Auburn has a so-so defense. Arkansas has no defense. Your defense is ranked last in the SEC. How is that "improving game by game"? You are correct that Arky's run defense is so-so, and that the secondary is the worst in the SEC, but the defense as a whole is not improving each game.
If you go back and look at the 2005, 2006 and 2007 recruiting classes by Houston Dale Nutt and compare those players to ones on our roster, it quickly becomes PAINFULLY obvious why our defense sucks. We simply do not have near enough Jimmys and Joes to fill up a 22-28 man 2 deep on the the defensive side of the ball to put forth a stout SEC quality defense. Petrino's had one full year of recruiting and there is absolutely NO WAY to quickly build from a base of TWO good defenders (W. Davis and M. Sheppard) who would challenge for time on another SEC defense. We need at least one more solid class of defensive players and maybe two since we need DL, LB and DB's based on the incompetence of the previous staff.
We had to play 16 true freshman and 10 redshirt freshman last year. Our guys were indoctrinated to CFB via "baptism by fire" last year which is why we nearly lost our two opening cupcakes. We then played Bama, Texas and Florida back-to-back-to-back and had our asses handed to us. We ended up losing 3 SEC games by 6 points. If those 1, 2 and 3 point victories go our way, we are 8-4 and 5-3 in SEC play (i.e. a HUGE difference). The reason we had a chance to win 8 games is due to obvious improvement in our defense as the season progressed, but our season stats still looked horrid. We are playing a bunch of freshman again this year (11 guys from our 2009 class are getting significant playing time at this point, including some spot starts). There has been some improvement on defense from UGA to Bama to aTm, but there is still a LONG way to go before we are respected using the SEC standard.
For grins...
Our defense looked HORRID on the Trent Richardson 52 yard TD run putting Bama up 7-0. We had him in the backfield and proceeded to miss 4 wrap up tackles allowing him to scoot down the sideline. Pathetic if you ask me. However, if you take away that 52 yard run, Alabama only gained 98 yards on their 40 other rushing attempts (i.e 2.45 ypc). You say Arkansas run defense is so-so, but surely even you will admit the defense against 40 of the 41 rushing attempts was pretty good given the quality of Bama's running game.
The secondary? We had the #1 secondary recruiting class in 2009 per Rivals, but we are not seeing it on the field. One of the $64,000 questions is whether or not DC/secondary coach Willy Robinson can get the job done. The secondary keeps me on the edge of my seat holding my breath during the game.
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