Ay-Ziggy-Zoomba.com

It wasn't pretty Saturday against TN. Lots of new faces, a new DC and new schemes. I'll wait to pass judgement on these cats until the MAC schedule. They get railed on for being "so bad" but were put in some very difficult positions by our breakdowns on kick coverage. Give em a chance to grow and improve. Yes the tackling is bad at times....yes assignments were missed. But I know they'll keep getting better by playing this non conf sked. The O gets all the press but we need a solid D to accomplish our goals. GO BG.

All I want to see is them tackle low instead of bouncing off the RB's shoulders.

I know it was just one game, but damn was it disappointing seeing the defense get ripped apart like that, especially on the ground. And I'm not talking the points allowed, because three of UT's TD drives were less than 30 yards because of terrible special teams play. I'm talking about UT running at will on us. Tennessee only averaged 146 ypg rushing last season. They nearly tripled that number against us in the opener as BG turned in the worst rush defensive output in the nation. I really hope we see a much better effort and result against Maryland.

Critical Thinker wrote:All I want to see is them tackle low instead of bouncing off the RB's shoulders.

Ha, I remember a TD that Hurd scored where a BG defender tried to throw a shoulder into him only to bounce off and watch him casually walk into the end zone. I suspect we saw some shotty tackling due to Tennessee running some tempo and thus tiring out the BG D. I'm curious to see if Maryland decides to follow suit or try a more traditional offense.

Can we PLEASE just start taking a knee in the end zone on kickoffs? We rarely get to the 25 and often get hit with a holding penalty. Seems like a no-brainer when going against better competition. Our offense is good enough to just start from the 25. Not many kick-off returners in the MAC average much more than 25 yards on returns do they?

Every time I read this title I think "yeah..she wants the D".

I spend way too much time on twitter and youtube

Redwingtom wrote:Can we PLEASE just start taking a knee in the end zone on kickoffs? We rarely get to the 25 and often get hit with a holding penalty. Seems like a no-brainer when going against better competition. Our offense is good enough to just start from the 25. Not many kick-off returners in the MAC average much more than 25 yards on returns do they?

Thought the same thing Tom. Field position hurt us more than anything on Saturday. Whether it was their great field position or our awful field position. It's hard to start inside the ten and we did it way too many times. If we can clean up field position this is a winnable game.

Give the defense a shot. Yeah Tennessee averaged 150 yards on the ground last year but they also play an SEC schedule. Don't get me wrong I don't expect to give up 400 yards on the ground but it all fairness they are outmatched in 3 of these first 4 games. I was much more upset last year when WKU, a team with similar recruits put on a clinic against a veteran defense. This is a predominantly young defense that still has a lot of growing up to do.

Offense also needs to be more efficient in the red zone. Easily left 20 points out there last week and that cannot become a trend against good teams. I expect the defense to make mistakes but this is a veteran and than someone offense that also needs to be held accountable when they don't finish a drive.

The defense has suffered yet another blow. As was mentioned prior to the UT game, it was confirmed that Gus Swieterman has been lost for the year. He's the third returning defensive starter expected back this year (along with Bryan Thomas & Nick Johnson) who didn't make it on to the field in 2015 from a very small pool of returning starters on that side of the ball to begin with. Those are three tough losses, not to mention others reserves who were either dismissed like Watson or others who did not return. I know it's now "next guy up" but at some of these positions, especially on defense, we're one injury away from being in big trouble, or as Babers said, "could break the team in half. "

Redwingtom wrote:Can we PLEASE just start taking a knee in the end zone on kickoffs? We rarely get to the 25 and often get hit with a holding penalty. Seems like a no-brainer when going against better competition. Our offense is good enough to just start from the 25. Not many kick-off returners in the MAC average much more than 25 yards on returns do they?

That thought crossed my mind several times too, especially because of the penalties on the returns that buried us deep in our end. It may have not been a record (but had to be close to one), but I can't remember the last time our average starting position was so skewed compared to our opponent's. We were starting very deep in our own end and they were starting on our side of the field many times. It was absurd.

*bump*

Still stoked about the D's effort today.