I think Manny was a homerun hire....

[TUSK]

The thing about Manny and his style is it fits Mississippi State. What are we ALWAYS strong at? Linebacker. Historically, a lot of our best defenses are attacking defenses- 1980, 1999, 1998, etc. The thing is he may play straight up zone, but with everyone moving around on defense, it's hard for the QB and the OC to figure out what to call and what we are going to do. We may show blitz and then drop eight. And the offense may have called a play that is suicide against cover three thinking that we were going to blitz. Sometimes we will blitz and that will likely cause more sacks and turnovers. Is that everything in the world from a defense point of view? No. But if you can get the other team off schedule, it helps getting them off the field.

My problem with bend but don't break zone most of the time is when the team is moving between the 20's, you lose field position, and you keep your offense off the field. And basically, you're playing for the other team to have a field goal opportunity and a chance to get three points most likely if they stall in the red zone. The point of defense shouldn't be to allow anything- it should be to stop the other team. Now, statistically a lot of bend but don't break teams do well in the red zone because they have the end zone as an "extra defender" and attacking defenses do sometimes give up big plays. But all that tells me is you should blitz and be fairly aggressive and disguise things well in the 20's and if the other team gets lucky and gets in the red zone, you should play zone unless it's an obvious running situation like first and goal at the one.

If Manny improves our turnovers and sacks, it will help the offense out a lot. How many times has Dan lost because we lost the field position battle? Alabama this year comes to mind.

So, I think it's a great hire. And I think we will do well next year on defense. I hope Manny becomes Dan's Joe Lee Dunn.

Todd, I'm down with 99.999% of what you post... but I believe the punting game played a big(ger) part in field position...

That being said, I think yall will like the change... and I'd LOATHE to see Dan get his own JLD.

[Really Clark?]

This is the thing about the 1a/1b stuff, I'm not sure who came up with the strategy but I think if it had worked as well as the coaches thought it might, it would have been brilliant. This is why. When you start looking at our offense ramping up the hurry up the last two season it causes your defense to play a lot more than normal. We had over a 1,000 plays on offense and 977 on defense. Our defense played at ton this year in total plays (almost 20% more from last year) and you can see the same thing happened to Bama this year as well. Both defenses really jumped up this year compared to last year. Both teams really made a concerted effort to run the offense faster. I think this was the strategy to help combat fatigue over the course of the season. It didn't work the way they had hoped because of the lack of depth and talent. Mainly with the secondary.

Similar issues with Bama. Especially the injuries at the end of the season which may have been a result of the extra plays. It would be interesting to see a study on this but nearly all of the high paced offenses have defenses with unusually high plays as well. I know the issues that we all saw with this strategy and modifications should have been made but it might have been a situation where they had decided, no matter what, we are gong to stick with the plan because of the health of the players. This is just some speculation on my part obviously but I do think a lot of coaches see, not just the benefit of running a high paced offense, but also the problems that arise for your defense and health of the players. We all also know when players are fatigued the fundamentals get sloppy as well. Just a thought like I said and have way to know if this is true and if so who actually came up with the plan.

[Todd4State]

Todd, I'm down with 99.999% of what you post... but I believe the punting game played a big(ger) part in field position...

That being said, I think yall will like the change... and I'd LOATHE to see Dan get his own JLD.

Punting absolutely plays a huge part in field position. I'm honestly not sure whether defense or punting play a bigger role in field position or not. When you take special teams as a unit- return men, punters, kickoff specialist- it plays more of a role in field position. My point is that bend but don't break defenses hurt whatever role defenses do have in field position. Shanking a punt on the 50 is less damaging than shanking a punt in the 20. No one is going to argue that punting from the 20 is more preferable than from the 50 either. And an aggressive defense can make it more difficult on the other teams punter in that way.

[Todd4State]

This is the thing about the 1a/1b stuff, I'm not sure who came up with the strategy but I think if it had worked as well as the coaches thought it might, it would have been brilliant. This is why. When you start looking at our offense ramping up the hurry up the last two season it causes your defense to play a lot more than normal. We had over a 1,000 plays on offense and 977 on defense. Our defense played at ton this year in total plays (almost 20% more from last year) and you can see the same thing happened to Bama this year as well. Both defenses really jumped up this year compared to last year. Both teams really made a concerted effort to run the offense faster. I think this was the strategy to help combat fatigue over the course of the season. It didn't work the way they had hoped because of the lack of depth and talent. Mainly with the secondary.

