Dear God are you clowns really gonna act like you understand football more than Sean spence?
It comes down to toughness, tackling , playing physical. Which coach is at fault there? Hint, his name rhymes with swasey
Are you going to act like you understand football more than Eric Winston or Duane Starks? What makes Sean Spence's opinion more valuable?
Come on Lu. You are better than this. Normally you are a pretty objective guy, but you have let your disgust bleed over into EVERY analysis here the last week or so. And its understandable. But Winston didnt play defense here. OR anywhere else since. Spence and Futch both played DEFENSE, under Coach D. This pretty much SHREDS the whole "they are just defending Coach D because they are scared and afraid of losing playing time". Spence and Futch dont owe Donofrio jack sh*t, nor are they under any obligation to say this stuff. Personally I think Spence's comments are VERY relevant, moreso than ANY other guy just chiming in. He's a guy that is looking at it from the OUTSIDE NOW, but who has also been on the INSIDE of the system. He played under THREE DCs here, and is in the NFL. So he obviously has some experience with DCs.
I agree in the end its just opinions. But I think THESE particular guys opinions are pretty RELEVANT, considering they were both defensive players, one of them a **** good one whose in the NFL, and they played here for Donofrio. The difference back then was, we had some big DTs like Forston and Regis, who while we always said were JAGS, were big enough to jam up that interior line, and we havent had ANYTHING like that since.
Look, Im not here to defend coach D. Something is EPICALLY broken on this defense, and that is his F*CKING JOB. So if he cant get it fixed, and Ive lost faith he can, then we need to find someone else who can. But Ive been saying that the "blame it all on the scheme" argument is over simplistic and not taking into account that there are much deeper problems on this defense, and that very much includes poor talent, lack of speed, and a bunch of young and players who really dont know this system very well, IN ADDITION to very suspect position coaching.
IMO we can be a lot better on defense. If this was just a matter of Xs and Os, then how the **** did Donofrio manage to coach a half decent defense his first year here? I dont think the guy is a total moron, and having guys like Spence come out and defend him does say SOMETHING, IMO, that maybe the lynch mob here is not seeing the bigger picture.
In the end, I still come down on the side of getting rid of him. Something has to change and FAST here. Maybe AG and MD were lured into thinking that the team was ready for this new base 3-4, its clear mistakes have been made here. I suspect they thought they would be able to battle through this season ok, and keep building it their way and bringing in the personnel they wanted for the system, but now its gotten away from them. But Ive said from the beginning, the talent issue is JUST as big a problem as the coaching IMO. I mean for YEARS we have heard the mantra from every corner of the college football world, "its not the X and Os is the Jimmies and Joes". Now suddenly everyone seems to think a few Xs and Os are going to magically turn this sh*t show into a competitive defense.
The bottom line is, Donofrio seems like he's flat out of ideas on how to fix this mess. So I do think its time to bring in someone else, find a system that works with the players we have, not trying to force a system based on players we WISH we had. But the constant insistence on here by most that this is all just because Donofrio is the worst DC in the history of football is oversimplistic and ignores deeper issues we have. Look, I get it. Everyone wants the "easy answer". We all want to believe that its as simple as bringing in a good DC and we are suddenly going to be this great defense, but maybe we need to take a step back, look at the bigger picture, and realize that maybe Golden is right when he says we are still rebuilding, and that he never thought we were "back" this year.
