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He was the beneficiary of a veteran, well-developed defense from Bob Davie. Those players basically coached themselves.

He played "stuff the box with 8 and stop the run" against everyone in 2002, and while it worked well for most of our opponents, we were badly exposed by USC.

When we lost all of those veteran linemen, along with Shane Walton in 2003, Baer's ineptitude was exposed even further.


Right now, the best three we've had were Golden, Alvarez, and Lea.

Freeman was very good, Rick Minter during his first stint was very good, and Bob Davie was actually decent, as was Greg Mattison. Mike Elko was also very good, given that he turned a horrible defense into a very solid one in one season.

Diaco was decent, too.

I think Minter could have been good the second time around, if he weren't working with a skeleton crew.


The worst ones in recent times? Not including Chris Ash...

Brian Van Gorder - Worst of all time, bar none.
Jon Tenuta - He was the downfall of Charlie Weis. Had he kept Minter, or even let Corwin Brown call the plays, 2009's team would have at least gone to a BCS bowl.
Kent Baer - Continued his ineptitude at Washington
Gary Darnell - Special case.

In the case of Darnell, I'm a bit more forgiving, since the defensive front seven was more of an infirmary in 1991. Three of our best linemen were out for various reasons, during the season. George "Boo" Williams was kicked off the team before the season started (that hurt the most). Bryant Young was hobbled after an Air Force blocker dove at his knees and sprained one. Eric Jones (our best pass rusher) almost had his foot severed by an Air Force chop block. Jim Flanagan was a year away from being ready to play DT, and Bryant Young, our best lineman, was barely 255 lbs.

During that Sugar Bowl, Lou fired Darnell, and took command of the defense. He gambled on Steve Spurrier's arrogance, rushed only 3, and dropped 8. He basically guessed that Spurrier was too arrogant to try to run the ball with Errict Rhett (a very good RB), and he was right. Spurrier kept trying to force the ball downfield against an 8 man zone. Had Spurrier actually run the ball 50% of the time, Florida probably walks away with a win, since at least 3 of those 5 field goals would have been TD's.

I guess that puts Lou as one of our best DC's as well. :)