Defensive Coordinator Van Malone

[Stallion]

Haha, hilarious how you're now dropping little excuse nuggets for the Morris rebuild plan out to 2 years, when all along it was next year, based on all your genius recruiting analysis.

Just give it up. You know nothing more or less than anyone else, including a monkey throwing darts at a board.

We know, you're never wrong, just have to constantly change your current predictions to cover for the predictions gone bad. Blind squirrels find nuts too

BitterFootballDad:

What bad predictions? I'm 6-0 in W/L this year. I predicted 7 wins and said I thought 6 wins was closer than 8 wins. I predicted it would take 3 years at least in a total rebuild to get to a Bowl. I predicted 4 wins last year-thought we overachieved with 5 wins. We are right on course in rebuilding the program. I'm not a cheerleader-never have been.

[footballdad]

PsychicStallion. Just keep the 'predictions' followed by the justifications flowing my friend. Haha

[One Trick Pony]

PsychicStallion. Just keep the 'predictions' followed by the justifications flowing my friend. Haha

When did you begin beating up the children with multiple sclerosis in the playground? Walk off.

[Wild Mustang]

I agree that our Defense looks horrible. Terrible tackling, poor positioning, and horrible pass coverage. But is it talent, play on the field, or coaching? Coach Malone was a big reason SMU upset a ranked Houston last season. A year later people are now calling for his job? Coaches coach and players play. I have no idea about the play calling, but our LBs, CBs, and Safeties all need to drastically improve their play on the field or they should be replaced with younger, more talented Freshman who can play. No sense in burning a Redshirt on a kid like McQueen, Hailey, or Robinson if they are not going to get significant playing time. No one can tell me that any of our true Freshmen aren't better than the kids starting at LB, CB or Safety. Will be really intersting to see what changes, if any, are made after the buy week.

[mrydel]

I believe McQueen has already played and I know Guy-Robinson has

[Stallion]

McQueen plays all the time-just not starting-yet

[Charleston Pony]

Is Malone qualified to be a DC? I don't know, this is his first DC job, he has had many other jobs at a number of colleges and high schools, but never as a DC. Basically he is a defensive backs coach which is generally far down the pecking order of defensive coaches. This is where you put your youngest coaches, your strong recruiters that are weak coaches, or just filling out your staff. Almost his entire experience has been as a defensive backs coach. Love him or hate him, Mason had a great deal of experience as a DC. He even gave clinics every year to a couple of SEC teams on the 3-4. He realized early on, that a school like SMU wasn't going to get the number top defensive lineman needed in a 4-3 -- he changed. He constantly schemed to cover up the team's shortcomings. During the game he quickly changed his schemes. When we were healthy, and we had time to heal in the three bowl games we won, we looked pretty good, not the team we are seeing today. These games were played against some top QB's that later became starters in the NFL and he made them look bad.

To be fair, Mason had several guys on his defensive roster who went on to play professional football but when I look at our current defense, I struggle to project any of these guys as pros.

[mavsrage311]

Is Malone qualified to be a DC? I don't know, this is his first DC job, he has had many other jobs at a number of colleges and high schools, but never as a DC. Basically he is a defensive backs coach which is generally far down the pecking order of defensive coaches. This is where you put your youngest coaches, your strong recruiters that are weak coaches, or just filling out your staff. Almost his entire experience has been as a defensive backs coach. Love him or hate him, Mason had a great deal of experience as a DC. He even gave clinics every year to a couple of SEC teams on the 3-4. He realized early on, that a school like SMU wasn't going to get the number top defensive lineman needed in a 4-3 -- he changed. He constantly schemed to cover up the team's shortcomings. During the game he quickly changed his schemes. When we were healthy, and we had time to heal in the three bowl games we won, we looked pretty good, not the team we are seeing today. These games were played against some top QB's that later became starters in the NFL and he made them look bad.

To be fair, Mason had several guys on his defensive roster who went on to play professional football but when I look at our current defense, I struggle to project any of these guys as pros.

You sure about that? Jordan Wyatt is going to get drafted and Justin Lawler has a shot too.

[Charleston Pony]

I hope Wyatt and Lawler get drafted as it would certainly help SMU's image but it wasn't long ago that SMU had more guys drafted then Texas and several guys who got free agent deals on top of that. My point was simply that Mason had more talent to work with than Malone has right now but I'm going to remain hopeful we might have some guys on today's roster who can mature into quality players just as Mason's guys did.

[sbsmith]

Love him or hate him, Mason had a great deal of experience as a DC.

His current defense ranks worse than Malone's.

[Charleston Pony]

Had to look it up...Mason worked with DBs Acker, Banjo, Crawford, McCann & Moore, LBs Davis & Reed and DLs Hunt & Thompson. I think Crawford & Moore were experienced transfers when they came to SMU and I hope our coaching staff can continue to find some experienced guys who can help on D because that group needs to grow up fast

[mustangfan4life]

I didn't see us getting beat for speed. Or being pancaked on blocks. I saw a really bad angle for one touchdown and a ton of missed tackles. A ton of missed tackles, for the second straight game, that went for long gains or touchdowns. Clemons had guys squared up and hit them hard and let them bounce off at least twice on big plays. Mixon should be embarrassed for turning his back like that instead of just hammering through Postma on the sideline. Mistakes happen in college football, but this is absurd.

We need a safety that can stop the run and tackle besides Onu. Kevin Johnson is not bad for 160 pounds and Clemons can't tackle very well period. Navy game is going to be long day again I'm afraid.

[Stallion]

Kevin Johnson took the worst angle of the Nite. Sorry JasonB not one of our DBs have + speed except for Kevin Johnson (laser timed 4.42). Almost all ran track-and not one of them except for Kevin Johnson (a 5-10, 163 Safety-WTF) was really a superlative. I think Sutton ran the first leg of his relay team but couldn't break 11 flat individually in the 100 meters. Yes we could use more speed at every DB position. We've targeted the top speed guys in every class and whiffed on them

[Charleston Pony]

It is painfully obvious watching our team play that our defense lacks the closing speed you witness from really strong defensive teams. On top of that, our young guys have recognition problems that we can only hope improves as they gain experience

[ojaipony]

Again, I'm really surprised we aren't looking in the juco markets for secondary help (a bigger, more mature body and experienced at safety ... a little more experience at CB). Moore and Crawford, with the exception of Acker, were our best CBs post DP IMHO and they were transfers. And we got Acker (a top recruit in Oregon) because he went to JJ's alma mater. He was pretty much a perfect corner, the best tackling corner I've ever seen at SMU actually.