Without knowing ALL the details, then WHY suggest that he be thrown off the team.
Devlyn Cousin has been charged with simple domestic assault. A simple misdemeanor. Let the facts come out. Let the case be resolved. And THEN make judgement.
2015 Defensive Depth Chart - We will be better, much better.
- Thread starter Mesaclone1
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Without knowing ALL the details, then WHY suggest that he be thrown off the team.
Devlyn Cousin has been charged with simple domestic assault. A simple misdemeanor. Let the facts come out. Let the case be resolved. And THEN make judgement.
I never said only kick him off the team. I said or be suspended for a while. I personally don't care if it's just a simple misdemeanor. You put your hands on somebody (especially a woman), you deserve it. Know your limits. Just my opinion. Not saying you have to agree.
Taylor
Tucker
Cousin
Pierson
Floyd
Harris
Meeks
Tribune
Mutcherson
Cotton-moya
Richardson
More experienced. Knows the system better. Less thinking, more reacting. If Harris is the next great Wally LB which I fully expect him to be, our defense is in good shape.
Tucker
Cousin
Pierson
Floyd
Harris
Meeks
Tribune
Mutcherson
Cotton-moya
Richardson
More experienced. Knows the system better. Less thinking, more reacting. If Harris is the next great Wally LB which I fully expect him to be, our defense is in good shape.
I am optimistic that our defense will be better next year, even significantly better. They were just so stinking bad last year that I can't convince myself that even significant improvement is going to lead to anything special.
I agree, cautious optimism. Just kind of like baseball, if you are tough up the middle on defense (C, P, SS, 2 and CF) you can be pretty good. If your NG, DT, MLB and Safeties are weak then your unit will be. I was really pretty surprised how good the S play was, everything else..? Especially MLB and middle of the line was just Baaaad. Hopefully with good health things will improve. I just hope Harris picked up on the mental part of the game. Dude has the physical talent and attitude, but for some reason, Wally's schemes seem to be complicated to learn, maybe with the exception of Jesse Smith. He never skipped a beat, and actually played better under Wally than Bolt.
If our defense is going to make any strides next year it is going to have to be from a mix of new guys making an impact and the young guys who played stepping up their game. After seeing how Miller and George improved in their 4th year in the program I feel it is way to early to give up on guys like Meeks, Seeley and Knott. George was really struggling his first 2 years and ended up getting drafted. I hope Wally rotates the LB's like he did the last few games. His first 5 1/2 years he rarely would put any of the backups in. I think that hurt both development and also led to some guys leaving.
Yeah, the defense should be better just by default. I don't know how things will shake out with Mutcherson, but if I had to guess I'd say he's probably not coming back based on CPR's most recent comments. If that's how it goes then that'll put a damper on things, but overall the secondary should be in good hands with Tribune and Cotton Moya returning. It's that front seven that's the big unknown. The oft-referenced "light" has to go on for Harris and Meeks this offseason. In the front four it's folly to count too heavily on the recent juco additions. If they turn out to be world beaters, great. But big improvement and development has to come from the guys who have been in the program 2-3 years. Time for them to step up and start making plays.
There is a big difference too between George, being aggressive and being in the wrong gap, vs. what we saw in the LB core this year at the end of the season looking completely lost and out of position (ie. 8 yards down field running away from the ball when the RB is running right up the gut the entire time). Saw it time and time again. As Jack Whitver said, some of these guys are not Division I players, plain and simple. Put the best guy out there at all times in the LB core. Rotate the DL. The Mike is the QB of the defense.
Agreed. A lot of posters (myself included) really piled on Wally towards the end of this season for his defenses being too vanilla and passive. Now that we're a couple weeks removed from the whole damn mess, it's fair to ask what exactly he should have done differently with the players available to him. If they couldn't execute his base schemes then why would he throw the exotic coverage and blitz packages at them and expect them to pull those off?
If even a couple guys get it together this offseason to the point where they know where they're supposed to be and actually have the ability to get there to make a play then we'll all look silly for suggesting that it's time for Wally to hang it up.
While I agree, it also sticks in my craw about recruiting. Makes me wonder if our staff who signed these LB's thought the recruits would come to us after the 2011 OK State win? Just seems like they didn't recruit real aggressively at LB for 1-2 years, and offered some schollies up to some flyers, just a WAG. Realignment talk was going on that same time too. But there is a talent gap at LB for sure vs. what we had, AND vs. the rest of the Big 12 in our upperclassmen.
Sure, there's blame to go around for everyone. The players didn't execute either because they didn't know what they were doing or lacked the ability to do it, and that's not only on them but on the coaching staff for failing to build quality depth through recruiting or coaching the players up so they can execute.
I'm just gonna pray for the defense to be average and the offense to really be good. At least then if we lose it can be shoot outs that are fun to watch...
We didn't take many LB's in 2011 and 2012. Bigger areas of need and we had Knott, Klein, and Jeremiah George. We basically only have 2 LB's from those 2 classes. Jevohn Miller (who did not use a redshirt) and Kane Seeley. Darius White was recruited as a LB and is now at DE. And then we had Adam Pavlenko and Donald Smith who left the program almost right away. We used a lot of our scholarships on the offensive side of the ball. Especially on WR's.
True, but that's my point. We swung and whiffed and seem to be overloaded with other position groups. Seems like little to no attempt was made to replace Pavlenko and Smith with Juco LB's and have some guys in the system (even if RS jucos) to replace AJ and Jake after they graduated?
I think they expected Miller to pick things up quicker than he did. They also expected C.J. Morgan to stay around. Even then there would have been little to know depth, considering linebackers like Knott and Brackens were both recruited as safeties. I think there is some truth to the idea that this staff focused on offense in recruiting. Linebackers were probably the area least focused on, which kind of makes sense since we really only need two.
We have taken some steps in addressing LB needs but those guys are all pretty young yet. Not sure how many Juco LB's were out there that were interested in us and us in them. IMO, we have taken way too many WR's in the past. In 2011 and 2012 we took 4 WR's in each class. Aaron Horne was a Juco WR. Last year's class had 2 WR's and this year's class has 1 WR.
It seems that we go in waves of overkill on some position groups some years and very few in others, rather than a consistent approach of only taking a certain number of each position each year. I suppose part of that is the "best player available" theory, where we may have a need for a certain position but the players we can get at those positions are not rated highly. No doubt that some recruiting misses and injuries have hurt us.
Don't forget the attrition due to various player transfers and dismissals - the prominent ones that immediately come to mind are Charlie Rogers, Coe and Irving. For a program with as little margin for error as ISU has, you just can't survive that kind of turnover.
IMO Wiltz will likely win the job as our returner. He is good. Probably will provide depth in the secondary as a backup, but will certainly play.
If Wiltz does happen to start then that means he is an upgrade which would be a good thing, like you said.
