Three Points on a Tuesday

*A perusal of defensive statistics thus far in the year. Obviously, MLB Micah Johnson leads the team in tackles with 33. SS Calvin Harrison and FS Winston Guy are tied for second with 29 a piece. OLB Danny Trevathan is a distant fourth with 23, followed by OLB Sam Maxwell with 19. Two outside backers who play basically the entire game are well behind a couple of safeties who are splitting time with Matt Lentz and Ashton Cobb. The trend means something obvious. The Cats are giving up too many long plays and are not stopping enough people with their front 7.

*Trevard Lindley is out for the game against South Carlina, and CB Paul Warford is questionable. One of the pre-season rallying cries, along with the improvement of Hartline and the alleged studliness of Juco transfer Chris Matthews, was the depth in the secondary. Well, we've seen these other two issues exposed as myths thus far. We need one to hold.

*Mike Hartline's passer rating of 112.7 leaves him 93rd out of 114 Division 1A QB, and behind UT whipping boy Jonathan Crompton. Of course, he is the only QB who had to play Florida and Alabama in back to back weeks. For the record, I did not think the stache played that poorly against Florida. His picks were late in the game and he threw some good balls early on that didn't pan out. In contrast, I started to turn a bit on Mike during the Alabama game. The picks were all horrendous and the offense just seemed to run better when he wasn't in there. I am not quite ready to throw in the towel due to who we've played in the last two weeks. But I am starting to believe I was right about Mike Hartline.