RE: Let’s try this game for Sione
Our defense suffered from a whole host of issues, but, and this is important, what those issues were changed as the year went along.
Take just one position group see how their season went, because it really is indicative of the whole team: The Defensive Line.
Our lineman went from the Clark era scheme where they were basically tasked with attacking a gap vertically as hard as they could, to one where they were expected to move laterally and cross the face of a lineman. When it works, it creates chaos and is harder for the o-line to pick up as a group. Our d-lineman only got to practice this against our inexperienced O-line, and for the most part, only against our blocking schemes. When the real games hit, go look at those early season games and you will see our d-lineman getting clobbered by opposing o-linemen when they were moving laterally. Huge running lanes were getting created by every team we played early. Good news is that they got better at it, got their techniques down and played much better as the season went along.
Then as we got into the season the next problem arose. Injuries. Below is the projected depth chart of our front 4 before the start of the season as predicted by a combination of AL.com in august and freshmen who have unexpectedly played, with how many games they played/started in parentheses. So for example when you see Joker Gill (9/1) that means Joker played in 9 games and started 1. If someone is listed in Green, it means they are a true freshman playing big boy football in the trenches against grown men. If their name is in italics it means they were not on the two deep to start the season
DT:Kevin Penn (10/9), Antavious Woody (1,0) Jonathan Allen( 4,0) , Eamon Smalls (4/0)
DT:Fish McWilliams (11/11), Tyrique Howard (8,0) Miquon Merriweather (9/1)
SAM:Michael Fairbanks (11/11). Jalen Mayala (0,0) Joker Gill (9/1) , Emmanuel Waller (8/0)
RUSH: Desmond Little(11,7) Michael Moore (10/8) Kendall Johnson (11,1) Tyler Thomas (3/0)
Now, I may be missing some, but looking at the above it should be obvious at a glance that we have missed a ton of games collectively on the defensive line due to injuries (and in one players case, temper tantrum) AND that we have had to give a metric crapton of snaps to true freshmen who in a perfect world would not have had to play on the line of scrimmage until they had a year of weight training and nutrition under their belt.
This doesnt even account for the players who are playing at well under 100% due to injuries but who havent missed any games because of it. It doesnt account for players who transferred out just before the season (Drew Tuazama has played in 4 games for South Carolina) or power five transfers who are on the roster but havent played (Jamin Graham transferred from Nebraska via Jax St, and Antavious Woody from FSU played only against Navy.) The above also gives credit to players who played in a game, but only for a few plays before getting injured.
Now that is just one position group and its not even the hardest hit line of scrimmage we have, the offensive line chart looks worse.
(This post was last modified: 11-22-2023 08:19 PM by BlazerMatt.)
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