Phil Looking for a new Middle Linebacker!

[2112]

cory is a shell of his former self. he can hardly move for a d.e., muchless a l.b. the talent level of this team is going to be even worse next year.

[MustangIcon]

I saw this coming. We really loaded up with a lot of nothin' at this position over the last few years. High School All-District types.

Of course you did.

What do you know about the development of our backup LBs? What have you seen in your visits to practice?

I have been to no practices this season, however, I can tell you that if a ny of our LBs you haven't seen were worth a damn they would already be on the field.

[PerunaPunch]

I know (or at least I've heard enough coaches say this over the years) that the prevalent thought is that small, fast linebackers are effective in CUSA.

I'm calling BS on that one!

When you look at the size of the OL at a school like Arky State, we gotta have some meat in the middle. Situation is exacerbated by our young, small DTs. People are running over us at will.

Seems to me that instead of trying to turn every kid into a DE (we have about a zillion kids listed at DE), you could take a couple of those big bodies to plug up the middle. Other than McKinney (who runs incredibly well for a guy his size both downhill and laterally), it might be interesting to look at Zac Thomas (don't know if he can run well enough, but he's huge), Yenga (who's way too small to burn his redshirt at DE), Dizer and Sowe (who has a great pass rush but at 215 is also probably too small to be a DE yet).

While we're on the subject, if we could sub in a couple of big bodies at LB, I wouldn't mind seeing McCray at free safety.... Just a thought.

[JasonB]

Hurst is our best MLB at this point. Hopefully he will finally be given the starting position. We will need JUCOs to fill holes at each of the linebacker positions next year.

[PerunaPunch]

Ah JasonB, the voice of reason. Why rain on my highly speculative, knee-jerk reaction, uneducated parade/tirade with more of your damn logic?

[Stallion]

agreed on most points-as I've stated before the season and even prior to that. But McCrary is a prototype SS not FS. Yenga should be a LB until he grows into a DE. Sowe is out of place at DE. Zac Thomas and Dizer are too big for LB-you have to be agile at LB. I pointed out before the season we were too physically small to be very strong on Defense. Now everybody is pointing to "poor tackling technique". Is it that or are we getting manhandled. Let's see

5-11 LB
205 pound LB
5-10 1/2 LB
6-0 DT
225 pound DE
235 pound DE
215 pound DE
5-9 SS

Phil's diamonds in the rough and recruiting failures are more to blame for our problems than poor technique. Again, SMU starts 5 players on Defense alone who were either rated a baseline 5.0 by Rivals, are walkons or who were unrated by Rivals. I'm sure most made High School All-District. I've pointed to 8 players above who play substantial minutes who are physically mismatched by the positions they play. And yet we get all these post game experts concluding that simply "We've got the talent". I don't see it-and what's more I said so before the season started.

[George S. Patton]

agreed on most points-as I've stated before the season and even prior to that. But McCrary is a prototype SS not FS. Yenga should be a LB until he grows into a DE. Sowe is out of place at DE. Zac Thomas and Dizer are too big for LB-you have to be agile at LB. I pointed out before the season we were too physically small to be very strong on Defense. Now everybody is pointing to "poor tackling technique". Is it that or are we getting manhandled. Let's see

5-11 LB
205 pound LB
5-10 1/2 LB
6-0 DT
225 pound DE
235 pound DE
215 pound DE
5-9 SS

Phil's diamonds in the rough and recruiting failures are more to blame for our problems than poor technique. Again, SMU starts 5 players on Defense alone who were either rated a baseline 5.0 by Rivals, are walkons or who were unrated by Rivals. I'm sure most made High School All-District

Even though these LBs are awful, it might help if some of these guys actually had the fundamentals to actually tackle. So instead of giving up a 9-yard run, they give a 6-yard run. Nice to have no faith in your defense.

Brian Jones on CSTV said Saturday -- Pony in SA told me this -- that this is the worst tackling team he has seen in at least the last 7-8 years. Heck, he even said on the game-winning TD, it was another missed tackle.

And that's coming from a MLB.

[PerunaPunch]

agreed on most points-as I've stated before the season and even prior to that. But McCrary is a prototype SS not FS.

Let's get the best 11 on the field. So if you want to move McCray to SS and bump Hudman (who I think is playing well) to Free, I'm good with that. After all, I think Hudman played very well at FS last year even though he's a prototype SS too.

[Stallion]

well I would have bumped McCray to SS awhile ago. There ain't anybody else left to play LB. I don't see an answer here. Its pretty late to make some of these moves except for perhaps Sowe. Another possibility is if Bailey is ready to play. Hoping he is-not saying he is. But he does have the physical talent to plug one safety hole. But Phil's playing for his job-never should have taken the redshirt off Bailey if he wasn't going to play.

[mrydel]

What about Smart? He is not big enough yet for DE.

[PerunaPunch]

Don't know if he's fast enough, be he's getting crushed at DE. I remember one sweep against UTEP where he basically got buried under a double team. Back turned the corner with no opposition. I remember thinking at the time, "they could run that play all day long, and there's not a single thing we could do to stop it."

I think that even before addressing the issue of can a bigger MLB cover, I think we need to stop the very most fundamental issue of the opposition running between the tackles for 8.

I should edit the above to say I think he'll be a good one in a couple of years, and that he's already showing some pass rush skill. If he was able to grow for 2 more years and add 30 pounds, he' be dynamite.

[EastStang]

Would it be better to come out with four mediocre linebackers and three linemen? Or I guess the corollary to that would be can we be any worse? At least our first opponent might be surprised.

[PerunaPunch]

Did not know... Or had forgotten... Smart was All-State at LB in high school. So yeah, I bet he could do a pretty good job. Undersized at 225 or 230 at DE, he could probably smack some folks around at LB.

[ccballer]

Hurst has been terrible at middle linebacker all year. he does not understand the defense and cannot recognize offenses to call the strong side. If he was the answer, we would know it by now.

Bonilla has been moved to middle and Hawkins has been shifted to strong side where he played last year. Bonilla is too small to play middle and has played rather well at SAM. Bennett has said that Bonilla is the most physical of the group and he is searching for answers.

This defense has been getting smoked by runs up the middle (see UTEP) directly at the MLB. Hopefully this move helps.

[QuikSStang]

can i apply for the job?im 6'1 240 pounds. i played 3 years of high school ball at TE and DE, AND i still have 4 years left of eligibility