Similar issues with Bama. Especially the injuries at the end of the season which may have been a result of the extra plays. It would be interesting to see a study on this but nearly all of the high paced offenses have defenses with unusually high plays as well. I know the issues that we all saw with this strategy and modifications should have been made but it might have been a situation where they had decided, no matter what, we are gong to stick with the plan because of the health of the players. This is just some speculation on my part obviously but I do think a lot of coaches see, not just the benefit of running a high paced offense, but also the problems that arise for your defense and health of the players. We all also know when players are fatigued the fundamentals get sloppy as well. Just a thought like I said and have way to know if this is true and if so who actually came up with the plan.

The truth is 1A/1B only works with all-star level talent on both units. No one in college football really has that, and you would only see that type of a team from a talent standpoint in the Pro Bowl. It's a good strategy against Jackson State. Against Alabama it's arrogant and foolish.

[Really Clark?]

The truth is 1A/1B only works with all-star level talent on both units. No one in college football really has that, and you would only see that type of a team from a talent standpoint in the Pro Bowl. It's a good strategy against Jackson State. Against Alabama it's arrogant and foolish.

That's true. If you intend on having a great to elite defense then you have to have that kind of talent. I'm not sure that was our intent though. I think Dan let us see exactly what the coaches thought of this team during his pre-game speech against LSU. Nobody knew what was about to take that field except the coaches and players. Especially offensively. I think they knew we had a special offense this season and a very good starting defense plus nice depth in a lot of positions. But it wouldn't hold up for an entire season. It was going to be too much for the body to handle. So they committed to having a good defense and stuck with the rotation. Bama has incredible depth but it could not handle the jump up in extra plays either. Now obviously the secondary couldn't handle it and I agree they should have tried to tweak it per game more. But in the end it may not have made much difference. We still had injuries and fatigue. Heck our guys basically played an extra game this season compared to UM. Missouri was the only team that had more plays and didn't they also end up with several injuries at the end? Any way just a theory and I may be way off.

[maroonmania]

The truth is 1A/1B only works with all-star level talent on both units. No one in college football really has that, and you would only see that type of a team from a talent standpoint in the Pro Bowl. It's a good strategy against Jackson State. Against Alabama it's arrogant and foolish.

Yep, I would have been fine with the 1A/1B strategy if it had been reserved only for teams that you know you SHOULD beat from the outset. To play the 1A/1B crap against teams that are already more overall talented than you really just puts you at a competitive disadvantage.

[engie]

In 2010, our top 7 tacklers on the team were our starting back 7.

From Nickoe to Bonner, it was 52-39. Bonner obviously got a bit of PT that year, although I don't remember his exact role. From there, you've got Toast with 21 tackles. Half as many as Bonner. Obviously, Toast was ST/mop up. So, we legitimately only played 3 safeties in big roles that year. Charles Mitchell never came off the field.

At corner, our backups combined for 33 tackles(including if/when we went to nickel with that D). Banks had 54, Broomfield had 52. Neither corner ever came off the field.

From Gatling to Lawrence, it was 44-34. Cam got some PT as well as the 4th linebacker splitting time with Gatling. White had 110, KJ had 98. After Cam, it was Mike Hunt with 21 tackles, same as Toast mostly in mop up and special teams. We basically played 4 linebackers in meaningful snaps that year.

On DL, you had McPhee 35, Cox 34, Boyd 24, Ferguson 23. On second team, you had Stigers 19, Jones 14, Howie 10. We basically played 7 DL that year under Manny, and Cox and McPhee obviously played most of the snaps, and almost all of the meaningful snaps.

There was no 1B under Diaz the first time. Now, it could certainly be argued that it was because we had no depth at that point in time, which in turn makes the success that defense saw all the more impressive.

[thf24]

Now, it could certainly be argued that it was because we had no depth at that point in time, which in turn makes the success that defense saw all the more impressive.

Even then, you could say that the "depth" at safety, where the 1B system hurt us the most, this year wasn't much more legitimate than it was in 2010.