I just want to throw this out for a discussion. I'm not saying I necessarily have an answer to my question or have a strong opinion one way or the other but I think it's an interesting discussion topic and I'm interested in hearing your opinions.
A few years ago Saban adjusted his defensive mentality from the larger, more physical, slower, front sevens to a faster, leaner, more athletic front seven. Additionally, he went away from the larger safeties like Barron and Clinton-Dix to smaller, hybrid corner/safeties. He made this adjustment at the height of the spread offenses.
There were more SEC teams who were going faster, spreading people out, running their QB's and were less physical in the middle. They knew they couldn't run right at Bama so they ran around them, ran fast, ran sideline to sideline to wear them down and use their speed.
Now many of those same teams who had running QB's have replaced those running QB's with pocket passers and a more physical running game up the middle. This has happened at Auburn and Texas A&M. Arkansas, LSU, UT and Georgia remain the same, which is a traditional, pocket passer, and a physical running game. Ole Miss still runs less traditional offense and we'll see how the coaching changes affect all of these teams.
But my question is this. Is it time for another adjustment back to the more physical defense? The reason I ask is because A) it seems to me that some of the offenses have shifted back to a more traditional running game and pocket passer, and B) We seem to be getting gashed more, missing tackles, and generally being whipped physically.
I've never seen a Ms State team be more physical than us since Saban has been there but it happened this year. Auburn seemed to be the more physical team this year. Saban teams have always prided themselves as being the most physical team by far but it doesn't seem to be that way anymore. Even when we win, we sometimes don't appear that much more physical than the other team.
A few years ago Saban adjusted his defensive mentality from the larger, more physical, slower, front sevens to a faster, leaner, more athletic front seven. Additionally, he went away from the larger safeties like Barron and Clinton-Dix to smaller, hybrid corner/safeties. He made this adjustment at the height of the spread offenses.
There were more SEC teams who were going faster, spreading people out, running their QB's and were less physical in the middle. They knew they couldn't run right at Bama so they ran around them, ran fast, ran sideline to sideline to wear them down and use their speed.
Now many of those same teams who had running QB's have replaced those running QB's with pocket passers and a more physical running game up the middle. This has happened at Auburn and Texas A&M. Arkansas, LSU, UT and Georgia remain the same, which is a traditional, pocket passer, and a physical running game. Ole Miss still runs less traditional offense and we'll see how the coaching changes affect all of these teams.
But my question is this. Is it time for another adjustment back to the more physical defense? The reason I ask is because A) it seems to me that some of the offenses have shifted back to a more traditional running game and pocket passer, and B) We seem to be getting gashed more, missing tackles, and generally being whipped physically.
I've never seen a Ms State team be more physical than us since Saban has been there but it happened this year. Auburn seemed to be the more physical team this year. Saban teams have always prided themselves as being the most physical team by far but it doesn't seem to be that way anymore. Even when we win, we sometimes don't appear that much more physical than the other team.
