[stupac2]

So there's been, in my mind, a definite drop-off in performance on both sides of the ball in recent years. While the record has cosmetically been similar, the underlying performance is not as good. Shaw needs to rethink his program in toto.

I think most fans give the defense a pass because the problem there is largely that we're not as talented as we had been, that we have obvious weaknesses that you can only fix through recruiting (this year it seems to be safety and DL, previous years it was mostly DL).

Meanwhile we seem to have as much talent as we could possibly ask for on offense, but can't get even a modest output out of it. I think that's the difference, the D is largely performing to expectations (or perhaps even above), while the offense is way, way below. Is it possible that we should be doing better on D, given our talent level? I suppose. I'm much less convinced about that than the offense, though.

[stupac2]

So there's been, in my mind, a definite drop-off in performance on both sides of the ball in recent years. While the record has cosmetically been similar, the underlying performance is not as good. Shaw needs to rethink his program in toto.

I think most fans give the defense a pass because the problem there is largely that we're not as talented as we had been, that we have obvious weaknesses that you can only fix through recruiting (this year it seems to be safety and DL, previous years it was mostly DL).

Meanwhile we seem to have as much talent as we could possibly ask for on offense, but can't get even a modest output out of it. I think that's the difference, the D is largely performing to expectations (or perhaps even above), while the offense is way, way below. Is it possible that we should be doing better on D, given our talent level? I suppose. I'm much less convinced about that than the offense, though.