The general consensus in this thread is pretty common around here, but mostly it's wrong. But given the thread title, it's not unexpected.
Coaches don't play a snap. Are they important? Damn straight. But players make plays or don't. And who those players are makes a difference. On defense, we came into this season attempting to build depth, but with a definite shortage of it. And Grinch told you that before the season. OUr defense took a turn toward the negative, when JMT got hurt. It's not that he was a difference maker player. But he was really the one guy at that edge position, with the size to hold up against run based offenses relying on a more traditional running game. He was lost at the most inopportune time.
Bonitto has some nice qualities. But he's better against offenses like OUrs, than Iowa State or KState. The flip side, is that he was every bit as much responsible for stopping the Cyclones' two point conversion as the DB, who got almost all of it. But if Bonitto hadn't sloughed back off the guy he was covering, to the intended receiver, that two point pass would likely have been completed. That's where he has something to offer.
It's the players you have on the field for any particular game/play. We miss JMT. Last week, we missed Kenneth Mann. Before he got hurt, we were playing pretty solid defense. It was after he left, when ISU started scoring nearly every possession. But OUr guys rose up.
At Manhattan, the wheels didn't fall off, until Motley got himself kicked out of the game. I personally thought it was a little unfair. He had a blocker laying on top of him out of bounds, continuing to drive his chest into the ground. Parnell was just trying to get him off. He didn't kick him hard enough to move a balloon, much less break it.
This notion that Bob Stoops didn't give enough attention to the defense is absurb. Bob was actively part of the defensive game plan close to weekly. He let the offensive guys do what they do.
We have changed OUr defensive philosophy, and need some different kinds of players to make it work they way the new D staff wants it to. I personally don't like this new philosophy. But LR does, and I certainly defer to him and his judgement.
Complaining about coaches every time we don't blow somebody out by 30 plus might feel good. There is going to be a required growing process. It will not happen overnight. Bitchin' about coaches is pretty typical. But these men are quality leaders. When key players get hurt, it's going to have some negative impact on OUr team. We still are in great position to win the conference, and then see what happens.
If we finish the season 8-4, bitch away. But if we got to the CCG, especially if we win it, we will have accomplished something that few teams in the country have accomplished. And we will have done it, with the least talented recruiting home base, of any elite program in the country.
