After a disappointing defensive effort in 2022, the Rebels overhauled their defensive staff, hiring a new defensive coordinator from Alabama.
Pete Golding has been a defensive coordinator since 2016, spending two seasons at UTSA before joining Nick Saban for four seasons, winning a national title in 2020 with Alabama.
Base:
Last year, Alabama’s base personnel was a 4-2-5 (or “nickel”) defense.
Their defensive line consisted of a 3-tech, a 0-tech and two EDGE defenders (one of which is constantly in a two point stance and the other alternates between three and two point stances.)
They played two linebackers who would split outside the tackles in order to match with RBs or TEs in coverage. Both boundary CBs used a lot of press coverage, but also did a fair amount of off-man.
They used two safeties who appeared in two-high and one-high shells depending on the offensive personnel. They also used a nickel back to cover slot receivers, blitz and be a force player on runs.
From this personnel, Golding ran a lot of man coverage and was not afraid to put his CBs in press. Alabama also brought a lot of five man pressures (usually blitzing a linebacker) and ran mostly cover-one man on the back end, but mixed in some cover-three as well.
Strengths
As I previously mentioned, this scheme puts a lot of emphasis on physicality on the boundary.
Ole Miss has taken a trio of longer cornerbacks in the transfer portal, so expect to see them use their length to disrupt routes at the line of scrimmage and play physical coverage down field. If the secondary can play disruptive football and not let timing routes develop properly, it will be very difficult to generate a strong passing attack.
Playing man coverage allows the defensive line to get in a lot of good pass rushing situations, especially on five-man pressures. Alabama was lucky enough to have linebacker Will Anderson last season, and while UM may not have that level of talent, there will be no issues if the defensive line can collapse the pocket and force throws.
Weaknesses
The emphasis on individual matchups certainly has pros and cons.
When it works, this defense will be impossible to move the ball against, but all it takes is one false step from a cornerback and there is usually no help to cover up the mistake.
In the run game, linebackers need to be very active in getting to the ball. There are a lot of situations in spread formations where the offense has a numbers advantage in the box and there is just one LB to fill just about every gap.
Having an interior defensive line that can eat up blocks is crucial to the success of the LB, otherwise it will be up to the safeties to stop a touchdown. The biggest exposable flaw in this defense that I saw is the isolated cornerback in 3×1 formations.
LSU worked this a lot by splitting three receivers to the boundary and isolating their best route runner against a single cornerback with about half the field to work with. That is a situation that makes it almost impossible for the CB to win in and expect that to be used in crucial conversion situations.
What to expect
Based on the player acquisitions made in the offseason, it looks like Golding is going to be running this same defense. I think the starters will be be as follows:
CB: Deantre Prince, DeShawn Gaddie
S: Isheem Young, Trey Washington
NB: Ladarius Tennison
LB: Khari Coleman, Monty Montgomery
EDGE: Jared Ivey, Cedric Johnson
IDL: J.J. Pegues, Zxavian Harris
Gaddie is definitely at the spot with the most competition (though I could see the IDL being different) but I think his fluidity is going to impress the staff.
Overall this unit may not have the star power of Alabama, but the talent and scheme is there to field a much more competent squad than we saw last season.
Coleman is going to be the X-factor of this defense. His speed and playmaking ability is unique to the roster, but he needs to be able to shed lineman climbing to the second level.
Coleman is also the best chance we have at stopping dual threat quarterbacks and having him complete his game could give us the upper hand against the best in the SEC West.
