About our defense this season, Akelo Stone and Zamari Walton transferred out in the Spring, and they were going to be keystones and leaders of the defense. They were both publicly bought in on the team and Key as coach. I think Key wasn’t prepared for this. I think he will be prepared this time around.
We lost a few other players, but those two were impact players.
I would take Rocky Long as an advisor (and Dino Babers as an Offensive advisor) if they are looking for something less than a full coaching position. I’d take Rocky Long as a DC. I’d have to think Syracuse’s staff is gone after the season, and there are a few good coaches on that staff.
Our defense got better when Sherrer took over. Our secondary got better when Thacker took over the safeties. Correlation doesn’t equal causation, but that’s all the info we have. Thacker catches a lot of heat on this forum, but coaches and players seem to like him. After his demotion, I do wonder if we’ll keep him after this season. I do expect changes in the coaching staff—it’s the nature of college football that people move into new positions—so we’ll probably have someone new on the coaching staff somewhere. How we arrange our coaches is a question.
We also may not know how Sherrer “wants” to play defense. We spent half of the season trying to get basics down pat. We’ll probably use a lot of the bowl prep to continue to work on the basics, but maybe we start to add something new.
