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Bag of Mail

John Bell Hood Chavis to LSU as Defensive Coordinator


Monday, December 29, 2008


Let me be succinct: great hire for LSU. Last year Tennessee's defense gave up 14 touchdowns while on defense. Let me repeat that, 14. That's despite Tennessee's offense consistently putting the defense in the worst positions on the field. I'm in the process of reconstructing how many of those 14 touchdowns were on drives of 30 yards or less. At least two of those touchdowns were on drives that began, thanks to our woeful offense, inside the UT five yard line (Wyoming and South Carolina.) Tennessee's defense finished #4 in the country last year and was good enough to win an SEC Title. In fact, UT's defense gave up less yards per play run against them than any team in the SEC last year.

Let me try and put that into LSU fan perspective. Jarrett Lee gave up 7 touchdowns on returned picks. John Chavis's UT defense gave up 14 playing an entire season.

There are two knocks on John Chavis, 1. he's said to be an indifferent recruiter and 2. his third and long defense. The first shouldn't be an issue at LSU. His defenses will be stocked with talent. On the second front, Chavis does have a history of allowing more third and long conversions than you would like to see. But that also means his defenses put offenses into third and long situations fairly consistently.

In sum, this is one hell of a hire for LSU. Put it this way, I think Les Miles still has more questions to answer about his abilities than John Chavis does. Great hire. From an insider's perspective Chavis's defensive players never quit and give everything they have for him. It's one of many reasons why I said my ideal situation at Tennessee would be leaving Chavis with complete control of the defense and making Mike Leach UT's head coach. I don't know very many Vol fans who weren't sad to see him go. We've lost to Florida for the past four years but only one of those years was because of the defense. The other three years the Chavis defense has held Florida's offense to 16, 21, and 23 points.

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Posted by Clay Travis at 3:37 PM

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