Am I the only one who's somewhat impressed with the Defense?

[ConKreteCock]

As the season went on last year, my wife and I would literally rewind plays and WATCH our guys....especially in the secondary, move out of the way to avoid contact with a ball carrier. Sometimes it looked as if we were trying to escort them into the endzone.

YES, I remember all the injuries and I know that played a big part but neither my wife nor I had ever seen players deliberately trying to avoid making a tackle in ANY football game.

I have not seen that once this year, and our front 4 seem to be a step quicker and when they get where they're going, they seem to arrive with an attitude. (Which is nice) .......

By no means am I suggesting we're the Chicago Bears 85' team on D but c'mon.....we're much, much better than we were last year. At least from an appearance standpoint. Yeah we got shredded in the secondary against UT but every D on every team has a bad game every now and then. Last year it was a bad game every single week as the injuries piled up.

Anyway, as negative as I am on Champ and Ray (want them both fired immediately)..... I am seeing an entirely different defense than I did last year. Pass coverage is still a little sketchy sometimes but I have seen massive improvement in the "stop the run" game. Our guys don't seem to be afraid of contact anymore.

Am I the only one seeing this? I'm not trying to assign any kind of meaning to it other than just a simple positive statement> I see a big improvement in attitude and teamwork on D. That's all.

 

[FORKCOCK]

He's a guy you'd like to be successful here. I think he'd be loyal and hang around. The question is, can he get it done?

 

[wood90]

How dare you look for positivity? I'm sick of posts like this.

 

[Wiles2]

As the season went on last year, my wife and I would literally rewind plays and WATCH our guys....especially in the secondary, move out of the way to avoid contact with a ball carrier. Sometimes it looked as if we were trying to escort them into the endzone.

YES, I remember all the injuries and I know that played a big part but neither my wife nor I had ever seen players deliberately trying to avoid making a tackle in ANY football game.

I have not seen that once this year, and our front 4 seem to be a step quicker and when they get where they're going, they seem to arrive with an attitude. (Which is nice) .......

By no means am I suggesting we're the Chicago Bears 85' team on D but c'mon.....we're much, much better than we were last year. At least from an appearance standpoint. Yeah we got shredded in the secondary against UT but every D on every team has a bad game every now and then. Last year it was a bad game every single week as the injuries piled up.

Anyway, as negative as I am on Champ and Ray (want them both fired immediately)..... I am seeing an entirely different defense than I did last year. Pass coverage is still a little sketchy sometimes but I have seen massive improvement in the "stop the run" game. Our guys don't seem to be afraid of contact anymore.

Am I the only one seeing this? I'm not trying to assign any kind of meaning to it other than just a simple positive statement> I see a big improvement in attitude and teamwork on D. That's all.

DLine has improved, as has overall tackling fundamentals. Secondary is still really sketchy, IMO. Horn and Robinson typically are the best performers, but we were pretty bad against UT. Last night, Vandy had little to no pass game so hard to gauge.

 

[ClemsonBlozz]

they were great... they were also great against Kentucky,, who did not have a legit quarterback as well..

 

[Gamecock Lifer]

The D line is way better. Our secondary is complete garbage one day, lights out the next ‍♂️

 

[JOEFANATIC]

The D line is way better. Our secondary is complete garbage one day, lights out the next ‍♂️

Young.

 

[gamecockballfan]

Yes, you might be. Our secondary is TERRIBLE! let me remind all the fantasyland posters on here that we played a 2 win Vandy team last night without their QB.Other than Georgia, this defense has been bad to average and everyone knows it. ZERO consistency from the linebackers and secondary. Jekyll and Hyde.
We lose Kinlaw, Brunson and Kobe Smith this season which are three guys that anchor that defense besides Jones.
Stop treading water in Lake Mediocre. Muschamp has got to go!

 

[ConKreteCock]

Yes, you might be. Our secondary is TERRIBLE! let me remind all the fantasyland posters on here that we played a 2 win Vandy team last night without their QB.Other than Georgia, this defense has been bad to average and everyone knows it. ZERO consistency from the linebackers and secondary. Jekyll and Hyde.
We lose Kinlaw, Brunson and Kobe Smith this season which are three guys that anchor that defense besides Jones.
Stop treading water in Lake Mediocre. Muschamp has got to go!

HOLD ON my friend.....slow your roll just a bit. Let me clarify my OP.......Did you ever see the comedian Richard Pryor? Remember when he would break into his "white man" character and talk very .....well.....white..... all nice and polite like a bad 50's television show. (Ward Beaver comes to mind) --- What I'm saying is LAST YEAR near the end of the season, when my wife and I would watch our secondary seemingly escort the other team into the endzone.....I used to mimic Richard's white man character and I was speaking for the players who were doing the escorting.....and I'd say something like "Thank you for allowing us to escort you into the endzone. May I get you a gatorade? A towel perhaps?" Just the nicest little fellows........(my wife would be in stitches btw)

Now, fast forward to this year, KY, Vandy, QB or No QB is irrelevant...... what I'm saying is, I no longer do that "character" bit because THIS D and last years D are two entirely different animals. They may not know what they hell they're doing out there THIS year, but they're doing it with an entirely different attitude and it's blatantly obvious.....and that's nice. That's all I'm saying.

