No doubt Kirby makes it a priority to get good DBs in his system…also, he seems to lose a fair number of them to the portal, as well. Based on evidence of Kirby’s relentless hounding of Kelee Ringo, the pressure to play at elite levels coupled with an abundance of team competition leads many DBs and WRe to seek other pastures.
But is the DB over valued?
It was no doubt a struggle in the secondary in 2024, even a seasoned and capable secondary guy like Starks, at times, looked overmatched and lost. Truth be known the post above isn’t incorrect…we know well that having Carter and Davis and great edge guys makes a world of difference when you have them, and makes the secondary look better, too.
Maybe there’s some optimism that we’re getting the priorities straight again:
And
Getting some guys healthy on the line will help this year, too, as I hear from the guys at the combine that Jordan Hall should be a force to reckon with.
If not, it’s going to be hard to convince that top secondary talent to keep coming to Athens and living on islands all game long.
Defensive football is about team play. Rarely can one individual player make all of those around him better. Even a generational pass rushing talent like Lawrence Taylor doesn’t get home every play. If you have a weak link, good teams will exploit that. In 2023, Bama abused our freshman linebackers in the passing game. In the last 2 years, teams have done more to establish a running threat which many times have gotten teams in front of the chains. Last year, a lot of the problems in the secondary were due to injuries especially at star. While beneficial to Starks this April, he played out of position much of the year.
On offense, you can take a generational talent a la Herschel, $Cam or Bo and build the entire game plan around that player. Sometimes you have that player just make plays. We all saw Herschel get 5-6 yards a pop against practically 8 or 9 man fronts all day long in 1981 and 1982 (he would have been a monster in today’s game with the spread and his all-around ability).
I guess that’s a lot of words to say if you aren’t at your best up front, everything else on defense suffers.
It links to your next post on the Bama game – 27 of 33 passing for Milroe! We had good DBs, but they were totally smoked this whole game.
Would like to know how many QBs have gone 80+% on over 30 attempts, in the past 20 years or so, and lost….
Teams exploited Humphrey and Harris for much of the year.
A lot of that was due to the fact that we didn’t have the game wreckers in the front.
I dont get excited about freshman dlinemen at our school. They usually dont get to play much for a lot of reasons. Same with WRs. If they cant block they dont play. If they dont catch they still have a chance to get in the game. So IDK.
Jalen Carter played a ton as a freshman. If Griffin or Gibson show they can play winning football (even situationally), they will play.
AD Mitchell and George Pickens played as a freshman. Of course, we’ve had plenty of tight ends play as freshmen. Once again, if the coaches believe the player can contribute across a number of areas, they will play.
It is believed by many coaches, including myself, that the two positions you better be elite at are the offensive line and defensive backs. However, the game has changed so much. Db’s are on such an island now, if you don’t have a good pass rush it’s almost impossible to cover the elite Rec.
With the rules, wide receivers can do almost anything and get away with it as well.
I don’t expect to see much of Griffin or Gibson until 2026. Last year’s DL class was supposed to be a great haul too, and may yet prove to be. But Kirby’s m.o. has been to bring defensive players along very slowly. Players like Starks and Bolden are rare exceptions to the rule.
We have to quit playing favorites over talent…Jalen Walker played behind Chaz Chamblis because he was considered the leader of that group even though CC was a liability…
Jalen Walker won the Butkus Award. He wasn’t playing behind anyone. His first 2 years he was playing a 3rd down pass rush specialist role. He wasn’t playing as much on the inside with Mondon and JDJ in 2023.
He should have been playing more and Chambliss less is my point. Chazz was a leader but could not consistantly set the edge, or get loose from blocks or put pressure on the QB. That could all be due to whatever the hell “contain” D we play with QB’s we were scared of but there was a noticable decline in pressure and contain.
Sorry, I just don’t subscribe to the theory that Kirby plays his “favorites” rather than the most talented.
Guess who led our team in sacks in 2023 and 2024?
23 – Walker
24 – Walker and (checks cfbstats.com) Chambliss. They were 1 and 2 in total TFLs.
The best DE helps a weak secondary but a top DB does little to help the rest of the D. While we haven’t had a Pickens every year, but we saw how disruptive Bowers and McConkey were. Young, Lovett, Smith and our trio of TEs really underperformed last year. Combined with a weak rushing attack it probably disguised how good Carson Beck can be. Don’t know if he’ll have better support in Miami but if he gets crazy stats this coming season it won’t surprise me either. Mario just needs to be sure their OL provides some protection.
If the QB is comfortable your DB’s will have a bad day. It’s why Kirby talks so much about havoc rate. You don’t have sack the QB to greatly affect the outcome. Yeah it’s great to have games like TU last season. It’s not gonna happen every week. Some coaches aren’t as stubborn as Sark.
In the 2017, 2021 and 2022 national championship games the team with the dominant DL won. D Payne, J Carter etc types are true difference makers.
Look at QB ratings under pressure vs no pressure in any league. Sometimes the DBs don’t even need to be on the field.