duck wrote:
I just watched the CMR show and he made a point of defending the defence. He made a comment about the 2 fumbles and said that if out D did not bow up as they did, we would have for sure lost the game.

I think we all need to take a deep breath and take into account the number of players that are missing or have just returned from injury and may not be 100%.

It's not just yesterday's game we're upset about, dawgboy. This D has been the weak link since WM took over.

sadlerdawg wrote:
It's not just yesterday's game we're upset about, dawgboy. This D has been the weak link since WM took over.

I think you are totally, completely, and absolutely dead wrong.

Total Defense ranking
2005 #18
2006 #8
2007 #14
2008 #28
Four year average #17

Total Offense ranking
2005 #49
2006 #90
2007 #74
2008 #22
Four year average #59

Now, I realize that "total defense" and "total offense" only take into account total yardage, but they are still a good measure of how well the offense moves the ball and how well other teams move the ball against us. But there you have it, the defense averages in the top 20 over the past four years and the offense in the top 60. The defense may not perform as aggressively as you would like. You may not like DCWM's defensive philosophy. Muschamp or someone else might do even better. But the defense definitely HAS NOT been the weak link over the past 4 years. In fact, the defense has carried the offense, especially in 2006 when the offense was bad.

If you say so, dawgboy. Stats can be skewed to say anything. I'm a bottom line kind of guy, and IMO, bottom line, we gave up 38 points to a team that has barely scored 38 in their last 3 games combined. We gave up 31 to 'bama in a half, 38 and 49 against 2 other teams this year. 28 in a half against UT last year, 51 to them in a game at home 2 years ago, 28 in a half (or quarter, whichever) against WV. The list goes on. I've been supportive of WM in the past, and I'm not even saying "Fire him or else", but he needs to change something. The D doesn't perform in the big games. We have re-established ourselves as an annual top team under Coach Richt, I just don't see us moving to the next level unless the D can make teams dread playing us.

Gotta agree w/ your botton line, sadler. With our defensive talent, and all that CMR does to insure that we keep that talent coming season after season, it's crazy to let an essentially one-man Kentucky team score on us like they did~

The defense should carry you most of the time, you're not always going to be able to score 30 or 40 points. If you do score 30 that should be good enough to win the game. Thats not always the case under WM the opponents points per game have been steadily going up every year. Its a good thing we have the offense we have this year, or you could be looking at a 7-5 season and I don't think we've been hit by injuries on defense near as bad as we have on our offensive line.