How do you expect this year's defense to be?
- Thread starter shortbob
- Start date
The defensive secondary will be strong but the rest is up in the air. Our LBs are inexperienced and we need another guy or two to step up in the D line. Conference USA is a pass first conference so having a string secondary will be huge but I think we get torched by that LSU run game. I'm still hoping for a 10-2 regular season though. Every game is winnable. Let's Gooo. SMTTT
At 6'1" an each weighing 265, more or less, the defensive tackles are a little light. Granted they are quick and tough but when we are are playing those big uglies from LSU and even Kentucky we will be over-matched. Our linebackers will need to get good fast, but happily our ends are the best and the deepest in many years. CB's and safeties are athletic and deep. CUSA is ours to lose but LSU looks really good....experienced and deep....9-3 would be a good year, 8-4 would be disappointing, and 10-2 or better would be a banner year for us.
Looks like your shortchanging the line a little here. Yes they are somewhat on the small side, but we have only one player the size you listed, and I can assure he is not at that weight anymore after the off season workouts. You can add some good pounds to most of D line below. That said, we will have an issue stuffing the run against big good O lines like LSU. I expect LSU might have a very good night running on us. The other side we will be quick and fast. The D should be much more of an attack D with much more sets for the O to be concerned about. Last year the other team pretty much just knew what we were going to do and it really hurt us against the best offenses. That said, I too think we will have a better D this year.
LaDaurus Harris 6 1 280
Will Frenab 6 6 275
Jauan Collins 6 0 295
Rod Clayton 6 1 287
Dylan Bradley 6 1 265
Christopher Robinson 6 2 291
Draper Riley 6 4 289
Dylan and La Darius are the starters, both smallish. Dylan is a monster athlete, but this is his first year in the middle. I wish we had a 300+ lb run-stuffer down low, but as you referenced we have a few bodies to rotate in and out. If the defensive tackles play well then we'll be much, much improved.
http://www.oddsshark.com/ncaaf/southern-miss-kentucky-odds-september-3-2016-729561I think this team will be like a LF team where we score 50 to beat the other guy by 3. We had no depth at LB last year and our SR at that position were not so great that a talented underclassman would not have been able to beat out. On the up side this link looks positive. Kentucky's strength is thier corners. Last year their offense was really bad with their quarterback throwing more interceptions than TDs. I think that was on the player and not the OC. I did not see Kentucky play last year but alone the same line I did see Aulburn play and I am sure that nothing the OC could do would overcome the QB play. I also notice that the Kentucky plays social media post after Shannon got the ax had nothing but prase fo him. I also like that an SEC team is picking up part of one of our coach's salary.
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I really think the matchup with UK is interesting because we don't get to play SEC teams that we have a shot to win. It is almost always the heavy weight money games. The last game of this type was against Arkansas, and USM had just come off of the winless season. Is Bill trying to schedule more of these games? The home and home deal is still Bill's biggest accomplishment as AD IMO.
