hear from him at safety again.

I think we'll be ok on defense but overall for the SEC we'll be average. Meaning I don't think we're going to be able to depend on them to win games for us. We're going to have to score some serious points to get to 7-8 wins

[the59dawg]

Everyone Rips on Cleveland.. I agree that he isn't an elite All SEC guy, but he gets a lot of unwarranted criticism.. He will be a solid guy this year for us.
He will be a SR with that played as true freshman. If we can keep Giles healthy and Durr is as good as advertised with all the younger guys the CB will be much better than most think..
And the talent and athletic guys at S will help the backend.. We need a leader to step up and take over that role.. I'm more worried about than anything.. I hope Brandon is ready to take the reigns there..

TBuck, Linguist, Sirmon, Baker are all 4 coaching upgrades IMO...

I'm very excited to see our D this year....

Well I doubt Cleveland learns how to tackle from one yr to the next

[state66]

Speaking of tackling. I am assuming hawk tackling left with Diaz? I didnt really see a difference in our tackling last year from it.

[Homedawg]

We've got players there you just dont know the names yet. Fletcher Adams is a monster, Cory Thomas, Will Coleman and Jonathan Calvin really started to pick it up down the stretch last year. Grant Harris, Braxton Hoyett, we're gonna be ok

I'm well aware of all of the names. Doesn't stop me from being worried about our dl. Calvin will be solid, Coleman is serviceable, Thomas hasn't shown me anything to this point, although he's still young and fletcher is a fr. Grant Harris isn't a factor and hoyette is in the same boat as Thomas.

[TrapGame]

Speaking of tackling. I am assuming hawk tackling left with Diaz? I didnt really see a difference in our tackling last year from it.

It is my understanding that Sirmon has changed a lot of things on defense including tackling. I've heard he looked at last years film and kept asking why was Diaz doing certain things when they just weren't working.

[djaymsu5]

It is my understanding that Sirmon has changed a lot of things on defense including tackling. I've heard he looked at last years film and kept asking why was Diaz doing certain things when they just weren't working.

Sirmon seems like a very smart guy to me. I'm excited to see what his defenses do. If our defense is light years ahead of what it was last year with just about the same talent. Then that should tell you what the problem was. I think we have some good talent at every position but coaching has a lot to do with certain players being in the right positions to make plays. I think Baker is going to really help out our DLine and I think TBuck is going to help out those young corners. Durr has it man, that kid is going to be good. Imagine having Calvin on one side at DE and AJ Jefferson & Jeffery Simmons on the other side. Our DLine is going to be good if some young guys can step up. We don't need Nelson Adams, Corey Thomas, Braxton Hoyette, or Grant Harris to be Vince Wilfork we just need them to stop the run. Nick James will wreak havoc this year too

[GTHOM]

I'm well aware of all of the names. Doesn't stop me from being worried about our dl. Calvin will be solid, Coleman is serviceable, Thomas hasn't shown me anything to this point, although he's still young and fletcher is a fr. Grant Harris isn't a factor and hoyette is in the same boat as Thomas.

Fletcher will be All SEC remember I told you

[GTHOM]

Here's my problem. Unless somebody makes a huge leap or Durr is seriously legit, there's not any NFL talent in that secondary. Bryant has measurables but i need to see it translate better although he did play a decent second half. McLaurin is the wildcard, but eveybody else seems like a capable college player, but not a high end playmaker.

I think Peters will be a WR come fall and we'll never hear from him at safety again.

I think we'll be ok on defense but overall for the SEC we'll be average. Meaning I don't think we're going to be able to depend on them to win games for us. We're going to have to score some serious points to get to 7-8 wins

If Brandon Bryant , Peters, McLaurin aint NFL talent then nobody has any

[Dawgfan77]

Here is what I have been told Durr is a more athletic Calhoun with better top end speed. Secondary is going to be solid. Look for Green to play on the edge as well. Spencer could be our Haynes this year as well