Crimson&WhiteGecko
Member
Of course these guys are coached to a standard, in the very least play the right scheme. However, at the end of the day, it is the coaches responsibility to get these guys to play to that standard. Scheme & execution ultimately falls on the coaches. I can let it go if this happens every once in a while especially against good competition (2016 NCG against Deshawn Watson). But since 2018 this defense has been steadily increasing points per game & that average is primarily skewed when we play against good teams, not the other way around in garbage time. And the biggest area of sporadic consistency has been the ILB play for the last 4 years. There is a simple, fundamental reason we have not had a Butkus award finalist since 2018. To put it simply, we have not developed excellent ILB play in the last 3 1/2 years. And CNS style of defense has always funneled Butkus candidates based on how we play defense. Not. Anymore. I cannot think of a bigger reflection of my point about Golding than this. The proof is absolutely evident.
It is very clear CNS has loosened up his defensive philosophy. Frankly, you convinced me of that with sharing CNS statements & your analysis of stats. And I, like others, do not like this more bend don't break philosophy that we are clearly leaning more too (more like the NFL ala Belichick). And I agree that CNS has adopted how the game has changed to a primary offensive game (again... thanks for that NFL).
However, I can't imagine CNS is happy with poor fundamentals, that is revealed whenever we play decent/good competition. I do see the youth of this team showing their inexperience. But good grief, why does it take these wake up calls each year since 2018 to get the defense to play nasty all season long? Maybe it has to do with so many players leaving in 3 years across the board. But under Golding, I don't expect much to change, except more points per game to increase. I am emphatically uninspired by him for so many reasons but primarily because he doesn't know how to coach players to stop making boneheaded mistakes (against quality competition) at ILB since 2018. If it was one player, fine, I see your point. But there is a mountain of evidence over the last 4 years showing otherwise. That's coaching... err lack thereof.
And this is something I'd love to be wrong about. But as it stands right now, I am placing all credit of the defense in the CNS at this point. The ILB play is going to have to morph into the 2011 architype for me to be convinced otherwise. Not that it matters.
