re: “Communication from the top down, as far as even play calling..."

Bear, it’s not just the secondary having assignment issues, it’s the whole defense. Saban, and by extension, Golding are still trying to play chess before the snap by adjusting the defense based on everything the offense is doing pre-snap, sometimes changing the call 2 or 3 times before the snap. That’s fine if the offense will sit there and let you counter their every move, but they’re not. They are going fast and catching us in the middle of a change more often than not and gashing an unprepared defense that looks like a deer in the headlights trying to sort out their responsibilities. This is what’s killing us. Saban needs to (and maybe he needs to hear it too) tell Golding that it’s better to be ready for the play and not in the perfect call than to be changing to the perfect call and get caught flat footed.

We have great athletes over there, let ‘em play! So maybe they aren’t in exactly the right coverage or stunt or blitz. A great athlete that’s sure of what he is supposed to do will have a good chance of making a play. But if he’s in the perfect scheme but unsure and overthinking things, the defense will look like it did last night. And pretty soon, the players get frustrated and start losing confidence in the scheme and the coaches because they don’t know what to do and they are getting gashed and shite just breaks down. We’re at that point. They need to rethink this defense before it costs us a chance at another title.