The House of Blue

I hope he works out.

I agree, his flexibility will be his best asset to our defense. I also love that he wants to be aggressive and let the kids fly to the ball and not over think things.

I look forward to this season and actually think the defense will be able to create some TO's.

BUT.....what happens when SC bangs Lattimore at them 25+ times? Can they hold up? Can they stop him?

Yep, that is the key. Several of us on here were screaming from the mountain tops about how badly we wished Brown would simply mix it up a bit and put the players that we have in a position to utilize their strengths (speed or whatever it is for each given player) instead of simply plugging them into his (admittedly vanilla) "system" and hoping they execute at an elite level to perfection in attempting to stop the opposing offense.

Teams like TCU and others have thrived by doing this for several years now, i.e. taking smaller, faster players and mixing things up on D so that the opponent doesn't really know what's going on and can't make simple adjustments. When you don't have the elite talent, you have to scheme around it in order to put your players in the best position to succeed play to play and to give you team the best chance to win. Why some coaches like Brown want to take "their system" and run it over and over, hoping the players will eventually execute to perfection is beyond me.

That is the real question but I think our D will hold up ok

I found this little jewel(from 2004) looking for info on Minter.

""Rick Minter, who is regarded to be one of the premier defensive coaches in the country and has 10 years of head coaching experience at the major college level, embarks on his first season as South Carolina's defensive coordinator. Minter will reunite with USC head coach Lou Holtz, who he helped develop nationally recognized defenses with while working at Notre Dame in the early 1990s.

Minter comes to Carolina after 10 seasons as head coach at the University of Cincinnati (1994-2003). During that time, he led the Bearcats to four postseason bowl games and was the winningest coach in the program's history. Minter's 2002 UC team were co-champions of Conference USA.

It was during his two seasons with Coach Holtz at Notre Dame (1992-93) that he earned a national reputation of being one of the top defensive minds in the country. The 1993 Fighting Irish defense held nine of its 12 opponents under 100 yards rushing en route to an 11-1 season and runner-up finish in the national championship race. Even though he had accepted the head coaching post at Cincinnati in Dec. of 1993, Coach Holtz invited Minter back to run the defense in the Irish's victory over Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl. Notre Dame finished that season with the nation's fourth-best rushing defense, with five of Minter's defenders earning All-America honors, including free safety Jeff Burris, cornerback Bobby Taylor, tackle Bryant Young, cornerback Greg Lane, and linebacker Justin Goheen.

The 1992 Notre Dame defense allowed an average of just 91 yards rushing and 277 total yards over the last nine games of the season, as the Irish posted a 10-1-1 mark, won the Cotton Bowl and was ranked #4 in the final national polls. That season also saw the Notre Dame defense finish ninth nationally in rushing defense. Safety Jeff Burris, cornerback Tom Carter, linebacker Demetrius DuBose, linebacker Anthony Peterson, and tackle Bryant Young earned All-America honors. During his two seasons at Notre Dame, Minter coached 18 defensive players who went on to play professionally in the NFL.

Prior to joining the Notre Dame staff, Minter served as assistant head coach and defensive coordinator at Ball State for seven seasons, annually developing units that were ranked among the national leaders. The 1991 Ball State squad was ranked ninth in the country in scoring defense, 11th in total defense and 16th in passing defense. A year earlier, in 1990, the Cardinals were second in the nation in total defense, third in pass and scoring defense and 10th in rush defense. Minter also has collegiate coaching experience at New Mexico State, North Carolina State, Louisiana Tech and Arkansas, where he was a graduate assistant under Coach Holtz.

A native of Nash, Texas, Minter was a graduate of Texas High School in Texarkana, Texas. He was a three-year starter at defensive end at Henderson State, where he earned both his bachelor's and master's degrees"""

One the thing that caught me off guard was the fact Minter is 56. You sure can't tell it from they way he gets on those players. Wow, that guy is INTENSE! and I love it.

UK football coaches -especially the defensive coaches have had the wrong approach in my humble opinion ever since Curry Arrived.
They have had the opinion that if you cant match up at all, just lay back and let them complete passes, run on you and play prevent.

Great attitude and mindset, huh? NOT!

So I am finally that we have a DC that is truly going to be very aggressive and that is what we have needed for a long time and Joker has finally realized it. He would not have realized it as the OC under Brooks even though Brooks was a defensive man. He could not realize it when Archer came because he was supposed to be so good. Maybe he was with the Steelers. Fail.
He did not realize it when Brooks installed Brown, ensuring more of the same and a soft defense which has been bad for decades.
These great minds, we are told knew much more than the average fan who knew absolutely nothing what we needed at UK.

This is yet another example that the coaches are far from infallible and that the fans are right more times than not. We see other teams play and execute as much OR MORE than the coaches.
So at least we KNEW what we needed and that is personafied in Rick Minter.
It wont happen over night the twenty years of softie defense didnt occur overnight either -it took two decades.
Give this man at least two years to prove aggressiveness will pay off. It will.

So good you wanted to post it four times? Haha

I think the biggest thing will be disguising our blitzes and formations. We were very vanilla in that regard, very predictable.

Our D has been so predictable and inept that I've grown to hate it when the opponent has a 3rd and long (even deep in their own territory) because they're almost sure to complete a pass to a wide open receiver for 20 and a first down--while our front four put no pressure on the QB and we , for heaven's sake, would never do a blitz or anything so aggressive.

Hated to delete them , but too much of a good thing.