As collected from Tech fans.
"Rushing defense was weak as hell especially early in the season. I’m not sure the LB questions have been answered. We have a stacked DL and a sick CB duo but the LB is up in the air and I think Pavia is a playmaker so the game will be interesting. After the scheme switch in week 5 to utilize our new dual threat starter, the only teams that could stop us were physical teams in the trenches (FSU,Louisville, NC State) The rest we blew out."
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"I'm not sure I'll be able to answer this question shortly, but I'll give it a go. Last year we really struggled early in run fits. It was a big part of the reason why you didn't see teams having consistent success rushing against us, but they could pop really big ones. A few reasons:
- Jaden Keller: He must be a heck of a practice warrior. He got hype by the previous staff as a true freshman and again by the current staff. He started off last season at Mike and really struggled badly against the run. He was eventually benched for Tisdale who certainly helped things, but really Tisdale was more of a Backer in Bud Foster's old system than a Mike anyway. We got a transfer at Mike this year from MTSU in Brumfield so we think that will solve a lot of our problems
- At Will we had Keli Lawson. He didn't grade out that well against the run either, but that is partially due to injury. He is an athletic freak that needs some injury free time to put on some good weight. Unfortunately that didn't really happen this offseason. This is a really curious position to me. Last year we started subbing in Jayden McDonald more as the year went on and he was by far the most physical of our LBs. However this year Jaden Keller is listed as the starter at Will backed up by Keli Lawson with McDonald being the backup Mike. That is either going to look awfully brilliant or foolish by the end of September.
- At safety we had a good pair of starting safeties, but unfortunately between health are targeting penalties they were almost never both healthy and playing at the same time. Behind them there was a true freshman and a converted WR who played the pass pretty well, but naturally struggled against the run. We also have a true freshman this year who seems to be impressing so hopefully between the four of them we can find two good ones. One of our corners from last year (Braylon Johnson) looks to be transitioning to safety. He was a good corner last year. Ideally we could redshirt him during the transition, but if need be that redshirt might get burned.
- The other spot to keep an eye on is DT. We had all but one of our DTs that played significant snaps graduate from a year ago. So naturally we loaded up on JUCO/Transfer portal. The guy that we all have penciled in is Peebles from Duke. He was 2nd team all conference last year and 1st team preseason this year.
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"ILB and Safety. Sam Brumfield looks to be an upgrade over last year so our run defense should be improved, but that’s just based on practice reports. Jalen Stroman is a solid starter at safety but Jones, who is starting on the other side of the field, is a question mark. Jones started last year but gave up some big plays."
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"Our LBs and Safety are really really bad and our DL falters against full size OLs."
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"LB is certainly a cause for concern. Our pass rush and secondary is solid but our run defense can be questionable.
We struggled the first few weeks because we were rolling out a really poor QB and the offense couldn't give the d any time to rest. Purdue and Rutgers both gave us fits on the ground, but we seemed to have gotten that in a better spot as the year went on."
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