Alabama Defense improved compared to last year

Let's revisit this in four weeks.

JustNeedMe81 said:

:biggrin2: I really think we'll have more than 22 sacks this year, and something tells me we'll see lot of more fumbles and ints. I don't care what anyone says, the defense has definitely improved compared to last year. The numbers may look skewed due to the first game this season and possible with Texas A and M, but at the end of the season, we should be in top 5 in defense. I think we'll know litlte more about our defense's identify this weekend. I'm starting to see little patterns with our playcalling, so we'll see. Defense will be playing with chip on the shoulder, because Saban has been on their butts all week so this weekend should be interesting.

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I don't know about this year, but I think next year's team D could be as good as we have had in a while. A lot of returning talent with good experience to help.

Too soon to tell.
I'll make my judgement after we play 1/2 dozen SEC teams.

I have said from fall camp I thought the defense would be much better than last year. We will know soon enough, but I'm not worried about the defense (barring any major injuries or suspensions).

Agree that its way too early to make that judgment. Based on what I've seen and the observations of others, we've got problems at corner in the secondary and we've looked soft elsewhere on D, especially on the D-line. Perhaps they will get better as the season progresses, but after two games against unranked competition I think we've looked rather pedestrian at best on the defensive side of the ball.

I think the defense is talented, flexible, and deep. That's all good. On the flip side, I think its young in some key spots and largely untested. Should add up to being real good when we get to the middle third of the season. It's going to be fun to watch.

With several starters injured or suspended during fall camp, this years defense will take a while to gel as a unit. The first game of the year showed how missing DePriest affected our playcalling and defensive ability to be on the same play call. I hope the second and third games of this year will allow for our defense to get their play calling, assignment, and adjustments refined. With those things said, I think this years defense stands a good chance to be better than last year with better coaching on the defensive backs and up and coming shut down type DBs.

deliveryman35 said:

Agree that its way too early to make that judgment. Based on what I've seen and the observations of others, we've got problems at corner in the secondary and we've looked soft elsewhere on D, especially on the D-line. Perhaps they will get better as the season progresses, but after two games against unranked competition I think we've looked rather pedestrian at best on the defensive side of the ball.

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My thoughts also...

CrimsonEyeshade said:

Let's revisit this in four weeks.

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I agree, as I said in another thread the FAU and USM games will tell us very little about this defense. Let's talk about this after the UF and TAMU games. We should know after those 2 games what kind of defense we have.

deliveryman35 said:

Agree that its way too early to make that judgment. Based on what I've seen and the observations of others, we've got problems at corner in the secondary and we've looked soft elsewhere on D, especially on the D-line. Perhaps they will get better as the season progresses, but after two games against unranked competition I think we've looked rather pedestrian at best on the defensive side of the ball.

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I think we will find out WVU is much better than most expected and we played them without 2 starters with one being our senior captain. We held FAU to 150 yds with many 2nd and 3rd team players playing. To say the defense looked pedestrian at best is too critical and I agree with Justneedme81 that this defense will be a very good one and get better as each game goes by and our young ones get more acclimated.

TiderJ said:

I think we will find out WVU is much better than most expected and we played them without 2 starters with one being our senior captain. We held FAU to 150 yds with many 2nd and 3rd team players playing. To say the defense looked pedestrian at best is too critical and I agree with Justneedme81 that this defense will be a very good one and get better as each game goes by and our young ones get more acclimated.

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I agree. At the end of the year WVA will not be viewed the same way they were before the year began.

TiderJ said:

I think we will find out WVU is much better than most expected.

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And what do you base that on?

I haven't said our defense has been bad, just pedestrian or average.
Even Saban said our d looked soft against wvu and our corners had trouble in that game. To me the fau game is meaningless as any kind of gauge. Big boy football starts 9/20, like others have said lets revisit this in October. There will be no doubt then how good our d really is. I'm reserving final judgment until then.

deliveryman35 said:

And what do you base that on?

I haven't said our defense has been bad, just pedestrian or average.
Even Saban said our d looked soft against wvu and our corners had trouble in that game. To me the fau game is meaningless as any kind of gauge. Big boy football starts 9/20, like others have said lets revisit this in October. There will be no doubt then how good our d really is. I'm reserving final judgment until then.

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Based on the eye test and some plays they made. WVU has some playmakers.

Regarding Saban's remarks, I think you would agree there was 1 CB that did not play very well against WVU and the guy who took his place is pretty good. I do agree the FAU game for the most part was meaningless other than it gave our young guys more experience. I will put it this way, I am not worried about our defense and like I posted in my previous reply, we will be a good defensive team this year.

deliveryman35 said:

And what do you base that on?

I haven't said our defense has been bad, just pedestrian or average.
Even Saban said our d looked soft against wvu and our corners had trouble in that game. To me the fau game is meaningless as any kind of gauge. Big boy football starts 9/20, like others have said lets revisit this in October. There will be no doubt then how good our d really is. I'm reserving final judgment until then.

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First I gotta say that I agree with you that we won't know anything for sure until Oct. However, I also also believe that WVU is pretty good. I base that on how they played the game. We had our issues, but there's no denying that Holgerson is a great offensive mind, and some of those plays were just good athletes making great plays. They have a former 5* RB that CNS recruited very hard, and they have a good QB and receivers. Some of the catches they made were great catches in traffic, and for the most part, Trickett was played very good. Holgerson had a top 10 offense for 4 straight years until last year. They had a ton injuries last year and were playing a lot of young guys. I feel like that 4-8 season is an anomaly rather than the norm. They play OU next week, so we'll know soon enough how good they are or aren't.

To early