quote:
I'm not saying you're wrong, but my perspective is different.

Grady was hired in Feb of 2012. So the '11 and '12 DB classes weren't his fault. In '13 he got Skai Moore to flip to SC, who's been consistently one of our best defenders for 2 seasons. Last year he got three 4* DB's, and we all knew the pass defense was going to suck b/c we were going to throw these young guys in the trial by fire.

During the '12 and '13 season, our pass defense was good, Legree and Hampton were older players who new what they were doing (and we had a pass rush.) Now in the '14 season, we have NO pass rush and a bunch of FR playing corner.

Our shitty pass defense situation, IMO, has little to do with Grady, as compared to the shitty DB depth situation he walked into in '12. We had A LOT of DB recruits in -08-'09. We didn't think it was a need in '11 and we just did a poor job in '12 with recruiting DB's.

The same goes for the DL (specifically DE position.) None of these kids wanted to play behind Clowney and everybody knew they couldn't beat him out for a starting spot. Now he's gone and look we almost had 4-5 highly ranked DE's commit last year (none qualified) and we'll have the same this year (but hopefully they'll qualify.)

For the most part, I thought the pass defense has gotten better this season. It's just taking time and experience for these FR to figure this out. Next year, when the pass rushers get here, I think we'll be back up into the top half of the SEC in pass defense.

Oh absolutely, when you put it that way I completely understand your perspective, and I'm glad you brought some of that to light because it makes sense.

Now, the next question is, do you remember who that DB coach was in 2011? There were two secondary coaches that year .... Whammy coached the Corners and Jeep Hunter coached the safeties. I believe
Whammy had taken-over the DBs after Beamer bailed on us the year before to go coach with his Dad.

So let's look at the Secondary lineage of coaches in say, what, the past six or seven seasons?

I'm going by memory here so help me if you will.

2012-Present - Grady Brown
2011 - Whammy (CBs) and Hunter (Safeties)
09,10 - Beamer (CBs) and Whammy (Safeties)
07-08 - Beamer (CBs) Ron Cooper (Safeties)

Grady also has, on his resume since he arrived, "Assistant Special Teams Coordinator," but few people realize that. Joe Rob takes all the heat for ST.

So Whammy has been directly involved with the secondary since 2009 ... when he arrived and was specifically hired as a secondary coach. Remember, Ward played in the secondary for Bama in the 80s.

Matter of fact, before Beamer left if I remember correctly, EJ sent Beamer to work part time with the LBs and he had Ward pretty-much coaching the entire secondary by himself.

So you're right, perhaps more of the blame for how the secondary sits right now should be heaped on Ward rather than Brown.