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Monday, March 10, 2008
Where five SEC teams need to get better
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Spring football is about two things: 1) Trying to identify your best 40-50 football players who you can count on in a game and 2) trying to improve as a team in the areas where you had problems the season before.
Here are five SEC teams and the areas where they need to get better this spring:
1. South Carolina: One of the fundamental rules in the SEC is that you will not be successful over the long haul unless you can run the ball on offense and stop the run on defense. South Carolina collapsed down the stretch last season because the Gamecocks finished last in the SEC in rushing offense (113.7 ypg) and last in rushing defense (209.3 ypg). Steve Spurrier has said his quarterback will run a little more to keep the defenses honest. New defensive coordinator Ellis Johnson will have a busy spring.
2. LSU: When defensive coordinator Bo Pelini left to become the head coach at Nebraska, Les Miles promoted from within. He did that in order to hire Joe Robinson as his special teams coach. Robinson has built a very impressive resume as a special teams coach at Southern Miss, Central Florida, and Arizona. Despite the obvious talent on the LSU roster, the Tigers were 10th in kickoff returns (19.7 avg.), 11th in punt returns (5.9 avg.) and seventh in kickoff coverage (19.9 average on returns).
3. Florida: The Gators knew they were going to be young in the secondary in 2007 and by the final third of the season their opponents had figured it out. Florida finished dead last in the SEC in pass defense giving up 258.5 yards per game. Opponents completed 59.4 percent of their passes against Florida last season. Dan McCarney, the former Iowa State head coach who built a very good defense at South Florida, arrives as co-defensive coordinator (with Charlie Strong) and Job 1 is to get this problem fixed.
4. Tennessee: If the Volunteers throw two passes to the right people, they could have very easily beaten LSU for the SEC championship. What makes that amazing is that in 2007 Tennessee finished 11th in total defense (403.3 ypg), 10th in scoring defense (27,3 ppg), 9th in rushing defense (164.6 ypg), and 11th in passing defense (238.6 ypg). I thought head coach Phillip Fulmer would shake up his defensive staff a little bit. He didn’t. With offensive coordinator David Cutcliffe and QB Erik Ainge gone, chances are that Tennessee won’t score as many points (32.5 ppg in 2007). The defense has to get better.
5. Auburn: There is a reason why Tommy Tuberville pushed Al Borges out the door and brought in Tony Franklin as his new offensive coordinator. Auburn was ninth in the SEC in scoring offense (24.2 ppg) and 10th in total offense (335.2 ypg). Franklin is a guru of the spread offense, which forces the defense to cover the entire field. Last season Auburn had seven games that were decided by seven points or less. The Tigers won four of them. Auburn needs to score more points to give its defense a bigger margin for error.
