re: If we decline further it will be because we held onto Golding too long

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Alabama gave up 28 points to a very mediocre Texas A&M, 31 points to a one dimensional Ole Miss, and 48 points to a pedestrian offense in Auburn (34 if you want to blame 14 on Jones).


Yes!

And it was still good for 6th best in the country!

That's the point! We gave up a lot of points this year, and it was still better that 124 other teams!

Yes! Exactly!

Do you guys not even watch CFB outside of Bama games? Is your head that much in the sand? Is no one paying attention to the offensive revolution happening in CFB right now?

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Do you hear yourself? Alabama played a horrendous schedule this year, almost like Clemson’s. They gave up 28 to A&M, 31 to Ole Miss, 48 to Auburn, 45 to LSU and 23 to South Carolina. That’s an average of 35 ppg against the only teams on the schedule with a pulse offensively. Just because we can shut down New Mexico State, Southern Miss and Western Carolina and average 6th in the country doesn’t give him a pass for getting lit up like a pinball machine against good teams.

3rd and Golding was a thing this year. It didn’t matter whether it was 3rd and 1 or 3rd and 13, Alabama could not get off the field when it mattered. We couldn’t tackle. Hell, we couldn’t even line up with 11 men on the field a number of times. The defense was a sieve between the 20’s, even against bad teams. I still find it very enlightening that when Saban got involved after halftime in the bowl and started chewing asses, the defense bowed up and stopped Michigan. It almost appeared like the players don’t even respect Golding.

He’s got to go, by every metric and every eyeball test you can dream up, he is just NOT GOOD!

Here is the deal on Golding/Alabama Defense/Total Ranking/Production from my POV. Take it as you will

#1 - Pete Golding was clearly a very good coordinator at UTSA
They were aggressive, they made plays in the backfield and they were good on 3rd down. UTSA was bad the year before he was there and bad the year after he was there. I don't pretend to know everything about their personnel, but he clearly made a positive mark on their defense

2015 (Pre-Golding)
SP+ Defense Rank : #111
Yards Per Play : 5.97 (#95)
Sacks Per Game : 1.83 (#83)
Tackles For Loss Per Game : 4.25 (#124)
3rd Down Conversion % : 41.52 (#88)

2016 (Golding)
SP+ Defense Rank : #95
Yards Per Play : 5.69 (#63)
Sacks Per Game : 2.08 (#65)
Tackles For Loss Per Game : 5.92 (#57)
3rd Down Conversion % : 39.78 (#70)

2017 (Golding)
SP+ Defense Rank : #34
Yards Per Play : 4.98 (#22)
Sacks Per Game : 2.09 (#59)
Tackles For Loss Per Game : 6.64 (#39)
3rd Down Conversion % : 34.85 (#34)

2018 (Post-Golding)
SP+ Defense Rank : #103
Yards Per Play : 6.41 (#116)
Sacks Per Game : 1.92 (#85)
Tackles For Loss Per Game : 6.50 (#48)
3rd Down Conversion % : 40.38 (#83)



#2 - Our starting Front 7 for the 2nd half of the year included a mix/match of the following

DE - Byron Young (true freshman)
DE - Justin Eboigbe (true freshman)
NG - DJ Dale (true freshman)
NG - Christian Barmore (RS freshman)
MLB - Shane Lee (true freshman)
MLB - Christian Harris (true freshman)

That doesn't win in the SEC. Anywhere. It just doesn't. We can get into arguments about how games were called, improvement throughout the year, etc, and that is fine and I was frustrated with those things too. However, you don't win big in the SEC with 6 freshman in your starting rotation in middle of the front 7. Physically and mentally it is just not something that can reasonably expected


#3 - The defensive metrics for this team specifically can be misleading
The defensive metrics that have been used (SP+ the main one) are good to look at. They tell a good overall story. However, they are "overall measures" of a defense that look at the entire season as a combination of individual plays - each of which is just as important as the next. Here in lies the problem, specifically in using it as an evaluation of our season.

Our defense was actually very good, relatively, on downs 1 and 2. On top of that, we very rarely gave up big plays. So on the MAJORITY of our plays we were a very good defense.

HOWEVER - we were not a good defense on 3rd down. At all. We were a miserable defense on 3rd down, and not by the high Alabama standard but by any standard.

