FSU football: Harlon Barnett takes ownership of defensive woes

FSU football needs to show improvement on the defensive side of the ball. FSU defensive coordinator Harlon Barnett spoke with media.

The defense for FSU football was the better phase of the team in 2018. They finished No. 37 according to SP advanced metrics but still underwhelmed a lot of times.

FSU defensive coordinator Harlon Barnett has had a history of showing improvement as his players learn his scheme and get more experienced.

That’s why I thought them facing a true freshman QB making his first college start on the road would be a great way to start the season.

However, after giving up over 600 total yards at nearly six yards per play there were a lot of questions about this 2019 FSU defense.

Barnett took ownership of the performance and blamed it on being too conservative:

"“I probably got a little too conservative and figured…Hey, play top-down, make the tackle, get off the field. Believe it or not, my personality is aggressive. But trying to just overthink it. “That’s on me.”"

He also spoke about playing man-to-man and zone in the passing game:

"As you looked at last week’s game it was more we were really good with the man stuff; the zone stuff was average. Just being honest, it wasn’t as good. You still want that split, though. You can’t just go all in man or all in zone.”"

Thoughts

I think it’s great Harlon Barnett took ownership of the defense, but some of this stuff I was noticing DURING the game. Also, you’ve had all offseason to install these coverages and you were implementing coverages the players were not fully comfortable with?

It wasn’t rocket science to see zone coverage wasn’t very good. I couldn’t believe they didn’t switch to more man-to-man with press coverage and blitz more in certain situations DURING the game.

The QB wasn’t a huge threat to run, so playing man coverage wouldn’t have been a huge liability with him scrambling.

It’s concerning he would need to watch film to confirm these things when we could see them as the game was happening. I understand you can’t go straight Mickey Andrews’ defense nowadays, but I’d rather get beat man up against a team like Boise than play too soft with passes being completed underneath all day.

I’m sure we’ll see some changes against Louisiana-Monroe, but the real changes we need to see need to be seen against Virginia in week three.