Herring to LB

[SCWarEagle 4]

Hell yes!

The guy is a headhunter, a hitting machine, and he's making tons of tackles. I think this was a great move, and not just because I did it after the 2004 season on XBox. I present a sampling of other reasons why this was the right thing to do.

1. Some Herring bashers have always complained that his pass coverage skills are questionable. Yes, linebackers drop into pass coverage a lot, but they're usually not going to be, literally, the last line of defense. If pass coverage really is a weakness of his, this minimizes its effects.

2. He may be the hardest hitter on the team in that mean white boy sort-of-way. Playing LB in Muschamp's D will get Will into the backfield more often where he can lay some serious wood on the offensive backfield. To think, he played QB at Opelika HS. Can you imagine trying to tackle this guy when he's running with the ball? He'd probably go looking to deliver punishment the way my main man Ronnie Brown used to do. (See Jason Allen). But I digress. Now Will's inflicting the damage and doesn't have to worry about holding on to the stupid ball.

3. He's a smart player. He plays with his head about him. See Tigers/Dawgs 2004. After Junior Rosegreen Apollo Creeded Reggie Brown, who had the presence of mind to pick up the ball and run with it? I think he even pump-faked the ball or something on the runback. That must have been an old habit from his Bulldog days, too. As a 4-year starter, he's unquestionably going to be the leader of this defense, and getting him up front at LB and in position to make a play - every play - is just what this D needs.

4. Do not underestimate the Tristan Davis factor. With Herring at LB, we can now get a very fast, very exciting playmaker on the field. No I have never seen TD play at safety, but the man seems to have this burning inside when it comes to playing football. Remember Kentucky. To me, his most impressive play of the season was his WAY downfield block on the Ben Obomanu TD reverse vs Bama. Tristan was flying, and I mean flying downfield to lay that hit. That tells me the guy really makes that extra effort every play. I am really excited to see what he can do at safety. And God help the opposing team if he picks off a pass. Pay dirt, baby! Put it on the board.

So, sorry to have written War and Peace, here, but I'm really pumped about the new-look Auburn D. Now let's see how it really pans out.

Comments/questions/suggestions?

War Damn Eagle!

[creed 1,642]

...excellent points. after watching will play over the last few seasons, i believe moving him closer to the line of scrimmage will be an excellent strategy.

[mcgufcm 4,107]

two things: 1) it's a great move if you can find two quality safeties to put behind him (he was all-sec last year). personally, i think brock and gandy were hurt by bad position coaching last year b/c they got worse as the season progressed. if those two guys can improve and davis is half of what people expect of him, you've got a solid safety rotation. 2) will struggled in man coverage. he was in the right position most of the time in the zone. i don't think he was nearly as bad as folks made him out to be in pass coverage, and he'll be a well above average strongside backer in passing situations. he can run with any tight end in the sec now that pope is gone.

[AUHansel 0]

I think that his weakest part of his play at safety was that he would get sucked in too often. He already had a linebacker mentality about him. On run plays(look back to the SEC Championship game where Riggs had those very long runs) he tends to close in too early and doesnt let the play develop enough to see where he needed to be. As a safety, he was the last resort on run plays but didn't play like he was. At LB he might be better off in this aspect. I hope it works out. I know he had a lot of tackles and played safety pretty well, but he let up far too many big plays in my opinion.

[Draven 0]

Some Herring bashers have always complained that his pass coverage skills are questionable. Yes, linebackers drop into pass coverage a lot, but they're usually not going to be, literally, the last line of defense. If pass coverage really is a weakness of his, this minimizes its effects.

I was never a Herring bashers but he did lack the speed to handle man to man coverage on most receivers. However if at LB he gets to trail more TE and backs out of the backfield I think it will improve some.

He may be the hardest hitter on the team in that mean white boy sort-of-way. Playing LB in Muschamp's D will get Will into the backfield more often where he can lay some serious wood on the offensive backfield.

Between what I hear of him and Blackmon, I don't think we will have any shortage of really good de-cleaters of any poor soul who runs over the middle.