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Today Swain held forth in a diplomatic, but honest way. It's worth a listen.

Are you thinking there's a reason he was "allowed" to be so candid?

That's a good question Vinnie. Rarely does stuff that hasn't been blessed "leak" from quasi-official sources.

What's your take? Also, exactly how much change is coming?

Somebody please give us the scoop.

I have no scoop, but I don't think Swain says stuff just to be saying.

Completely agree.

I rely on Droner for scoops.

Summary:
Huge talent gap.  Repeatedly refered to their WR Smith
Coaching gap.  Refered to the extensive experience of the osu staff, including their strength coach (Master)
Bottom line: it is on Heuple to make the needed changes to take the nedt step
Swain refused to name names but in the extended conversation he mentioned coaches a few times, usual suspects, but he did state that Heup considers Elarbee critical to his run game (IMO we need big time help at pass blocking, which flat SUCKED in general this year)
My analysis of his comments is that he feels that coaching and talent (e,g, more $$) need to be upgraded, referenced blue chip ration
I also get the feeling he doesn't believe that Heup is accomplishing tho required actions to date

BTW, you can listen by going to 99.1 The Sports Animal as selectoing Josh and Swain (12/26 hour 1 (hour 2 has some additional info)

I never hear anything about our S&C program...coach etc. Always did with other coaches but not Heupel. I did notice however when our dumb asses came out shirtless to show how tough we were before getting ass raped that we have a lot of fat, tubs of goo. Might want to evaluate our strength program...

And mark it down.....If Heupel doesn't make some positive changes he will not be here many more years. His claim to fame was offense and it's been ripped apart....Defense and special teams are not where they should be going into year 5.

Defense was top 5 all year. I'll allow we had an easy schedule and may have been exposed by OSU, but its difficult to say defense is not where it should be when we were literally top 5 in points allowed.   Defense definitely not the issue this year, and in fact was the difference in a few games. 

And the defense went to shizzle after the UGA game. We beat 3 teams with a winning record. Defense is Ok.....but far from being championship level.

It went to shizzle in just the OSU game, when we might have been exposed a bit in the defensive backfield.

The defense did not give up a TD on the opening KO vs Vanderbilt, nor did it fumble inside its own 20 on the 3rd offensive play of the game.

We would not have won either Florida or bama without a handful of key plays by the defense.  It certainly wasn't the offense that won us those games, our two biggest of the year.  And for that matter, they did well against OU, the other significant win. We can both agree that all our other wins were against shizzle teams, but even the loss to Arky is not on the D.

I'll grant you what I posted elseswhere, that our DBs probably looked better than they actually are, given that we only played 3 QBs with a pulse this year, and the two of them we could not pressure (Beck and Howard) pretty much destroyed us through the air.

Let me make this argument. I don't think our corners played that poorly against OSU.

They weren't in the wrong area code, and certainly bit a time or two, but otherwise a QB with no pressure made very good throws.

Would it be nice a Deon Grant-esque eraser on the back end? Oh yeah. But safety is where help seems most needed IMHO.

I noticed this also. On their first TD pass, Jermod McCoy was on their WR, but the pass was just about perfect. 

But there were other breakdowns, like constantly giving up the 10 to 15 yard route to the right side of the field on what looked like a simpley hook route or wheel route (I am no expert on WR routes).  Also several plays where OSU WRs were wide open. Some of that is coaching, but its certainly on the players also, and we only played 3 good QBs all year.

It would have been nice to have more pressure on Howard, that's for sure.  Not sure what went wrong there.  OSU OL was supposed to be banged up.  That might have been a bit of propaganda on their part that worked. 

Our biggest issue in the osu game was our LBs and safeties SUCK in pass coverage
When we were in zone, for the most part the LBs never dropped deep enough and the safeties were sitting on their asses, and too so lot move, one in particular
In man the LBs couldn't cover the crossing routes at all and the safeties coiuldfill the deeper routes over the middle.

Yeah the corners got beat on occasion (first TD Gibson got beat pretty bad) but they weren't the issue

Pirate, trying to reduce this to just your comments.  I agree 100% on the similarities between uga and osu games, and that osu was worse, and definitely on the deep routes down the middle of the field not being covered well. I think Kirby spotted a weakness and OSU noted their exploitation of it.

Having said that, as you also point out, there was very little pressure in either of those games.  Easy for a good QB to throw deep down the middle of the field to good (uga) or elite (OSU) recievers when they have ALL fizzleING DAY to do it.

Was the defense passive, or was it just that OSU and uga actually have good OL and we failed to adjust by blitzing more?  Methinks the latter.

Players from both those teams basically outright stated after the game that we were tipping off our blitz and coverage packages somehow. It may be something as simple as a self-scout to correct most of it.

The defense lost their mojo after the UGA game. Our defense was ok against the also rans.....the big boys whipped the defenses asses. If the defense played the first half of the season that way we would have lost more games. If folks think what they saw was a championship defense then you will wait along time for championships.....The sorry ass offense made our defense look better. We would have had a hard time beating Florida or Bama at the end of the year. And ARK.....never mind.

Never said it was a championship D or that it can't improve, but definitely was not the main issue this year.

Very interesting.  Hopefully the coaching staff takes note and it doesn't happen next year.  It seems they would have after the uga game though.  :doh: :mad: