To play devil's advocate here:

1) This was the first year of the widespread, universal RPO. I didn't see a ton of awesome ILB play anywhere in CFB that had good offenses.

2) Our OLB corp was immediately hit by injuries, which I maintain put a strain on the Dline as well as ILB, given the need for positions to have to cover others' responsibilities.

3) We didn't really have a great 2nd team Dline, which meant that our Dline group got tired as each game wore on, rather than staying fresh. This leads to decreased DLine play, which means that the opposing Oline will have many more opportunities to get to the ILBs.

4) No single group played super dominant this season, outside of Q Williams and Thompson/McKinney at times.

DLine wasn't amazing as a unit and doesn't keep Oline off LBs. Also, there's time for the QB to throw.

OLBs did a poor job of setting the edge at times, as well as a poor job of pressuring the backfield.

ILB's don't play well, so there's less gang tackling and more ballcarries with lanes. We can't do a lot of blitzing either in order to cover the failures of other groups.

DBs don't play well, so there's open receivers at times. This also means that we can't bring the DB blitz much as we need folks to cover. Also, since the front 7 isn't getting enough pressure, the DBs have to cover longer.

And so...

ILB is kinda similar to QB - in order to play well, you need other people to also play well. Far too many times, defensive players for Bama didn't win their matchup that play, which meant that the opposing offense was successful in the early part of the play. If that's true, then you end up with ILBs who need to make solo tackles all the time. Granted Wilson missed on some open field tackles, but my point is that we didn't have people flying to the football as a group.

Bama has always gang tackled, and we just didn't do that enough this year, and that is a failure at every level. No, I'm not blaming the DC. I'm simply saying that on D, each unit needs the other units to do their jobs, or it all goes to shite, particularly as advanced as offenses are in parts of CFB today. Hell, for the first time in my life, college offenses are more on the forefront of strategy than the NFL, and the NFL can't hire college OCs (who failed as head coaches) fast enough.

The only change that I say we definitely need to make is to play more guys on the second string and see who's a gamer. If we can rotate RBs and OLBs, then why can't we do the same at ILB and other positions? How has Benton and McMillon been at Bama this long without getting a shot to do some damage? Yeah, I know, you can say that Moses and Wilson performed better in practice. Fine, but when the starter isn't getting it done come game time, put in the other guy.

I just think we've become too risk averse in our entire defensive philosophy. I hope it was because of personnel efficiencies, and will stop as we manufacture a better 2-deep. But gone are the days of Bama attacking on D and it's gotta change.

This post was edited on 1/11/19 at 4:09 pm