I don't want to pile on to our boy here...........

Yea... He had a very bad game. He reminded me of Jake Holland from Auburn. Hopefully he can bounce back from the game and become serviceable.

Sidenote - I know he is diabetic. I’m ignorant to symptoms and side effects, but does it effect a person’s energy levels? He seemed to not have the strength or “burst” on a lot of plays.

Holcomb being a starter has me very concerned. He's an absolute liability if he continues to play like he did last Saturday.

But to keep in perpective our defensive staff should have adjusted to them using there offensive guard to kick the D-linemen outside and the tackle pulling around.When you play the 3-4 that wide you are asking for the guards/tackle's to be able to get to your lb'ers.
MSU saw our splits that wide and took advantage of his 42 being under size and slower that a SDH.
If you go back and look at all the plays we went 4 man fronts.
They were for minimal yardage.
I am not saying he he did not play bad.But you cant let pulling tackle or just guards to get to lb'er depth.
I don't know why they were no told to read that and shoot the gap before the tackle got around.
They went out they way to show davis or 94 being hit inside from the guard with the tackle puling
around getting up field 3-4yards engaging the LB'er.
Note the distance between 94 and 99.

A 4-3 or 5-2 solves that and eliminate the pulling.
If they pull the d-line isin there back-filed and it creates one on one.Now I don't know why we would not want to create one on one for Davis and 94 by being in a 4-3.Especially when we are banged up at inside lb'er.
In the 4-3 we have 33 and 32 inside with 89, 92, 9, 49 as the DE's. with 69 and 49 alternating as the DT's.We can be 6 to 7 deep at D-line and should have used that to protect our LB'ers. There times when our coaches just get out coached.

We were effectively playing 10 v 11 most of the night.

He was getting swallowed up by lineman hitting that second level consistently. Now, those linemen shouldn't have gotten to that level that often, as many LBs aren't gonna win.

He's not spectacular, but he's what they have. He was fine in coverage against MSU save WTF the Hail Mary was.

He is the nucleus of the defense now that SDH is down. He has to be out there, he is the best option. If Evans could do it, he would already be doing it. Moses looks lost if he's not running towards the QB.

Just have to make it through the season, wholesale changes aren't gonna happen this late...

It does but this is unfortunately a skill level issue I'm afraid. God bless him I know he's giving it his all but he is just not good against good Ol getting off blocks.

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But you are piling on. Holcombe. Back in September you called him "a coach on the field." Don't believe me, check here.

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That was 100% joking around about the white stereotype. I was actually making fun of the stereotype, not Keith, because people see him and assume he's a good ole boy, big slow hitter who can't run. In reality he's the opposite, a smaller, quicker guy. See my next post in that thread :

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He ran a 4.56 40 and weighed 210 lbs out of Hillcrest. He was not a gritty try-hard white guy.

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I was actually not concerned about him stepping in. I thought he'd be ok. And like you and others have said, the hope has to be that it was just a shitstorm of bad things that all culminated together (tired/banged up line, first game as the starter, having to shed blocks against a very good OL, very good run game, road, etc).

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I don't discount the injuries, only a fool would. But I can only hope that they found a scheming issue & have fixed it.

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That is my hope. Really hope guys were just beat up and a tick off and it gave State the opportunity they needed to grind out an extra 1-1.5 yards on those runs.

Low energy. Sad!

Let's talk about this first picture. MissSt runs a dive play that breaks off of the right tackle's outside hip, or Right C gap. Holcombe is not the MLB to this side - Evans is.

The triangle of players closest to where this ball is run are:

Raekwon Davis, who made an inside move and was thoroughly blocked by the Right Tackle;

Rashan Evans, who stepped into the C gap and was partially blocked by the pulling Left Guard, gets his hands and body on the ball carrier and misses the tackle;

And Minkah Fitpatrick, who was blitzing on the play, and gets immediately blocked by the upback.

Keith Holcombe, who is playing the backside MLB given the action on the play, has the Right Guard immediately in his face, untouched. Holcombe keeps his arms extended, sloughs off the block, and MAKES THE TACKLE on the runners legs while Hootie Jones got him high. Eight yard gain.

And so, my question is, as a former AllState MLB, why is this picture included as evidence that Holcombe had a bad evening. He was actually one of the few players who did his job and made a nice play. It's was Davis, Evans, and Fitzpatrick who all had breakdowns.

The simple fact is that many fans simply don't know the real Xs and Os of the sport they so passionately discuss.

And it's ridiculous.