What a crazy process.
John Chavis is SEC football. He has been an elite defensive coordinator in the league for the last 20 years. We wanted a tried and true SEC defensive coach and we got him.
A&M has faced him 5 times in his career ('04 Cotton Bowl, '11 Cotton Bowl, 2012, 2013, 2014) and managed just 14.8 points per game. He's the only guy who stone walled Johnny. Shoot, Nick Saban couldn't even do it. Chavis did it twice.
So let's take a look at what we're getting....
- Tennessee '78
- Base 4-3 defense
- 1979 Tennessee - Graduate Asst.
- 1980-1983 Alabama A&M - Defensive Line
- 1984-1985 Alabama State - Defensive Coordinator
- 1986-1988 Alabama A&M - Defensive Coordinator
- 1989-1994 Tennessee - Defensive Line/Linebackers
- 1995-2008 Tennessee - Defensive Coordinator/Linebackers
- 2009-2014 LSU - Defensive Coordinator/Linebackers
Rush D Pass D Total D Scoring D
========== ========== ========== =========
2000 74.3 (3) 220.2 (69) 294.5 (13) 19.3 (23)
2001 85.3 (3) 218.3 (59) 303.6 (13) 19.5 (21)
2002 128.6 (33) 156.2 (4) 284.9 (5) 17.5 (11)
2003 138.3 (43) 186.1 (20) 324.4 (22) 18.4 (17)
2004 120.0 (25) 236.4 (86) 356.4 (45) 22.7 (38)
2005 82.5 (2) 215.7 (54) 298.2 (7) 18.6 (16)
2006 146.7 (72) 180.9 (27) 327.5 (50) 19.5 (33)
2007 164.6 (69) 238.6 (73) 403.3 (70) 27.3 (61)
2008 103.1 (12) 160.4 (4) 263.5 (3) 16.8 (10)
2009 133.4 (46) 194.2 (29) 327.6 (26) 16.2 (11)
2010 137.3 (42) 169.9 (10) 307.2 (12) 18.2 (11)
2011 90.1 (5) 171.4 (8) 261.5 (2) 11.3 (2)
2012 101.6 (9) 206.0 (28) 307.6 (8) 17.5 (12)
2013 143.2 (35) 197.5 (13) 340.7 (15) 22.0 (21)
2014 152.7 (46) 164.2 (3) 316.8 (9) 17.5 (5)
LSU National Defensive Rankings
BEFORE DURING
07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14
===== =================
Rush D 12 17 46 42 5 9
Pass D 9 73 29 10 8 28
Tot D 3 32 26 12 2 8
Scor D 17 56 11 11 2 12
Tennessee National Defensive Rankings
BEFORE DURING AFTER
93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10
===== ========================================= =====
Rush D 12 43 13 15 8 6 7 3 3 33 43 25 2 72 69 12 65 60
Pass D 5 40 46 8 36 17 36 69 59 4 20 86 54 27 73 4 12 81
Tot D 13 33 24 5 32 17 11 13 13 5 22 45 7 50 70 3 22 69
Scor D 5 14 32 6 32 9 7 23 21 11 17 38 16 33 61 10 38 56
*note from '93-'99 had to use Pass Efficiency rankings rather than Pass Defense
Do you remember that Cotton Bowl at the end of 2004 when we played Tennessee? That team demolished us. The defense completely ate us up. We were a top 20 offense that year and we were held 120 yards and 23 points BELOW our season averages.
That was the second WORST defense Chavis has ever fielded.
Everything I've read explains that he loves to play man coverage and blitz from lots of different places. This puts a huge amount of pressure on the corners - leaving them on an island, so we will need to keep an eye on CB recruits over the next couple of years because I'm not sure we have those horses on campus (or if we do we haven't seen it out of them yet).
Welcome to Aggieland Chief!
Sumlin also filled the WR Coaching position with Aaron Moorehead, previously in the same position at VT and the before that, at Stanford.
