I believe TO turned to Bowden and FSU's staff to help fix the defense. McBride was the DC at the time and used the knowledge gained to produce some outstanding defenses. Without the help I'm not sure anything would have changed and the fan's opinion of McBride was probably right. Anyone with more knowledge about that time please correct me. Because our staff is young and inexperienced, I really think they would benefit a lot by having some unemployed head coaches on staff as analysts whose only job is to analyze what we are doing on offense and defense. They can identify weaknesses and specific things we need to improve on. The coaches can focus on game planning for specific opponents. I believe Saban utilizes his analysts to game plan for opponents but I think we need help identifying things we are doing wrong.
Our defenses at the time were based out of the old 5-2 and we could handle anything in the Big 8 until it came time for OU and even then the 5-2 was not a disadvantage. Our D line was always very strong and well disciplined, like Wisconsin of today. However when it came time to play the Bowl game against a national opponent our lack of speed got exposed. The low point for me was the (1991?) bowl against GT where we pretty much got drubbed, it actually reminds me of yesterdays game. Yes flags flew at half staff a few years earlier after Miami blanked us but it was MIAMI. But it still hurt.
They switched to the 4-3 defense and REALLY stressed pressure coming off the edge. They would line up one or two linebackers at the line so you could not tell if they were coming on a blitz or backing up into coverage. The thing was whenever a high flying team tried that 30 yd pass there was always a dude in red right on him, swatting that ball down. Our man coverage 1993-1995 was just outstanding. They saved multiple scores just by being right on the dude. I can"t even count the times one of our little D backs would sky at just the right moment and knock that ball away just as it was getting to the receiver's hands. It seemed the motto was "You Get Nothin'!"
Also though , those boys played physical our safeties hit so hard across the middle they would be ejected today and we would be flagged for some of our QB hits as well. And that is not an idictment of the old team as much as it is to say how the game sucks now.
In fact the game is in some weird grey area now between real football and ultimate frisbee. If you never experienced the game back in the 90's you probably don't understand. When the Safeties,linebackers, and D ends are allowed to Hit the game of football gets faster. It has to because as a offensive player if you know that guy is going to clean your clock, you play lower and get down faster. You go over the middle quicker. You run the ball more to take pressure off that QB. There were also less commercial breaks, way less flags usually, and the game was just more enjoyable to watch.
With these multi-million dollar pro quarterbacks I think they want to go toward no hitting of the QB at all. But if you do that you might as well just go toward 7 on 7 passing league, QB can't run.
These contrived "targetting" penalties have really changed the game for the worse in my view. Like light beer or guar gum ice cream.
