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What's keeping Auburn's Defense from being Elite?


ReidMcLain

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Almost every position on the field for our defense, save a few, will be 4 or 5 star guys, including 2 deep. I know that a good defense can be possible with a hurry up no huddle team, just look at Oregon (even though they're front runners in a lesser conference). I miss the days when Auburn's defensive line would just TAKE OVER games in the 3rd quarter. Now I feel like it doesn't matter since we have an unstoppable offense, and our defense has been relegated to 'situational defense' instead of 'shutdown' defense. In a way I kind of hope our offense struggles the first game, so our defense is truly tested to see if they can take over a game, and win the game for us, instead of relying on our offense to do everything. Like stat tiger said a while back, it's time for the defense to carry it's load.

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I certainly wouldn't mind being elite on both sides of the ball. 2004, as a whole, was a lot easier on my blood pressure than 2010 and 2013. We had some scares, but we were beating our opponents by 20 on average.

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The same that's been stopping us when we WEREN'T hurry up no huddle.

Not enough depth for LBs and average to horrendous secondary play.

Worst secondary in the SEC again (we faced a lot of hard QBs, but regardless even "Average A.J" had a pretty good day"

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Our secondary. Giving up 99 yard passes tends to keep your defense from being elite.

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Defensive backs haven't performed to SEC standards. Linebacker has been under-recruited in terms of numbers and quality since the class of Josh Bynes. (2007)

Another way of saying that is the DL is the only level that's capable of playing in the manner we would all prefer.

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I certainly wouldn't mind being elite on both sides of the ball. 2004, as a whole, was a lot easier on my blood pressure than 2010 and 2013. We had some scares, but we were beating our opponents by 20 on average.

I also would love to be elite (i.e., Top-10) both ways, but I don't think too many teams in history have ever achieved that quinella. There's no doubt we have an elite offense, so as long as we just have a top 25 defense we should be unstoppable.

That being said, I sure do enjoy watching a dominating defense! "Sack Brodie" ranks right up there with Kick 6 and the Camback among my favorite Iron Bowls. (And even with the later two, there were some beautiful defensive plays when we needed them!)

Edit: Also "Punt, Bama, Punt"...of course, what kept "The Amazin's" in business that whole season was a defense that could make up the slack of an offensive consisting chiefly of "RB-Henley Left, RB-Henley Right".

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Kick six is the single greatest play and ending to an Iron Bowl IMO but the sack brody game may still be my favorite game. Unlike many people now a days, I sill prefer a dominant defense to a dominance offense. I would be happy though if we could just be 30 or better on defense with this offense.

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Defensive backs haven't performed to SEC standards. Linebacker has been under-recruited in terms of numbers and quality since the class of Josh Bynes. (2007)

Another way of saying that is the DL is the only level that's capable of playing in the manner we would all prefer.

Eltoro and Bynes, but who else are you referring to from 2007? Just curious, definitely not arguing. I know you're the LB guru

http://auburnfootballfanforum.yuku.com/topic/20661/A-look-back-at-the-2007-Recruiting-Class

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We also have to consider how much more dynamic the offenses in the SEC are now compared to 5-10 years ago. I'm not so sure the 2004 defense wouldn't give up 400+ yards to some of the offenses around the league nowadays. With that I think our defense will be much improved this year with 4 star talent spread out pretty well across the starters and another year in CEJ's system.

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We, Johnson, is going after long and rangy DB's to help the secondary with the big tall rangy wideouts;; and I believe a real good Star- backer (with some good cover skills on the slot reciever) will help us with those one- step- drop and throw plays that hurt us against Georgia in their big qtr last year ( there were couple other games when the one-step back and throw play hurt us in other games too). The front line on defense could become pretty dominating this year closing gaps -- that could help to get our olb some better rushes on the qb

My favorite Iron Bowl game was "punt bama punt" My mom almost wrecked our ford panel station wagon as we listened on AM radio(no FM Stations Yet)!!!

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Kick six is the single greatest play and ending to an Iron Bowl IMO but the sack brody game may still be my favorite game. Unlike many people now a days, I sill prefer a dominant defense to a dominance offense. I would be happy though if we could just be 30 or better on defense with this offense.

I certainly enjoyed the sack Brodie game more than any other IB, start to finish.

And I'd be a lot more comfortable if we did develop a good D secondary and not have to be fearful of teams like GA coming back from 20 down in the 4th to take a lead, or feeling good about being up by 4 against FSU with 90 seconds left in the game.

It has become far too easy to score on Auburn, and having an elite O doesn't really make up for oru lack of D when the game is on the line.

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When you consider how the defense improved throughout the season last year and their performance in clutch situations (third down and red zone percentages), then factor in the history CEJ has of making significant strides from year 1 to year 2 in his system, it seems likely that the defense will be much improved this go around. If you also take into account the number of underclassmen who got significant playing time last season, it stands to reason that they will play more like the veterans they now are, as well.

