What This Season Will Show
Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2005 4:00 pm
This season may show several things, but one thing I think it could definitely show is: How good our coaching staff is.
One reason I say this is our coaching staff knows now that what is needed more than anything else is to improve our defense. At the beginning of last season, there were still some real questions about our offense, primarily whether or not Omar could step in and do the job. Well, now we know the answer to that question and overall we know we have a powerful offense.
The main question now is-- Can we improve our defense? How well our coaching staff succeeds can be a measure of how good they are.
What are some plusses and minuses in predicting their success?
I'll begin with the minuses.
1-It can't help that we lost two coaches for the defense--our defensive coordinator and our secondary coach.
2-We lost some good defensive players, for example, Leininger, Crossley, Burkes, and Sayles.
OK, now for the plusses.
1-Having a powerful offense gives our coaches and players more opportunity for focusing on the defense in practice and other preparation.
2-We've had a couple of good recruiting classes that may provide more talent for the defense. Just a few possibilities are Winovich, Dozier, Briggs,Curtis, Haneline, Davis, and Mack.
3-With the returnees, redshirt freshmen, and recruits, our depth on defense appears to be much better. Coach Brandon specifically mentioned, for example, that our LB depth is the best since he's been here.
4-We did not recruit any JC defensive players. Why is that a plus? Because to me it shows that our coaching staff feels we already have the defensive players needed to improve and that there are no "glaring" weaknesses where we need to bring in JC recruits.
Maybe you can think of other minuses and plusses when predicting the strength of this year's defense. I do think, though, that whether we can improve on defense this year might be a major point in determining how good our coaching staff really is.
By the way, almost everywhere you look, fans of other teams are saying we have a lousy defense. I'm sure most of us are getting tired of hearing that. Count one vote from me in predicting that our defense this year will be stronger.
One reason I say this is our coaching staff knows now that what is needed more than anything else is to improve our defense. At the beginning of last season, there were still some real questions about our offense, primarily whether or not Omar could step in and do the job. Well, now we know the answer to that question and overall we know we have a powerful offense.
The main question now is-- Can we improve our defense? How well our coaching staff succeeds can be a measure of how good they are.
What are some plusses and minuses in predicting their success?
I'll begin with the minuses.
1-It can't help that we lost two coaches for the defense--our defensive coordinator and our secondary coach.
2-We lost some good defensive players, for example, Leininger, Crossley, Burkes, and Sayles.
OK, now for the plusses.
1-Having a powerful offense gives our coaches and players more opportunity for focusing on the defense in practice and other preparation.
2-We've had a couple of good recruiting classes that may provide more talent for the defense. Just a few possibilities are Winovich, Dozier, Briggs,Curtis, Haneline, Davis, and Mack.
3-With the returnees, redshirt freshmen, and recruits, our depth on defense appears to be much better. Coach Brandon specifically mentioned, for example, that our LB depth is the best since he's been here.
4-We did not recruit any JC defensive players. Why is that a plus? Because to me it shows that our coaching staff feels we already have the defensive players needed to improve and that there are no "glaring" weaknesses where we need to bring in JC recruits.
Maybe you can think of other minuses and plusses when predicting the strength of this year's defense. I do think, though, that whether we can improve on defense this year might be a major point in determining how good our coaching staff really is.
By the way, almost everywhere you look, fans of other teams are saying we have a lousy defense. I'm sure most of us are getting tired of hearing that. Count one vote from me in predicting that our defense this year will be stronger.
Agree with everything there. The D is going to be the difference in us making a serious run at either going undefeated or winnng a Mac Championship. I frankly am not even worried over the "loss" of our secondary coach or Beckman. We needed some new blood to infuse for the defense. Losing Burkes , Sayles and others doesnt really hurt us as you might think. Waiting in the wings are hopefully bigger , stronger and better athletes to take over, ala Mack, Davis, Curtis, Schaefer , Haneline and others. Defense must be a real main concern for the coaching staff. Spending more time on the defensive players is probably a very good idea. We need guys that know where to be and be sound tackling wise. With the influx of better talent on the defensive side, that should help us big time this year.
