Quote Originally Posted by Liverpooldawg View Post
Maybe so. But scheme didn't have much to do with what happened last night, whoever was running it. We got steamrolled up front and our secondary isn't good enough to cover without quick pressure up front. When we did get pressure it was because we were bringing extra people, and not just the viper (I think that's what we call that spot). That led to more open receivers. We made decent adjustments to stop what they were doing on the ground but we had no answer to the pass. Sometimes physics just takes over.
I'll argue that it was scheme that killed us last night (3-4 requires more linebackers to take on first level blocks more often, linebackers couldn't get off those blocks, which led to them being able to do whatever they wanted in the run game), but it's not scheme that Mullen's always accused of meddling in. That would be philosophy, and he's been more flexible in that regard this year. His biggest mistake regarding defense this year is hiring a DC who tried to implement a scheme that's extremely difficult to execute effectively at the college level under the best of circumstances, when we didn't have nearly the necessary talent and personnel to implement it to the degree we did in year one.