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I can't say FSU proved you can have a good offense and defense because they played garbage, but 2011 LSU proved you can have a decent offense with a stiffening defense, so its not impossible

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But fsu played and beat us....our secondary has been horrible for a very long time. We at one point bought into we didn't have talent to play man to man.......nuff said

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Maybe tuberville didn't get enough credit for our defense while he was here. But if we had a weakness during that time it was on 3rd down. Now since tuberville when we do have a tolerable defense 3rd Downs and red zone have been the strength. Last year it was the back 7 that held us back. In their defense at times they played above their heads too. We were literally one play short of taking it all. I would choose a strong offense over defense because tuberville never got it done the other way.

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We also have to consider how much more dynamic the offenses in the SEC are now compared to 5-10 years ago. I'm not so sure the 2004 defense wouldn't give up 400+ yards to some of the offenses around the league nowadays. With that I think our defense will be much improved this year with 4 star talent spread out pretty well across the starters and another year in CEJ's system.

Bingo... the 2004 defense did not face any offenses that finished in the nation's top-30 in total offense. The 2013 defense faced 5 offenses ranked in the top-25. The 2004 AU defense faced only 1 offense that averaged more than 400-yards per game, while the 2013 defense faced 10 teams.

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Good point stat about the defense in 2004 playing weaker competition. I truly believe that with the progress CEJ made from the beginning to the end in our defense, with an entire year to get his attitude and his toughness ingrained into this defense we will be a lot better this year. I expect a huge difference in the way and the attitude this defense plays this year. I believe Chizak's weak mental attitude and lack of coaching, almost ruined this defense.

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We also have to consider how much more dynamic the offenses in the SEC are now compared to 5-10 years ago. I'm not so sure the 2004 defense wouldn't give up 400+ yards to some of the offenses around the league nowadays. With that I think our defense will be much improved this year with 4 star talent spread out pretty well across the starters and another year in CEJ's system.

Bingo... the 2004 defense did not face any offenses that finished in the nation's top-30 in total offense. The 2013 defense faced 5 offenses ranked in the top-25. The 2004 AU defense faced only 1 offense that averaged more than 400-yards per game, while the 2013 defense faced 10 teams.

So with that is expectation management. We can't expect our defense to hold teams to 10 points per game anymore. If we're holding teams to an average of 20 or less, I would consider that stellar. I think there's a possibility to do that this year as well with many teams around the SEC breaking in new QBs. As much as the media is saying our schedule is going to be a hindrance, I think it could be to our benefit as 4 of the last 5 SEC teams we play will all have first year starters at QB.

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We're not going back to the days of the late '80s or most of the '00s for one simple reason--the offense we run. When you play a schedule like we do, year in and year out, you're not going to have a top 10 defense with the HUNH. Oregon does this because, at least for the early parts of the year, their schedule is much easier than ours.

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We're not going back to the days of the late '80s or most of the '00s for one simple reason--the offense we run. When you play a schedule like we do, year in and year out, you're not going to have a top 10 defense with the HUNH. Oregon does this because, at least for the early parts of the year, their schedule is much easier than ours.

In a previous post, Stat outlined the difference in opposition between the 2004 team and the 2013 one. None of the opposing offenses in 2004 finished in the top-30, and only one averaged more than 400 yards per game. Five of the opposing offenses in 2013 finished in the top-25, and ten averaged more than 400 yards per game. In other words, it has nothing to with whether Auburn runs a HUNH offense or not, and everything to do with the fact that the opposing offenses are better.

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We're not going back to the days of the late '80s or most of the '00s for one simple reason--the offense we run. When you play a schedule like we do, year in and year out, you're not going to have a top 10 defense with the HUNH. Oregon does this because, at least for the early parts of the year, their schedule is much easier than ours.

In a previous post, Stat outlined the difference in opposition between the 2004 team and the 2013 one. None of the opposing offenses in 2004 finished in the top-30, and only one averaged more than 400 yards per game. Five of the opposing offenses in 2013 finished in the top-25, and ten averaged more than 400 yards per game. In other words, it has nothing to with whether Auburn runs a HUNH offense or not, and everything to do with the fact that the opposing offenses are better.

It would be interesting to see how many possessions our opponents averaged per game in 2004 vs 2013 and what their average ToP was. I'm guessing that they are both higher in 2013, but not significantly enough to explain the higher ppg allowed in 2013.

In other words, I'd wager that our offense might give our opponents a little more possession, but not nearly enough to explain the significantly higher points allowed.

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If it was the offense's fault, our defense wouldn't have played better in the second half of games than they did in the first half. Which they consistently did.

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Defensive backs haven't performed to SEC standards. Linebacker has been under-recruited in terms of numbers and quality since the class of Josh Bynes. (2007)

Another way of saying that is the DL is the only level that's capable of playing in the manner we would all prefer.

+1

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Seems like we've been deficient in talent at LB & secondary players. I don't know why - LSU-FLA-UAT-UGA seem to get plenty of talent in those area's.

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