SEC Rank - 3rd Down Conversion Defense
vs P5 teams - 9th (39.46%)
vs SEC teams - 11th (40.17%) (ahead of Ole Miss, Vandy, Arkansas)

In the end, we were literally 7-8 3rd down stops from being a really good defense and going 12-0. I don't think that is an exaggeration. However, we didn't get those, and we didn't get them consistently.

The question of course is this : Is that due to coaching deficiencies, personnel deficiencies or experience deficiencies? I feel confident that is absolutely was #3, was partly #2 and am up in the air how much of it was #1.




So, TL/DR, stats show that Golding has been good at this before at a lower level. Stats who that Alabama's defense in general was good a lot of the time this year. Stats also show that Alabama's defense was miserable on 3rd down, and it sunk the entire ship. The question is why - and I think it comes down to how much you weigh insane youth vs coaching. Next year, the youth excuse is gone. If things don't improve it's pretty clear where the issue lies.

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pretty much anything else would have been better than having Lee cover guys releasing from the backfield.

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This sort of thing was my biggest complaint with the coaching side of things. It seemed like we continued to put the young kids in situations that they could not succeed in, specifically Lee, and it didn't feel like we really tried anything radically different to compensate for the issues.

The two biggest attempts at change were Jennings to the middle and Benton to the middle both on passing downs. Those weren't very effective, so maybe there just weren't any real solutions on the roster. I'm not really sure.

This because the coaches job is to put the players in the best position to succeed. We did not especially with such a young defense it needed to be simplified and/or adjusted like it was during the 2nd half of the bowl game.

anyone would have sucked running our defense with those freshmen we were stuck with.

And remember da barn scored on 2 pick six plays. Their kicker made every kick he tried vs us and had been terrible.

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34 vs Alabama

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This game is a perfect microcosm of my point above re: 3rd down

Touchdown Drive - 3 plays, 32 yards (gave up big punt return) (7 pts) (no 3rd downs)

Field Goal Drive - 11 plays, 50 yards (10 pts)
- 3rd and 10 (pass interference, 1st down)
- 3rd and 11 (12 yard completion)

Touchdown Drive - 7 plays, 75 yards (17 pts)
- 3rd and 7 (pass complete, 37 yards)

Field Goal Drive - 6 plays, 31 yards (20 pts)
- 3rd and 10 (pass complete, 17 yards)

Field Goal Drive - 7 plays, 17 yards (23 pts)
- 4th and 4 (jump offsides)

Field Goal Drive - 5 plays, 32 yards (26 pts)
- 3rd and 24 at ALA 36 (give up 10 yard pass to get in more comfortable range for 44 yard FG)

Touchdown Drive - 11 plays, 77 yards (34 pts)
- 3rd and 5 (9 yard completion)
- 3rd and 5 (11 yard TD run)



Auburn was 5/13 on 3rd downs (38%).

Against Florida, LSU and Georgia they were 12/50 (24%).

Against Oregon, Florida, LSU, Georgia and Minnesota they were 22/78 (28%)



If we hold them to 30% we win the football game, maybe by 2 scores. But we didn't, and we didn't.

I think that you have to also consider that it really isn't Golding's fault that their kicker, who had sucked with 40+ yard kicks previously, went 4/4 on 40 yard kicks against us. We did a good job of keeping him well out of his comfortable range.

Another thing is that you have to give credit where credit is due. Most of AU's big offensive plays were covered pretty damn well, but again, plays that AU hadn't made all year were made against us. It sucks that AU magically got some offensive mojo against us when they looked like a high school offense against other teams all season, but it is what it is.

Idk, I think that the Golding hate has been way overblown, but at the same time, I think that the verdict is definitely still out on him.

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If we hold them to 30% we win the football game, maybe by 2 scores. But we didn't, and we didn't.

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If the offense doesn't throw 2 pick sixes, we also beat them by 2 scores.

But for some reason that's the defenses fault too.



Or the 7-14 vs LSU

28 points the offense has given directly to the opponents in our last 3 losses. 21 points over the last 2 losses, which were a combined 8 points in losses. In reality, it's probably closer 35 over the past 2 losses due to other turnovers and terrible field position.

In a time when everyone knows the offenses have a huge advantage.

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They gave up 38 because once again the offense threw a pick 6.

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No there wasn’t