At what point do we go primitive/basic on defense like we did at points last year?

The biggest frick up on defense was Hellams not covering 85 when he clearly was supposed to. I don't even really know what to make of that. Like how did he not know that he had to cover that guy. He was the only db in that zone, and 85 was the only receiver on that side of the field, no running backs coming out of the backfield, and he just let him run free. I can't imagine that scheme had much to do with that. That kind of blew my mind.

We should always keep the defensive scheme simple -- in every game (like we did vs Ole Miss). When we do it, our defense plays faster with more penetration, QB pressure/TFL, better pass coverage and better tackling.

That’s one play. The backup QB was like 15/16 at one point. Few of those were contested catches. They knew exactly where to attack, and tight ends and running backs haven’t been covered here in the Saban era.

The same things beat us that always do and it’s a wonder why more teams don’t use the blue print. Throw to tight end. Throw to running back. Throw 50/50 ball down field for either a catch or a free 15 yards. If I were calling 70 plays against Alabama, 45 of them would be one of those 3.

If we’re going to blitz we need to send 7. We can’t get home with 5 or 6 because usually the extra guy is on a “delayed” blitz and he’s just as useful as me watching from my couch.

I said it Saturday night, there’s are quite a few guys on our defense that will play on sundays, and Goldings scheme and playcalling has made them look below average. The self scouting needs to get a lot better on that side of the ball, it should have been pretty obvious how tamu would attack us given their own strengths meshed perfectly with our 10 year weakness. We didn’t even hit the QB Saturday. For me, that was a worse defensive performance that the Ole Miss game last year. At least that was a high tempo, high octane offense. The Aggies have been putrid offensively this season

In the third quarter when we shut them down, it wasn’t really anything we did, they just sort of got away from what was working. They ran a lot of horizontal stuff and made throws outside the hash. Any time they worked the middle or centered on their backs and tight end it was easy for them.

Saying all that, O’Brien shoulders most of the blame for Saturday in my eyes. We know Pete Golding is in over his head, the redzone playcalling saturday night was just inexcusable.

Probably time to ditch the corner kickoff too, since Reichard puts one out of bounds every weekend.

True. Tight end hooks, stick routes, drags etc are always open . RB in the flats pick up 7-8 yds every play…. Easy money

The play calling was so bad that the players looked confused. There were many times in the game our DL along were others never got set before the snap and it cost us. I saw Harris turning to the DBs and telling them something with his back to the aTm offense when the ball was snapped.

Golding may be a DC savant(Saban's Opinion) but seeing a great scheme in your mind and actually coaching it to a point that translates to the players so they can execute it without issues. Something he has not been able to do. Again maybe great in theory but seems to unrealistic in application.

Texas A&M's previous 3 games (Colorado, Arkansas, Mississippi State) they scored a combined 42 points.
They got 41 on our supposed presesason vaunted defense.

We've come back quiet a few times from a loss, still winning a National Championship.
However, that was with Kirby or Pruitt in charge of our defense.
They were 10× better coordinators scheme wise than Golding & had a way of getting the players attention/respect.
Golding quiet simply is a severe liability as our D coordinator.

I thought he said we did that for Ole Miss. I asked during game why we couldn’t do it every week.

I feel the same way, we’re out scheming ourselves.

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feel the same way, we’re out scheming ourselves.

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If you want to go down a rabbit hole look up pattern matching defense and there is an old Saban defensive playbook online ( haven’t seen it in years) but it is an eye opener to say the least

I have already mentioned Kool Aid but if coverage doesn’t get better in nickel and dime I would like to see what Banks and Jackson can do as well

At least some of the blame needs to be laid at the feet of the GOAT. No, Golding isn’t helping any, but CNS was smart enough to realize when his ideas of offense weren’t going to work anymore so he let Kiffin,Locks, and Sark retool it into a modern machine. It’s time for him to look at the defensive playbook and realize it looks like a copy of the Federal Tax Code: a few thousand pages thick and full of outdated and extraneous bullshite. Maybe he should sit down with Pruitt and Muschamp and retool and modernize his defense.