Pete Carroll says it perfectly:

[FullyERicht]

(when coaching at USC, and dominating the nation, before the nSECaa whiped em out via sanctions)

"If you have a million reads for your secondary you are crazy. They don’t need that even at our level. All they need to know is their primary responsibility and then secondary......Teach your younger players to play the deep middle and forget about all the confusing rules"

Jimmy Johnson and Pete Carroll, two of the best college coaches of all time (and who both **** on Saban as NFL coaches) both of whom AG looks up to and wants to pattern himself after, lived by this belief. Recruit insane talent, and simplify so they can play fast and confident.

 

[Cane Dynasty]

Indeed, one of my best friends played for the Packers for a couple of years. He wasn't a HOF'er or anything but he always said that the best coaches were the ones that kept it simple. He always felt like coaches made things more complicated for their own egos.

He's in IT now. Funny how life works.

 

[Gatorhater]

(when coaching at USC, and dominating the nation, before the nSECaa whiped em out via sanctions)

"If you have a million reads for your secondary you are crazy. They don’t need that even at our level. All they need to know is their primary responsibility and then secondary......Teach your younger players to play the deep middle and forget about all the confusing rules"

Jimmy Johnson and Pete Carroll, two of the best college coaches of all time (and who both **** on Saban as NFL coaches) both of whom AG looks up to and wants to pattern himself after, lived by this belief. Recruit insane talent, and simplify so they can play fast and confident.

From his lips to Al's ears. Please let the talent play ball.

 

[TooColdToHold]

It's obvious that this defense is too complicated for our players, but Golden and D'onofrio are either too stubborn or too stupid to figure it out.

 

[itsacanething]

It's obvious that this defense is too complicated for our players, but Golden and D'onofrio are either too stubborn or too stupid to figure it out.

either me or you totally missed the point of OP's post. golden believes in a simple scheme. we just don;t have good enough talent on D yet.

 

[Shogungts]

It's obvious that this defense is too complicated for our players, but Golden and D'onofrio are either too stubborn or too stupid to figure it out.

either me or you totally missed the point of OP's post. golden believes in a simple scheme. we just don;t have good enough talent on D yet.

It's you. The OP was saying that our scheme is too complicated and that we should follow the likes of Carroll and Johnson.

 

[LuCane]

The interesting thing is you don't have to teach or implement difficult reads to have what comes off as a more "complex" scheme. As an extreme example, in many of the fire zone concepts that people label as complex, the most difficult positions are likely at DE and LB, and that's because of too many responsibilities.

 

[Canesfan1899]

The interesting thing is you don't have to teach or implement difficult reads to have what comes off as a more "complex" scheme. As an extreme example, in many of the fire zone concepts that people label as complex, the most difficult positions are likely at DE and LB, and that's because of too many responsibilities.

Would love to see more fire Zone concepts next year.

 

[Dynasty]

The interesting thing is you don't have to teach or implement difficult reads to have what comes off as a more "complex" scheme. As an extreme example, in many of the fire zone concepts that people label as complex, the most difficult positions are likely at DE and LB, and that's because of too many responsibilities.

Would love to see more fire Zone concepts next year.

I would love to see us execute simple zone concepts first. I'm in agreement with those who say we should find something we can execute with consistency. Whether it is cover-2, cover-3 or cover-4. Find a core then build from there.

 

[Dingaan1828]

You do what your players are capable of doing. If you go beyond that, you are asking for trouble.

 

[Bennubird]

True in any sport.

You do what your players are capable of doing. If you go beyond that, you are asking for trouble.

 

[The Franchise]

I'm a firm believer that as a DC your goal should be to confuse the opponent with different looks. You shouldn't make your defense too confusing for YOUR players by asking them to think too much.

I've always felt the best defenses move around a lot before the snap and fake a lot of looks that make the opposing QB and OL think something's up. They don't know what's coming or from where it's coming based on pre-snap movement, etc, and THEY get confused. We don't give any different looks, but WE are always confused in our defense.

 

[JHallCanes]

Let's not ignore the fact that while we recruit an insane amount of gifted athletes, the area ain't exactly known for it's academic prowess.

 

[CANE4LIFE]

Here again, I wonder how much is a result of stubborness among MD and AG, and just a perfect storm of personnel issues. Losing EJ, Paul and Terry, having to bring in Renfrow, and Gilbert. Figs being a new player. Having young guys like Bush and Howard having to have serious reps. All that is almost like having a defense full of 1st and 2nd year players. There is little "core" or foundation that understands the system.

Thing is I dont believe that MD and AG are total morons. Im sure they can see the players are confused as much as any of us fans can. I just wonder if they have tried to simplify, and if the problem is just that we have made too many changes too fast, and that we have too many young guys and transfers who just dont know the plays and the system well enough, which causes the whole thing to unravel when one or two guys are making mistakes on any given plays.

 

[FullyERicht]

You do what your players are capable of doing. If you go beyond that, you are asking for trouble.

Another core principle of Carroll: "if your CB is slower than the WR, don't play bump and run. We never ask our players to do something they aren't capable of. If you do, you are lost"

 

[AZHurricane]

I'm a firm believer that as a DC your goal should be to confuse the opponent with different looks. You shouldn't make your defense too confusing for YOUR players by asking them to think too much.

I've always felt the best defenses move around a lot before the snap and fake a lot of looks that make the opposing QB and OL think something's up. They don't know what's coming or from where it's coming based on pre-snap movement, etc, and THEY get confused. We don't give any different looks, but WE are always confused in our defense.

Mike Leach said the same thing about his offense. He doesn't have a lot of plays, he just runs them out of lots of different formations. Simple for his guys, hard for the other guys.

 

[Coach Macho]

I'd love to see be more SOUND. We don't appear sound in anything we do.

I don't remember what coach I saw on TV last week...one of the SEC guys, maybe LSU...and he said that Alabama doesn't do that much on defense but they're extremely sound.

The only way to be sound is to keep things simple, scale it down and rep rep rep.

 

[DeadPoets]

Why is anyone surprised?
Al Groh got fired from GT for being too complicated and getting no results.

D'Onofrio and golden learned everything from that man.

It fvckin sucks but things aren't changing without new coaches.

 

[AtrainCane]

You do what your players are capable of doing. If you go beyond that, you are asking for trouble.

Another core principle of Carroll: "if your CB is slower than the WR, don't play bump and run. We never ask our players to do something they aren't capable of. If you do, you are lost"

Oh you mean like a certain player who will not be named trying to play the deep half of the field.....

 

[CarlosCanes]

If you can't generate pressure to get to the QB or stop the run using your front 7, it doesn't matter what scheme or design you put on your defense, you are going to be terrible. Our pass rush is a complete joke, and VT and Duke gashed our DL over and over again on simple runs.

If we don't somehow fix our DL, our defense isn't going to improve at all.