Totally with you with pretty much everything else you said. You said our D was "bad to average".......... I'm not gonna argue with you on that. What I"m saying is, at least we're no longer Richard Pryor nice white man character. That much is clear. (at least to me)

 

[gamecocks247]

I would feel a lot more positive if our best players on the D line and LB were not SR's. The tackling seems to be hit or miss by game, but I guess that could also be the competition sometimes. Even on the games we are not tackling well, we are still improved from the last couple of years though.

Our Secondary has pretty good length which helps in our play in zone coverage but they struggle in man to man, specifically double moves and drag routes.

 

[Goose cock]

It always helps when the other team has no quarterback.

 

[ReadR00ster]

@ConKreteCock - you need to stop falling for that optimism trap. So the players don't look like they know what they are doing now..... with 3 games left...... in Muschamp's 4th year.... But maybe they will look like they know what they are doing next year! Come on man. They are more likely to not, with Kinlaw and Brunson leaving the program. The players have looked like they don't know what they are doing way too much for way too long under Muschamp and the reason is obvious. Muschamp himself doesn't know what he is doing. He knows what he is trying to do, but not how to do it well, just like our players. He just wasn't a good student of Saban. Maybe he has ADD or something. But you can't just act like the team constantly coming out and making tons of mistakes week after week is growing pains. It isn't. Those are matters that are supposed to be ironed out by the second or third game of the season. That is what happens when you have good coaching.

 

[gamecockballfan]

HOLD ON my friend.....slow your roll just a bit. Let me clarify my OP.......Did you ever see the comedian Richard Pryor? Remember when he would break into his "white man" character and talk very .....well.....white..... all nice and polite like a bad 50's television show. (Ward Beaver comes to mind) --- What I'm saying is LAST YEAR near the end of the season, when my wife and I would watch our secondary seemingly escort the other team into the endzone.....I used to mimic Richard's white man character and I was speaking for the players who were doing the escorting.....and I'd say something like "Thank you for allowing us to escort you into the endzone. May I get you a gatorade? A towel perhaps?" Just the nicest little fellows........(my wife would be in stitches btw)

Now, fast forward to this year, KY, Vandy, QB or No QB is irrelevant...... what I'm saying is, I no longer do that "character" bit because THIS D and last years D are two entirely different animals. They may not know what they hell they're doing out there THIS year, but they're doing it with an entirely different attitude and it's blatantly obvious.....and that's nice. That's all I'm saying.

Totally with you with pretty much everything else you said. You said our D was "bad to average".......... I'm not gonna argue with you on that. What I"m saying is, at least we're no longer Richard Pryor nice white man character. That much is clear. (at least to me)

LOL, that was funny!!! I loved Richard Pryor by the way. I wasn't meaning to sound controversial towards you (that is the worst part of texting and message boards, no way to accurately understand context). I just don't see improvement in any facet of our team. The entire situation from the board, to Tanner to this coaching staff is just incredibly frustrating for fans that want to be a dominant force moving forward.

 

[usc01#]

Tell me about the two games before where we gave up 79 points...while I think the defense is the better of the two units; we are nowhere near where we should be after 4 years under Muschamp (defense is his “baby”)

 

[GarnetCocky1]

Did you watch the Tennessee game? What about Mizzou?

 

[cockyboyjae]

Did you watch the Tennessee game? What about Mizzou?

Mizzou scored 14 points off of offensive turnovers. Defense played well that game. Why didn't you mention Uga or Fla? This defense has clearly improved and if we had a better offense, we'd probably be sitting at 6-3 at worst right now.

 

[GarnetCocky1]

Mizzou scored 14 points off of offensive turnovers. Defense played well that game. Why didn't you mention Uga or Fla? This defense has clearly improved and if we had a better offense, we'd probably be sitting at 6-3 at worst right now.

The inconsistency is the point. Our secondary is awful.

 

[DocSmith89]

Yup!

 

[kidrobinski]

they were great... they were also great against Kentucky,, who did not have a legit quarterback as well..

Sawyer Smith was legit enough to throw for 500 yds against Florida and Miss St the two weeks before us.

“But but he was hurt!”

Not so sure about the severity of that, but not out problem nonetheless. RH has been hurt as well.

The UK qb was was legit, same as Fromm. Time to quit with the constant shade throwing.

 

[ClemsonBlozz]

Sawyer Smith was legit enough to throw for 500 yds against Florida and Miss St the two weeks before us.

