Exactly. Poor [uck fay]er had the guts to take a 7 figure job. I feel bad for him that there is expectation while earning 1.5 million.
Ok I will say it. The defense is a weakness. But it was before the year began. The comeback on offense was quicker but a bit fortuitous from a talent standpoint. I am not in the fire Banks corner. But we need an aggressive campaign to flip the defense. Transfers and signees with an emphasis on transfers. If you want to question Martinez, ok. But throwing Coach Banks under the bus is premature. We got our ass kicked. Suck it up. Not always a simple explanation.
Sal would go man, show blitz early and allow the offense to slide a slot over onto 4.7 40 Teague with no help. Banks does the same stupid stuff, but drops DL into coverage more. I’d love to know what % we give up when he does it. Got to be 90% conversion rate.
Saturday was bad. The worst game I've ever seen Tennessee play defensively in my lifetime. That said, Sal Sunseri was worse. At least with Banks there have been a few instances where the D showed up for the most part to play (LSU, Kentucky, etc.). With Sunseri his defense peaked in September and after the Georgia game it all just felt like a big black pit of no hope. Literally the only team that didn't score 40 or 50 points against us after the Akron game in late September until Dooley got canned post-Vandy beatdown was South Carolina..... and even they came close at 38. Between his defense and Dooley's game management we never stood a chance that season. If Bray and Patterson hadn't been there Dooley might have been fired in October. This defense has been bad, but still not 2012 bad. It will always take a lot to "top" that unit in my mind.
WM may be a bad DB coach that doesn’t know what he’s doing, or isn’t motivated. But part of Banks job is to see that he is, and does. Both need to pick it up or pack it up.
Banks has at least turned a bad defense into one that -generally- doesn't give up many points and doesn't give up much on the ground. That's been the staple every year. We knew this team was going to have several issues, especially based on how emphasized recruiting in these areas were: * DBs on hand to develop. Almost all of our CBs are transfers. * DEs on hand. Byron Young is good, but he's been developed. Baron is disappointing. Other than that, we don't have depth at EDGE to generate pressure which is vital. * LBs were I think our only good group in the 2-deep but they're all like 5th and 6th year seniors. Drop off could be bad there. Against Florida I think we underestimated AR. Up until we went into prevent and our offense got too conservative, we gave up 400 yards and 21 points. UGA's vaunted D gave up 371 and 20 points to them. Against Mizzou we definitely thought we could rush 4 and get to their QB and force errors. It initally worked but they put together a couple of drives in the 1H. We adjusted and shut them down in the 2H. We gave up 389 and 24 points to them. UGA gave up 294 and 22 to them. Against Kentucky we shut them down. DOA. We gave up 205 and 6. UGA gave up 295 and 6. South Carolina was -bad-. It's the only comparable game where we really really did poorly against the bar which is UGA. I don't think there's enough there to throw in the towel against Banks, especially given what he was left to work with and how important he's been as a recruiter. It will take time to build a defense that has the rotational depth to compete for a full game and we're close, IMO. I just can't get around the USC game and the refusal to adapt and pressure Rattler. It's unconscionable.
If they know what went wrong, I am less worried than if they have no idea what went wrong or think nothing went wrong. But I have no idea what they know or exactly what actually went wrong.
I do wonder why Banks, who has been a DB coach his whole life, isn't coaching DBs. Why even need Martinez? A lot of DCs are able to handle DC duties and a position group. It's weird that our DC's specialty is our weakest group.
He’s too busy drawing up SS tricky zone blitzes that haven’t worked once or leaving 2nd string backup cbs in press man with no help, or just giving the sticks on 3rd down and hoping the qb makes a bad throw. Plus he’d need a megaphone to coach the safeties up in practice when it’s 3rd and 12 and we drop them 40 yards off the Los.
Has the DB's swimming laps across the river in practice, south at the snap, turn back north after the touchdown.
One of my complaints that I would like to see improved upon is when some of the blitzes look delayed. That has not worked. If these are delayed blitzes, they are generally ineffective. If they are not, these guys need coached on execution, or we just simply need guys.
If the RB is blocking, the covering linebacker blitzes, from what I can tell. That's at least some of the "delayed blitz" looks.
