We'll never be close to this under Prince. While he's not a beef hater, he's obsessed with speed and won't recruit any big guys unless absolutely necessary, and even then he only takes 1 or 2. For every 1 DECENT d-lineman we sign 20-25 5'9" speedsters that we won't end up playing.
I think Manhatter pointed it out a couple years ago..The best defenses over the last two decades always start with run defense and huge ass d-linemen. The only exception is Ohio State 2002, but otherwise ALL national champ D's have had amazing run d's with mediocre secondaries. Then you look at some of the better defenses to pass through the Big XII over the past decade- OU 2000, Nubb 01, KSU 02, OU 03, OU 04, UT 05, ALL of these defenses start with big beefy disprutive d-lines. ..And all of them in the 4-3.
A good example - last year our secondary was bad. Like truly awful. But if we had 4 guys up front who were actually disrupting crap instead of just 'filling gaps' (which we were horrible at btw) then they don't get the chance to pick apart our bad secondary.
I'd rather have Texas' defenses of 05 and 06 - those that have the potential to get absolutely ruined by offenses like ours and Techs, for their awesome d-line than the piece of crap defense we run right now. Not that the 3-4 is a flawed scheme, they can make it work in the league, and LSU made it work pretty well in 03. But you have to have the right personell, and we aren't even close. We don't even have 3 linebackers worth starting in Big XII play, let alone 4.
I can see why Prince was a halfway decent offensive coord. His offenses have consistently improved throughout the year when he's been here, despite having absolute crap talent to work with. It would benefit him GREATLY to find a proven and experienced d-coord, even if they don't set the world on fire, and let them completely control EVERYTHING about the defense, including recruiting.