Worse defense: 2005 or 2013

More important to me... What happens to make 2014's defense better than this group?

At first I was on board with giving Snyder some slack because of the youth, but at this point we need to see some improvement over the course of a year of snaps if he wants to stay. They look just as bad out there as they did during Rice.

2005.

The 2005 defense didn't start a single freshman.

Seniors Lee Foliaki, Tay Green, Jaxson Appel, Archie McDaniel, and Johnny Jolly

Juniors Justin Warren, Melvin Bullitt

Sophomores Marquis Carpenter, Red Bryant, Chris Harrington, and Japhus Brown

There's simply no leadership on defense.

The suspensions at the beginning of the season were the telling point.

We replaced Sean Porter and Jonathan Stewart with a true freshman and a converted WR

We replaced Spencer Nealy and Damontre Moore with players who can't get a push upfield if it was a car pinning them down

I hate to call out a particular player, but De'Vante Harris' "tackle" in the 2nd quarter was just flat out embarrassing. My high school coach would have run him after practice until he puked for that one (I grew up in less enlightened times).

I think the "lack of experience" excuse is a little old by this point. We're 7 games into the season and unfortunately the veterans like jenks and Matthews are equally as bad as the fish.

Our lack of leadership is really hurting us as well. Jenkins obviously isn't a leader. I think it really shows how big a role nealy, porter, and j-stew played in last years defense that was also considered to be lacking talent.

You forgot senior Nate Askew

As for the upperclassmen in our front seven next season, it won't be much better:

Seniors: Baggs, Stansbury, Robinson, Sanders
Juniors: Williams, Obioha
Sophomores: Golden, Walker, Hilliard, Claiborne, S. Washington, Mastrogiovanni, Arnold
Freshmen: Manning, Points, Chevis, Wade, Walker, Scott, Garrett, D. Washington, Johnson

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As for the upperclassmen in our front seven next season, it won't be much better:

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no, it won't but it will be better. Instead of a host of guys their first year on campus, we'll have a ton of 2nd year guys. Some of them will step forward (whether as SO or R-FR)

I think Porter was exceptional even as a sophomore (it helped having JR all-world Von on the other side of course). Everett came on as a sophomore. And except for the game atmosphere, a lot of the R-FR are equivalent to SOs. They sat through film study and watched mistakes. They've been in the weight room. They have a much better shot at not making dumb mistakes when they get out there.

But probably the biggest impact is that if a guy is sucking, there is a body to replace him that will at least do his job. When Claiborne went out, we had to put in another true Fish in Mastro (who got suckered badly). Mentally 5 of our 7 LBers are in their first year here. Three of them are even in their first year playing LBer. Next year we will have 8 guys that will have been on campus a year. If one guy isn't getting it, someone else will.

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There's simply no leadership on defense.

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I think we completely lack a pass rush. That is easily the biggest problem.

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I think we completely lack a pass rush. That is easily the biggest problem.

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I think it's a combination of things which is why it isn't easily fixable. We don't have the physical capability up front to stop the run so we have to throw bodies to that. We don't have the experience at LBer to make plays. They are always reacting and sometimes way too late. Play action is killing them. And all that means we have to walk the safeties into the box to stop the run at times which exposes our back end especially since we lack any kind of pass rush.

The fact that we had 9 in the box and knew Auburn was running and still couldn't stop it is not something that coaches can readily fix. We're undersized at every single position right now and a lot of that has to do with age. They are a good running team and very physical. We just couldn't match it at the end.