re: Golding is underwhelming!

quote:

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I actually keep raising many different symptoms of the problem. In reality, I'm raising the same solutions. Odd, you missed that.

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I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, but if you insist … I ignored the "solutions" you continue to raise because they're infantile and asinine.

"Simplify! Attack more! Be more aggressive! Golding sucks!"

Let's take these in order.

Simplify: Both Saban and Golding have already stated the defense has been simplified considerably. That was done before the first game, when our two starting ILBs went down.

Attack more / Be more aggressive: There is a risk / reward element to this approach. When you have experience and talent throughout your defense (as Pruitt did in 2016 and 2017), you can be much more aggressive, knowing that each player can be depended upon to do what they're supposed to do in a given play. When you only have talent, it's much more likely that one or more players will be in the wrong place, or doing the wrong thing. In that case, your attacking philosophy can result in easy scores … which can in turn demoralize a young defense.

If I recall correctly, in another thread you asked about the "exotic blitzes" we used to run, and wondered why we're not doing that now to get to QBs. Same deal: Blitzing a lot, by definition, leaves a hole in your defense. And with modern RPO / quick-pass offenses, it's difficult to get to the QB in time to make the blitz pay off. Not impossible, mind you; just difficult.

I'm fairly confident some of our "exotic blitzes" will be seen later in the year. I believe we haven't shown them yet, because we haven't needed to do so. (Now, I may be wrong about that; we might not have those types of blitzes in our playbook. I'd be surprised if we didn't, though.)

Golding sucks: I don't believe it's fair to make any sort of judgment about Golding's abilities yet. He's been hamstrung by injuries and youth this season, and none of us actually know what the deal was late last season. (Was he calling the defense? If so, when did it start? If he was, how much autonomy did he have?)

For what it's worth, I'm frustrated by the defense at this point, too. But I also think we're doing the best we can, schematically and technically, given the less-than-ideal hand we've been dealt.