“But but he was hurt!”

Not so sure about the severity of that, but not out problem nonetheless. RH has been hurt as well.

The UK qb was was legit, same as Fromm. Time to quit with the constant shade throwing.

Smith was obviously hurt against Carolina..
Fromm lost Cager to throw to...
Vandy had a mess at qb..

Nothing about Carolina’s secondary is encouraging,,, and i’ve been an optimist concerning the Cocks since the early 80’s..

 

[Blackland]

We are very good where we have experienced guys playing (DL and LB) and not as good where we do not (DB). How do you replace a Kinlaw? Hopefully next year the young guys who got experience this year will come back even stronger. Hopefully DB recruiting will be a priority, we basically have 5 serviceable DB’s right now due to injury and departures.

 

[TopHook]

As the season went on last year, my wife and I would literally rewind plays and WATCH our guys....especially in the secondary, move out of the way to avoid contact with a ball carrier. Sometimes it looked as if we were trying to escort them into the endzone.

YES, I remember all the injuries and I know that played a big part but neither my wife nor I had ever seen players deliberately trying to avoid making a tackle in ANY football game.

I have not seen that once this year, and our front 4 seem to be a step quicker and when they get where they're going, they seem to arrive with an attitude. (Which is nice) .......

By no means am I suggesting we're the Chicago Bears 85' team on D but c'mon.....we're much, much better than we were last year. At least from an appearance standpoint. Yeah we got shredded in the secondary against UT but every D on every team has a bad game every now and then. Last year it was a bad game every single week as the injuries piled up.

Anyway, as negative as I am on Champ and Ray (want them both fired immediately)..... I am seeing an entirely different defense than I did last year. Pass coverage is still a little sketchy sometimes but I have seen massive improvement in the "stop the run" game. Our guys don't seem to be afraid of contact anymore.

Am I the only one seeing this? I'm not trying to assign any kind of meaning to it other than just a simple positive statement> I see a big improvement in attitude and teamwork on D. That's all.

Id like to see our oline vs dlne in real game situation. Think both have improved.

 

[b3golf]

Some of the secondary problems at UT came from lack of pressure due to TN playing max protect 7 times and hitting all seven plays. Even Deion Sanders and Ronnie Lott can’t cover guys man up for ever. At TN we were up 21-17, we lost 41-21 after giving up 2 special teams td’s. That means the D only gave up 14 points in the second half. I agree they had some bad moments, but if the offense had a pulse we would have been in that game till the end. The reality is even Alabama and Clemson eventually have a game where they just have to our score the other team instead of shutting them out. In today’s game The D can’t be lights out every week against teams with a pulse.

 

[ConKreteCock]

@ConKreteCock - you need to stop falling for that optimism trap. So the players don't look like they know what they are doing now..... with 3 games left...... in Muschamp's 4th year.... But maybe they will look like they know what they are doing next year! Come on man. They are more likely to not, with Kinlaw and Brunson leaving the program. The players have looked like they don't know what they are doing way too much for way too long under Muschamp and the reason is obvious. Muschamp himself doesn't know what he is doing. He knows what he is trying to do, but not how to do it well, just like our players. He just wasn't a good student of Saban. Maybe he has ADD or something. But you can't just act like the team constantly coming out and making tons of mistakes week after week is growing pains. It isn't. Those are matters that are supposed to be ironed out by the second or third game of the season. That is what happens when you have good coaching.

Not gonna argue with you. Not because I don't want to..... because I can't. Any of it. I am seeing what I am seeing though. But overall, I can't argue.

 

[Tall Squirrel]

As the season went on last year, my wife and I would literally rewind plays and WATCH our guys....especially in the secondary, move out of the way to avoid contact with a ball carrier. Sometimes it looked as if we were trying to escort them into the endzone.

YES, I remember all the injuries and I know that played a big part but neither my wife nor I had ever seen players deliberately trying to avoid making a tackle in ANY football game.

I have not seen that once this year, and our front 4 seem to be a step quicker and when they get where they're going, they seem to arrive with an attitude. (Which is nice) .......

By no means am I suggesting we're the Chicago Bears 85' team on D but c'mon.....we're much, much better than we were last year. At least from an appearance standpoint. Yeah we got shredded in the secondary against UT but every D on every team has a bad game every now and then. Last year it was a bad game every single week as the injuries piled up.

Anyway, as negative as I am on Champ and Ray (want them both fired immediately)..... I am seeing an entirely different defense than I did last year. Pass coverage is still a little sketchy sometimes but I have seen massive improvement in the "stop the run" game. Our guys don't seem to be afraid of contact anymore.

Am I the only one seeing this? I'm not trying to assign any kind of meaning to it other than just a simple positive statement> I see a big improvement in attitude and teamwork on D. That's all.